Sunday, November 17, 2013

You Tube Channels and Google Hangouts Integration - Qualitative observations about limited interactions and "group think"

My original research idea for an Applied Social Psychology naturalistic and qualitative study in the I/O Psychology Ph.D. program and an "Applied Social Psychology" seminar that I am attending seemed to promise plenty of opportunities for original research and data analysis.

For the research study I chose to look at social behavior and possibilities of "group think" on YouTube channels and integrated Google hangouts and in particular the almost weekly "Immediate Response Team" (IRT) show on the "Lives with Meredith" YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-S8Dzs69A.

The "IRTs" are essentially weekly live streaming news shows with accompanying opportunities to comment on what is being watched in the show by audience members. My challenge however has been that I picked a show that did not get many viewers to interact with the live streaming content and hosts yet but that is in part due to the fact that the hosts are not taking the time to look at audience members comments and allow for the opportunity to ask questions in a more interactive social format.

For the purpose of this blog post I took out the more academic aspects of my research and list observations and recommendations more in line with media psychology and popular television theory and criticism. For my final academic research project however I am currently exploring also other shows that are on YouTube that use associated google hangouts which allow for live interaction with and between audience members in a social circle that is solely online amongst anonymous group viewers.

But for now here are some basic social psychology findings about the "Instant Response Team" on the "Lives with Meredith Channel":

1. Audience members are hesitant in commenting. Many who sign up and view (a few hundred) never take advantage of actively participating and commenting. And those who do all have the following in common.

2. They do not like to use their real name and picture. Some are just posting a picture and first name.

3. They also do not want to post anything highly controversial but instead rather agree with what is being said during the show. This supports the notion that online and live stream events where audience members participate are engaging in "group think" (Janis, 1972).

4. They never comment on other viewers but instead just comment on what is being said in the live stream show by known guests. Social engagement and a sense of community is therefore not being built amongst audience members who participate. Web 3.0 capabilities that allow the audience members to become the co-creators are not taken advantage of.

5. They comment with just a word or a phrase and never go into detail with a full sentence or more.

6. They do not criticize and instead rather applaud or encourage opinions voiced by those on the show with comments like: "Well said"

When I looked at this channel and the online version of participation between show hosts, guests, and audience members in a live format it seemed like a great example of a social media application that includes not only Web 1.0 and 2.0 features but also Web 3.0 features as the audience members have the opportunity to become co-creators and drive show content.

I looked at the quality of interactions by looking at the number of viewers and how long and how much they interact with the hosts and guests as well as other audience members in this qualitative study that I am also interested in switching to a mixed study that includes quantitative data. I also looked the quality of their comments. All of these seem rather limited despite the variety of topics that many more typically relate to on regular television and on other YouTube Channels.

I did not interfere to make sure that I reduce the potential of a bias error and strictly took the position of outside observer in the last two shows while I interacted previously to get a better feel for also experiencing the show as an audience member.

For the purpose of this social psychology study I am particular interested in group think theory and if audience members are subjected to limiting themselves to "group think" and so far my limited observations prove to be supporting the findings.

Again, I look forward to checking out one or two more shows on this channel but also look forward to watching other more popular channels this week so I can gather more relevant data about audiences being more submissive and reliant on group consensus which does not allow for seeing individual contributions, opinions and personalities which I argue would make these shows actually more effective and interesting for audience members but that falls more into media psychology and television theory research.

One final observation: it is not part of this study but worth examining is the hosts and guests participation levels and their challenges in trying to keep up with and integrating viewer responses and comments.

It might be worth it exploring in a separate study the quality of live streaming shows and associated google hangouts and limited opportunities for social interaction unless the comments are consciously being made part of the show. That would mean that hosts are proactively engaging not only with guests on the show but also audience members. Instead of scripts and questions for the entire show it might be worth it just picking a theme and then integrating the audience by asking them to ask questions more proactively in the comments section.

Suggestion to the show hosts and producers:

1. Integrate audience comments by looking at those after every question that guests on show answered. Make it more of a conversation and worry less about racing through all questions. Quality and engagement can drive the show as much as quantity of questions covered.

2. Allow audience members to ask questions by encouraging them actively throughout the show to post their questions and then picking them.

3. As there is more audience involvement maybe less topics need to be picked.

4. Allow audience members to pick topics they want to discuss in poll and/or focus group online before show.

5. Continue conversation by not just posting and re-posting show content but by actively engaging with audience members after show. Polls, contests, audience members' v-blogs and blog posts could also be encouraged.

6. Length and time of show. The show is at a time of day where almost nobody can watch the entire 40-60 min. show. It might make more sense to limit the show like it used to just to 30 min. and ask producers and hosts to pick questions while driving engagement without getting carried away. Guests could be reminded to answer in 2 min. max answer formats before being gently reminded. Time of day might also be an issue and maybe there could be some experimenting with the time, e.g. 9am PST/12pm PST.

Ultimate goal of the "Instant response team" can either be sharing news or ideally allowing for the building and continuation of a sense of an online community. Useful exercise for the show creators would be to instead of looking at the "what" looking at the "why" and then the how and "what" which is a mindset that Simon Sinek make popular in his Ted Talk and associated Book "Start with Why". (Simon Sinek, 2011).


References

Janis, I.L. (1972). Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2012). Applied social psychology: Understandingand addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Sinek, Simon (2011). Start with Why. Retrieved from http://www.startwithwhy.com

Strickland, Jonathan (2013). How Web 3.0 will work. Retrieved from: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-30.htm


About the author: Patricia Anglano has two Masters degrees from the University of Southern California in Cinema-TV and Linguistics. She also is completing a Ph.D. in I/O Psychology with focus on organizational and media psychology.

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