The framework of the website

This section provides an introductory overview of the two-dimensional environment a vlog appears in, as opposed to the three-dimensional space it is produced in. The vlog-website contains multiple additional features, whose position on the page is fairly constant. There are minor changes due to the infrequent re-designing of some of the functions or due to further development of the features (e.g. new video formats). To facilitate the reading of the transcriptions and their analyses in this chapter, this section describes the positioning of the website elements as it appeared when the data was collected (March 2010). Meanwhile, the design has changed, resulting in a different positioning of some of the elements. The setup is the same for every user and every video, and it is designed by the programmers of the YouTube website (see Figure 6.1).

The most salient property of the website space is its two-dimensionality, and the resulting arrangement of its elements. The title of the video appears in the upper left hand corner, above the video screen. It appears in black writing on white background (1). The video screen (2) appears underneath the title, also in the upper left hand corner. Next to the video screen in the upper right hand corner is the video description (3). It contains information about the video by the vlogger, and data provided

automatically by the website, including a ‘subscribe button’ and the user’s icon. Writing appears in black (and blue) on grey background. The rating system (4) appears

underneath the video screen on the left. It is represented by red and grey stars, which the viewers can click on to submit a rating. In the bottom left hand corner there are two sections that host viewers’ responses: (5) shows thumbnail images of video responses to the vlog in question, and (6), the comments section, lists written comments by viewers chronologically, with the latest one on top. Users who are members of the “YouTube Partner Program” have a variant setup in that there is a box containing advertisements above the video description, so that everything on the right hand side moves down.

154 Figure 6.1, The setup of the website

As most vloggers sit up close to the camera (cf. the vlogger in Figure 6.1), the space that will later on be visible to the viewer is limited. As opposed to the situation in face-to-face conversation, viewers usually only see the head, shoulders, and part of the vlogger’s chest (presumably vloggers film themselves close to the camera because sound quality deteriorates with increased distance). The limitation of space results in two immediate effects on the vloggers’ pointing options. First, any gestural action that the viewer is supposed to see must be carried out within the scope of the camera; and secondly, there are only few referents within the scope of the camera.

155 6.4 Data collection and methodology

The approach chosen in this chapter aims first at revealing what pointing practices are commonly found in vlogs. Many of these pointing actions also occur in face-to-face communication. Secondly, the kind of pointing that is genre specific and thus possible only in the vlog setting are described. Therefore, my discussion also involves examples of practices that occur infrequently in my corpus, which are nonetheless of interest in that they illustrate the resources vloggers deploy to create reference. Considering that the conventions of the genre might not have fully developed yet, it is possible that some of these infrequent practices will become part of the standard repertoire at a later stage.

For each video, I noted down whether the vlogger used any pointing gestures or ‘placing for’ in the sense of Clark et al. (2003), and if so, at what frequency. I distinguished between the following categories: 1. pointing with the index finger, thumb, or whole hand towards a referent that is located in the speaker’s surroundings, including immaterial referents and pointing at the camera when referring to the viewer; 2.

pointing towards a referent that is located on the surrounding website, but outside the video screen; 3. holding a referent into the camera’s focal range (‘placing for’), including emblematic gestures as a subcategory (3.1); 4. camera shift towards a referent.

Additionally, I counted the number of cuts a video contained; this number is somewhat problematic though, as not all cuts involve a change of referent, e.g. when they are used to edit out dysfluencies. Therefore, cuts are not investigated systematically in this work.

The 40 vlogs yielded the following statistical data: 18 were done by female, 22 by male vloggers, the shortest vlog was 1 min 07 sec long, the longest 10 min 50 sec. Out of 40 vloggers,

1: 28 vloggers point to a referent in their surrounding at least once (16);

2: 10 vloggers point to a referent on the website at least once (4);

3: 19 vloggers hold a referent into the camera at least once (37);

3.1: 17 vloggers make an emblematic gesture/iconic symbol at least once (12);

4: 17 vloggers use camera shift at least once (27);

156 25 vloggers use at least one cut to edit their video.

Numbers in parentheses represent the highest count in a single vlog.

Referents in category 1 range from objects such as video games, clothes, the speaker’s body parts, which are visible for the viewer, to objects and places that are outside the viewer’s (and sometimes also the vlogger’s) view. Finally, they include vague referents, such as a non-present group of people referred to as “they”, pointed at with the thumb in the direction of the speaker’s back, or even the viewer, referred to as “you” with an index-finger point towards the camera.

Category 2 contains points to a restricted number of referents, the most frequent being the space below the video where viewers can post written comments. This is followed by points to the video description, where vloggers leave links. Other possible referents are the rating system, video responses, the title, advertisement, etc. The kinds of points in this category cannot occur in face-to-face communication, as it involves referents only available in online communication.

Categories 3 and 3.1 are specific to communication that is mediated with the help of a camera, which has a limited and relatively static visual field. In category 3, objects such as clothes, cosmetic products, food etc. are held into the view of the camera, usually accompanied by the vlogger’s comments about the respective referent. Category 3.1 differs insofar as the referent is another gesture which is not talked about; in some cases in my data it seems as if the speaker is not even particularly careful to ensure that the gesture is visible to the viewer. Thus, the level of consciousness with which the gestures are made sometimes varies between the two categories. Gestures often used are the peace sign, ‘thumbs up’ and number gestures. Categories 1 and 3 frequently occur in combination, such as when a speaker holds an object into the view of the camera and then points at it (or a particular part of it) with the index finger.

Category 4 contains another genre-specific phenomenon, that is, a version of ‘placing for’, where referents are not held into the camera, but the camera is shifted so the referent is visible. I consider this ‘placing for’ because, when the vlog is watched online,

157 the viewer’s visual field, that is, the direction of his or her gaze, remains stable. A small subsection of the visual field, the video frame, however, is subject to change, making this kind of reference a hybrid of ‘directing to’ and ‘placing for’, which does not involve the viewer’s gaze shift. Thus, these are pointing actions that cannot occur in face-to-face interaction.

Based on this categorization, I now discuss selected examples to illustrate common pointing behavior in vlogs. In Section 6.6, I present examples of how vloggers reflect the design of the website in their pointing gestures and the accompanying speech, and demonstrate how vloggers adapt to an environment that at the time of speaking does not exist.