Andreas Thesis Outline

Thesis Outline Second Draft

I. Introduction

Background:

The 18th Shell Youth Study 2019 is based on a representative sample of 2,572 young Germans aged between 12 and 25 who were interviewed personally by trained Kantar interviewers regarding their living conditions and their attitudes and focus. The survey was conducted between early January to late March of 2019 on the basis of a standardized questionnaire. Two-hour, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 young people in this age group as part of this qualitative study.

8% of young people consider themselves to be very interested and a further 33% consider themselves to be interested in politics. Thus, although the interest is slightly lower compared to 2015 (41% compared to 43%), it is significantly higher seen from a long-term perspective compared to 2002, 2006 and 2010.

But how do they gather their knowledge? In the meantime, the majority of young people obtain information about political topics online. News websites or news portals are at the top of the list (20%); many also refer to social media content, i.e. to relevant information sources in social networks, messenger apps (14%) or on YouTube (9%). Although television is cited as a source of information by 23% of young people, 15% use radio and 15% also use traditional print media. However, the Internet and social media have now outstripped traditional media as the place to intentionally search for political information. However, traditional media sources still enjoy the highest trust levels. The vast majority consider information broadcast by ARD or ZDF television news to be trustworthy. The same applies to the large national daily newspapers. On the other hand, nearly half of all young people describes YouTube as less or not trustworthy. In the case of Facebook, the figure is even more than two thirds of young people who do not trust information offered on this platform. Similarly, Twitter is only trusted by a minority.

Very interesting is the fact that reading books, and especially magazines in their leisure time, is less important to young people today than it was just under 20 years ago. The Internet is by no means merely an entertainment medium for young people. For them, communication comes first: 96% check into social media at least one per day (messenger services or social networks). Although 76% go online at least once a day for entertainment purposes (be it music, video streaming, gaming or reading posts from people they follow), 71% also search for information at least once a day (general, school, education or work, or about politics and society).

The findings set out in the qualitative part of the Shell Youth Study show the extent to which digital content permeates the everyday lives of young people. For many young people, this starts when the alarm on the smartphone placed right next to their bed awakes them and continues when they then grab their phone and use it to access additional content. And it often ends at the same place, i.e. in bed in the evening, when the latest social news is exchanged once more before drifting off to sleep. In this context, the smartphone is a universal everyday device onto which a multitude of applications can be loaded. Discussions with young people show that there are large differences are already apparent within the 12 to 25 year-old age groups: Initial experiences with the extensive use of digital content are being made earlier and earlier. The older adolescents experienced the advent of the smartphone themselves at an early age, whereas younger cohorts have practically never known a world without them. Today’s generation grew into the digital world intuitively and collectively - it was “all around them”.

Whats App has become the communications network of choice in recent years: It is indispensable if you want to stay up to date in social circles. All young people surveyed use it - even respondents concerned about data protection, and no one knows anyone who does not use it or a similar service. Whats App is used to make dates and responses are expected quickly in the case of meet-ups. As a rule, young people have between 30 and 50 contacts, and they chat regularly with between five and 20 people. For relationships, and especially in the case of long-distance relationships, Whats App aids in relationship maintenance. Most young people communicate with their parents via a family chat. The number of messages increases dramatically by virtue of one or more group chats. The second most important platform is YouTube. Videos are watched or shared, or music is listened to and series are watched along with documentaries and news. All young people google - on average four to five times a day - to answer spontaneous questions.

But can Knowledge be linked to the overall exposure of Digital-/Social Media? A study, released 2018 by a research team led by Michael Cacciatore of the University of Georgia, finds the more people rely on their Facebook feed for news, the less politically knowledgeable they are. ‘A greater reliance on social media and Facebook specifically for news might serve to depress knowledge levels. This is particularly important given the growth of news sharing and consumption through social media.’ (...) ‘The analysis revealed that, while Facebook use itself failed to predict political knowledge scores, HOW Facebook users engaged with the platform was a significant predictor of knowledge,’ the researchers report. ‘Increased use of Facebook for both news consumption and news sharing purposes was associated with lower political knowledge levels.’ The reasons for this aren't clear, but the researchers offer some plausible explanations. The first and most obvious is ‘selective exposure’—the notion that "users who rely heavily on Facebook for news purposes are specifically selecting agreeable information from like-minded individuals.’ In other words, their goal is to feel good, not learn new things—hence their lower level of knowledge. Two other possibilities: People who spend a lot of time on Facebook are spending less time with traditional news sources, and thus missing out on important information; and social media encourages people to engage in emotion-laden ‘hot button’ issues, rather than nuts-and-bolts information about how the government actually operates. While these findings are troubling, Cacciatore and his colleagues offer some reasons for hope. They note that people who had Facebook accounts for longer periods of time also tended to have higher levels of political knowledge. While they could simply be older, it's possible that, ‘as people become more familiar with Facebook, they become better equipped to sift through the vast quantities of data available on the platform, making knowledge acquisition easier.’

A study conducted January 2016 by the University of Chicago’s NORC shed some light on how Americans navigate the Modern Information Environment: Eighty-one percent of Americans believe it is easier to find useful information today than it was five years ago. At the same time, 16 percent report they are often overwhelmed by how much information comes to them, and another 62 percent say the amount of information they get can sometimes be too much. Information habits and attitudes do vary based on a person’s age and education, but there are relatively few differences by race, ethnicity, or gender. And when it comes to party identification, partisans differ more from independents than they do from each other.

I. Introduction

Background:
Many people of the western first world state that they do not want to talk about nowadays news/politics because they know too little about it. They are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that they cope with. Does society really have a lower attention span because they are exposed to much more information?

I want to find out whether the concept of brevity – applied to the moving image – can help the viewer regain attention for information that matters.

Thesis Statement:
The acceleration of society is affecting the movie. Properly applied to the moving image, the concept of brevity can help the viewer regain attention for information that matters.[<Steve: is this a modernist solution? (See, in the early 20th century, Otto Neurath on the use of visual information or gestalt theory) in which we consider an 'economic use of information' against an 'overabundance' of information'. You need to be clear about what you know and where you stand on it.]

II. Body

First Topic: The history of the brevity discourse
Different kinds of historical accounts shape our understandings and assumptions about technology.

1. Cicero vs Quintilian: boring the audience vs keeping something from the audience
2. Aristotle: brevity in an appropriate manner
3. Scientific communication

Second Topic: How the human brain processes information
The Science of Gaining Focus

1. The two brain systems (according to Daniel Kahneman)
2. How distraction works (according to Daniel Goleman)
3. Regaining focus (Meditation, Nature and Joy)

Third Topic: Applying the brevity discourse to the moving image
How do changing parameters in the moving image affect communication

1. The fast image in advertising
2. Density of information in news programs
3. The moving image in social media

III. Conclusion

From ancient times to the modern era the rhetoric has been the binding and constant guideline of communication. Nowadays there is less new in the rhetoric, even though the complexity of content has increased. Also, there seems to be a dominance of the visual in the „screen-“ or „display culture“.
There is a need for tools, methods and infrastructures to ensure that we can regain focus and fully take part again in a political discourse

Thesis Outline First Draft

I. Introduction

Background:
Many people of the western first world state that they do not want to talk about nowadays news/politics because they know too little about it. [<Steve asks: is this anecdotal or is empirical data informing this statement?] They are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that they cope with. Does society really have a lower attention span because they are exposed to much more information? [This is a good question. can we assume this? is there empirical evidence? If so what is it? If not, why do we assume it to be so?] And how does this affect the movie?

Thesis Statement:
The acceleration of society is affecting the movie. Properly applied to the moving image, the concept of brevity can help the viewer regain attention for information that matters.[<Steve: is this a modernist solution? (See, in the early 20th century, Otto Neurath on the use of visual information or gestalt theory) in which we consider an 'economic use of information' against an 'overabundance' of information'. You need to be clear about what you know and where you stand on it.]

II. Body

First Topic: The history of the brevity discourse
Different kinds of historical accounts shape our understandings and assumptions about technology.

1. Cicero vs Quintilian: boring the audience vs keeping something from the audience
2. Aristotle: brevity in an appropriate manner
3. Scientific communication

Second Topic: How the human brain processes information
The Science of Gaining Focus

1. The two brain systems (according to Daniel Kahneman)
2. How distraction works (according to Daniel Goleman)
3. Regaining focus (Meditation, Nature and Joy)

Third Topic: Applying the brevity discourse to the moving image
How do changing parameters in the moving image affect communication

1. The fast image in advertising
2. Density of information in news programs
3. The moving image in social media

III. Conclusion

From ancient times to the modern era the rhetoric has been the binding and constant guideline of communication. Nowadays there is less new in the rhetoric, even though the complexity of content has increased. Also, there seems to be a dominance of the visual in the „screen-“ or „display culture“.
There is a need for tools, methods and infrastructures to ensure that we can regain focus and fully take part again in a political discourse