Shooting Interviews and B-Roll - April 11, 2018

In terms of completing the filmed media intervention for the thesis project, the past two or three weeks have been spent trying to capture as much footage as possible while building the first few minutes of the film for the draft due at the end of this week. In addition to that, the problem space that I'm exploring has been featured extensively in the news because of the testimony delivered by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg with respect to the Cambridge Analytica/Russia investigation. Where indifference typified the conversation previously, now the issues are generating a lot of conversation and ink. With this in mind, I've been paying close attention to the press around this issue (which effects the angle I'm taking in the film vis-a-vis the ownership and privacy dimensions) and watching the Congressional hearing. Beyond that, I've also been using social media platforms -- specifically Reddit and Twitter -- to monitor and engage with those communities and the attitudes that are prevalent at this stage of the data control conversation. This has generated both some interesting insight and some "bold interactions" with these communities.

First, the interviews I've been conducting are bearing a lot of fruit for the film. What had originally been intended as a brief series of questions that I could use to create a "rapid fire" style Q&A has become more extensive and more thoughtful than anticipated. Where I thought I would get some very basic answers I've been treated to well-considered responses that have become more like conversations than interviews. With the first five interviews I've collected around 80 minutes of footage. This should prove to be extensive enough to feed my main questions i the piece and will likely prove very useful as the film expands beyond the scope of this project.

The content, too, has been refined. As a result of a conversation with Lina, I've been focused on the notion of "finding the common language" that exists in the data problem space and the interviews I've conducted reflect that goal. First, there are three interviews with a group of younger people who represent the "Millenial generation" 18-30 year old demographic - a group that are digital native and tend to be less attentive and connected to the value/ownership propositions of their personal data. In these interviews I've been framing the questions so as to understand the degree to which they consider data use when they choose the platforms and applications they use in their daily lives. Interestingly, I've discovered that this group routinely says they consider the path of their data infrequently. This is in sharp contrast to the other, older groups I've interviewed who say largely that they usually consider it.

In that group (30-50 y.o. or so), I've also gotten some deep and interesting responses. This group has reservations about sharing too much of their data and are suspicious of the intentions of corporate data stewardship. Some are aware of myriad data breaches and are particularly wary of the role that Google/Facebook/Amazon, etc. play in controlling the world's personal data flow to meet their own designs. They seem resigned, however, to sharing their data because of the utility of the applications in easing and organizing their lives. Some of these interviews wer completed where I work in New York while others involved some of the CMAP cohort (Lauren, Melissa and Stan, so far). Each of these interviews was 10-15 minutes while the ones I conducted at Discovery are more on the order of 20-30 minutes.

I've also sought to establish a consistent visual aesthetic with these interviews. In the mood boards I created for Lina's class, I used some still shots from social impact documentaries that lends those films a polish and professionalism that I'm looking to compete with. As you can see from the stills, these interviews look very much in line with high level production values. These still need to be color corrected, which will polish them even further.

Ultimately, the interviews so far have been very illuminating and I've expanded on some of the questions in the moment. For example, I asked some of the subjects just to simply list what they do with their devices while others, like Lauren, I asked to describe what a period of heavy usage might look like. In this sense I was designing the intervention on the fly as I decided it might be more visually interesting to splice the other "listed" answers into Lauren's explanation as a way to give it more depth. I'm confident that with the remaining interviews with the community and the addition of interviews with the academic, corporate and/or journalist subjects, the film will incorporate both the conversation that the general public has within the problem space and the insight of practitioners and thinkers in the field. I hope that I can get enough of this footage integrated into the draft so I can demonstrate the shape the film is taking effectively.

THE PROBLEM SPACE IN THE NEWS

Since the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook connection was established a few weeks ago with the story in the Guardian, I've been following closely how the issue has been reported in the press. What I've discovered is that the conversation has grown and now takes a featured position when discussing "current events' with broad groups of people. One of the things I've found interesting and relevant to my project is how Mark Zuckerberg articulates his position (and, therefore, Facebook's) with respect to data ownership. He frames his apology for the scandal as a breach of the trust that the public puts in Facebook as stewards of their data. This position is at odds with how Millenials seem to view this relationship. During his appearance before Congress, the CEO was interrogated about his vision for future regulatory possibilities, fixes to the Facebook approach to third party data collection and the extent to which he believed that the EULA they use provides users a clear picture of the path of their data once under the control of Facebook. These were, I thought, mostly softballs more useful to helping save the reputation of the business that illuminating a deep cultural discussion. I hope that the takeaway from these hearings inspires some interesting perspectives on the social media platforms.

As we discovered during our discussion of the topic in class, the space that surrounds our attitudes toward our data is expansive and demands more and more detail as we address the questions. It's a very exciting space to be working in and I hope that some of that excitement is visible in the draft.