Social Moments in Solo Videojournalism

Abstract

Solo videojournalism has grown from a practice on the margins of journalism into the mainstream at many television broadcast and online newspaper companies. This qualitative study asks the question: How does a solo videojournalist use digital technology to create visual and social meaning? The study applies medium theory and social semiotics to analyze both the content and the form of one award-winning solo videojournalist production. The solo videojournalist, Dave Delozier, uses technology to serve his personal editorial vision as he depicts how war veterans at a funeral construct their social reality. Thus, the production functions as a social, as well as a visual, medium. The storytelling strategy reflects the photojournalistic conventions of realism and empathy, combined with a professional awareness of the communicative potential of the medium environment. I argue that this multimedia tool can bring a more experiential style of storytelling to journalism, at a time when media audiences expect emotional qualities and authenticity.

Keywords:

• emotional sphere
• journalism
• medium theory
• objectivity
• photojournalism
• social semiotics
• solo videojournalism

Introduction

Meyer (2009, 21) describes how journalism is often “surprised’ by technological disruption. He writes: “In the 1950s I was considered a ‘combination man’ because I could shoot pictures with a 4-by-5 Speed Graphic as well as write. We were useful but rare”. Six decades later, the concept of the combination journalist has returned, in another example of how journalism is disrupted by, responds to, and is shaped by technology. This study focuses on solo videojournalism, the practice of a single journalist using role-blurring technologies to report, photograph, narrate, and edit a video production. This study asks the question: How does an award-winning solo videojournalist use digital technology to create visual and social meaning?

The concept of replacing a two- or three-person news crew with one highly skilled journalist—often nicknamed “one-man band”—is not new. As the practice of solo videojournalism ¹ gains wider acceptance within mainstream news publishing on the Web, Rosenblum (2008), Penniman (2009), and Drew (2010) are among visionaries who believe digital technology creates an opportunity for reporters to produce breakthrough forms of videojournalism distinct from the anchor-centered conventions of television broadcast. This study considers the visual and social meaning of the solo videojournalism storytelling form through an analysis of one award-winning production. The video Being There for Betty, shot by Dave Delozier (2009) of KUSA-TV for broadcast on television and publication on the Web, won an award of excellence from the National Press Photographers Association in 2010. The story, archived on Vimeo at http://vimeo.com/9867974, describes the support offered by a war veteran bikers’ group for a dying senior.

Being There for Betty, shot by Dave Delozier

Academic research in this developing field is limited. The literature review considers three topics related to the emergence of the new multimedia tool. I explore how shifts in technology and culture have challenged the traditional notion of photojournalism as visual truth, and also led to new ways of consuming photography. I review recent research on journalism’s contribution to the emotional public sphere, and initiatives to reframe the traditional hard news/soft feature binary toward a broader appreciation of voices and perspectives. I review recent research on videojournalism itself.

Two theoretical frameworks guide my analysis of both the content and the form of an exemplary video production. I apply social semiotics to examine the content, or the embedding social structure in the messages. Social semiotics is an understanding of semiotics constructed around the Piercean notion of signs as containing three elements: the sign, its object, and an interpretant (Jensen 1991, 40). Social semiotics sheds light on how the images, language, gestures, and themes presented in the video function as “semiotic resources” or as a communicative grammar to suggest audience meaning (Van Leeuwen 2005, 4). To examine the form of the story, or the shaping effect of the communicative environment, I turn to medium theory, which holds that each medium dictates its own physical, psychological, social, and communicative possibilities. Theorists McLuhan (1964), Meyrowitz (1985), and Ong (1982) show how the distinct characteristics of prevailing media at a given time in history affect users, individually and collectively, making emerging forms of news presentation on the Web a fertile area for study.

The overarching framework of the study follows Rodriguez and Dimitrova’s (2008) semiotic model, four levels of visual framing. Rodriguez and Dimitrova’s framework operationalizes the three-term model of sign use within semiotics, but adds a fourth layer useful for this study: how editorial and stylistic conventions within journalism inform and shape the production. Applying the model, I develop a qualitative, structured, progressively sensitive semiotic analysis of how the solo video assigns meaning.

My academic intent is, first, to add to the growing body of research on how journalism is responding to solo videojournalism as a relatively new, technologically enabled form of news production; second, I wish to explore how solo videojournalism functions as a social, as well as a visual, medium, thus potentially contributing to the emotional sphere (Richards 2009).

Literature Review

The Shifting Meaning of Photojournalism in the Digital Era

The practice and cultural understanding of photojournalism, dating back to the early part of the twentieth century, relied on the belief that photography indexically preserved moments in time. Becker (2007) describes how the truth claims of photojournalism were premised on the enlightenment view of vision’s authoritative position in the structures of universal knowledge. Cultures came to equate the camera’s eye with objective truth, giving rise to professional practices and specific media forms associated with western journalism.

Viewers were attracted to photojournalism in print and broadcast media, according to Newton (2009), by the assumptions of seeing-is-believing objectivity, artistry, experienced vision, and the practitioner’s courage to get the shot. Yet, scholars such as Bock (2009) and Griffin (2002) show how photojournalism’s claims to authority have always rested uneasily, pointing to a tension between picture making as a craft and the perception of pictures as truth. Taking a skeptical view of the truth claims of photojournalism, Sontag (1973, 23) argues that while socially relevant photography prods one’s conscience, visual knowledge of the world isn’t the same thing as ethical or political knowledge. “Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks”.

The proliferation of camera technology in the marketplace changes not only who takes pictures, whether for news or personal purposes, but also what they mean. Newton (2009) points out digital technology turns almost anyone into a potential photographer, while Murray (2008) finds that the proliferation of everyday, mundane images shared on websites or between users tends to blur the traditional distinction between amateurs and professionals. Baker, Schleser, and Molka (2009) show how mobile technology extends the user’s experience of an image to include touch and embodiment as well as visual perception. Given the immediacy and ubiquity of camera phones, David (2010) argues users see great value in the immediacy of eyewitness’s images, even when amateurs shoot them. In two studies of videos on the popular YouTube site, Tolson (2010) and Peer and Ksiazek (2011) see how users find social meaning in productions whose content departs from mass media norms.

The blurring of representational boundaries challenges photojournalism’s cultural dominance as an authoritative presenter of visual truth. The Web reconfigures our perceptions of news images as official records of newsworthy events; now they also count as expressions of everyday lived experience.

How Cultural Shifts Challenge Journalism to Integrate Emotional Content

Solo videojournalism arrives in the digital marketplace at a time of great disruption for journalism. The profession is undergoing a paradigm shift as journalists use overlapping media types to tell stories in new ways, while at the same time the public interacts differently with news and those who produce it (Wilkinson, Grant, and Fisher 2009, 1). Changing technology and market conditions only partly explain the disruption; as Levy argues (2001, xv), technologies are “always ambivalent”, merely reflecting widely held human emotions and intentions. Therefore, this literature review briefly considers one broad cultural shift relevant to my analysis of videojournalism: the rise of the emotional public sphere, defined by Richards (2009, 59) as “the nature and distribution of emotion in the mediatised public sphere”.

While politicians and celebrities account for much of the content of the emotional sphere, Richards and Rees (2011, 853) suggest journalists also make a major contribution through their own “emotional labour”, or in how they process and present emotion. In light of postmodern society’s infatuation with emotional forms of interaction and communication (Greco and Stenner 2008), researchers such as Richards (2009, 69) and Pantti (2010, 169) are troubled by the scarce scholarship on how emotion is inscribed in news texts.

Journalism historically embraced objectivity and empirical description as reporting conventions, and as a reliable, marketable way to view the world. Objectivity acts as both an occupational norm and a distinctive professional value, allowing journalists to claim unique knowledge in the marketplace (Schudson and Anderson 2009). Yet Zelizer (2009) suggests journalism’s championing of objectivity, impartiality and distance comes at the expense of perspective.

Several scholars explore the professional tensions and debates encountered by journalists as they negotiate emotional content. Most journalists take a benign view, believing they should register emotion as it presents itself in each story, but not manage it. “Quality” journalism implies hard topics, a rational/critical approach, and an orientation toward the public sphere; whereas “popular” journalism emphasizes everyday life and emotions over understanding (Pantti 2010, 170). Meijer describes a “radical distinction” (2003, 15) in the minds of most journalists between popular and quality journalism; any discussion of news quality is seen as a threat to journalistic independence. The recent heavy emphasis on reporting emotional reaction to wide-scale public tragedies is seen by Kitch as a trend toward “fact and feeling” journalism (2009, 31) over a more serious interrogation of the conditions causing chronic social and political problems. Bird points out celebrity and human-interest stories are easier and cheaper to produce and rebroadcast, constituting a “major threat to journalism” as they become more popular among news outlets (2009, 44).

The negative perception of the word “tabloid” by most journalists distracts from a larger and much-needed discussion about developing new models to connect with readers, Bird argues. A handful of scholars explore the contribution journalists make to public emotional literacy. Pantti and Wahl-Jorgensen (2011) examine how expressions of anger in British disaster coverage provide opportunities for ordinary people to express themselves politically and make claims for justice. Pantti and Sumiala’s study (2009) of the portrayal of mourning ritual in national media finds an increase in explicit expression of emotions through the 1990s and 2000s, paying closer attention to the strengthening of collective feeling and the ideal of working though emotion together and in public. Pantti and van Zoonen (2006) identify the presence of three broad emotional themes in coverage of two high-profile murders—shock, then anger, followed by restraint and solidarity—but also find the expression of public emotion does not necessarily have a unifying effect.

Several studies, mirroring my own research interest, look at how specific emotional or subjective qualities in news accounts influence the user experience. Meijer (2007) identifies news characteristics that appeal to younger news consumers: inspires, experience multiple perspectives, feel emotions, and encourage a sense of belonging and meaning. Meijer (2010) finds that local TV viewers expect seven social functions from journalism: supply background information, foster social integration, inspire, ensure representation, increase local understanding, create civic memory, and encourage a sense of belonging. Meijer (2001) argues that popular TV talk shows fulfill a key democratic role by giving priority to the more subjective qualities of emotion, the private sphere, and everyday realties. Wieten and Pantti see how a TV breakfast show uses empathy, informality, good humour and “essential everydayness” (2005, 36) to link with its audience. O’Donnell shows how journalists can empower “everyday people to speak, listen, and be heard in the media” (2009, 504) by shifting their editorial vision to emphasize “listening practices” (508).

Scholars make a compelling argument that mainstream journalism’s binary definition of news as either rational/serious or popular/light has prevented the profession from widening its professional repertoire, to adapt to popular culture’s interest (Greco and Stenner 2008, 1) in emotion, passion, feeling, sentiment, and mood. The challenge for journalists in the digital era lies in finding more ways to integrate transparent audience perspectives while retaining the professional role characterized by Jones (2009) as arbiters of truth in public life.

Review of Solo Videojournalism Research

Smith (2011, 9, 10) traces the origins of the solo videojournalism craft to the mid-1990s, when Rosenblum, a former CBS producer, launched a video newsmagazine network for combination reporter-photographers, advocating a more up-close and personal ethic in the development of stories. As the Web gained a foothold, newspaper websites first experimented with videojournalism around 1999 to broaden their content mix, while TV companies embraced the technology as an opportunity to reduce costs.

In practice, the embrace of solo videojournalism has been uneven across markets, because of newsroom resistance (Johnsen 2004), a lack of corporate certainty about which strategy to follow (Thurman and Lupton 2008), and the specialization of most newsroom staff in already-defined jobs (Russial 2009). Tremayne, Weiss, and Alves (2007) document a rise among US newspaper websites between 2004 and 2006 in the use of videos to cover topics of immediacy often covered by local TV, such as breaking news, weather, and sports. Bock (2008) describes how the pressures of multiskilling and economics force photojournalists to embrace a new identity and challenging work norms in the transition to videojournalism. In a later study, Bock (2011) points out the videojournalist’s reliance on physical presence and social interaction leads to a shift of power into the hands of sources.

A few scholars have studied the qualities of solo videojournalist productions themselves. Alysen (2009) sees how solo videojournalist-supported live-to-air reports seem to recycle the strategy of live-to-film reports used by Australian broadcasters in the early 1970s. Bock (2009) finds that solo videojournalists employed by television stations create narratives much like those produced by conventional two-person crews, whereas solo videojournalists at newspaper online sites invent a style closer to traditional documentary filmmaking.

Method and Framework

A Multimodal, Semiotic Analysis

My study focuses on one example of solo videojournalism shot by Delozier (2009), as an artefact for qualitative analysis. To qualify for the solo videojournalist category of the National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism competition, the photojournalist must work full-time in solo mode, and also shoot, write and edit the video within a 48-hour window. I selected Delozier’s video for analysis because it represents the highest professional standards of the form, according to a transparent, recognized, peer-judged competition (National Press Photographers Association 2010).

I regard Delozier’s two-minute video as a mobile “multimodal communication” (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2001, 20) in which one multi-skilled person, operating in and across multiple semiotic modes, weaves together a boundary-crossing production for presentation on one interface. In this case, Delozier relies on six modes for storytelling purposes: (1) moving visuals; (2) still photographs; (3) the subjects’ words; (4) the journalist’s narration; (5) ambient sounds; and (6) camera proximity. In my analysis, I examine how the modes work singly and in concert to both articulate the content of the news story and structurally suggest audience meaning.

I applied Rodriguez and Dimitrova’s (2008) model, four levels of visual framing, to analyze each of the 38 visual frames in the video. Rodriguez and Dimitrova developed their four-level methodology, a synthesis of earlier visual framing methods, as a way of analyzing the news producer’s frame as well as the audience perception of a message.

During my analysis, I noted a significant presence of social messages, suggesting the need for a more refined understanding of the embedding social structures. I coded each of the frames for discourse (DISC), subjectivity (SUBJ), and/or context (CNTX). The three codes are based on the three “basic constituents of the communication process” described by Jensen (1991, 19). Discourse refers to the use of everyday interaction, especially dialogue, to socially construct reality. Subjectivity refers to messages that infer social position, identity, or a perspective on the world. Context refers to messages that reflect the underlying, dominant structures or stories prevalent in a period of history.

I conducted a semi-structured, taped interview with Delozier on February 7, 2012, to learn more about his research method and personal editorial vision.

Results

Level 1: Signs as Denotative Syntactic Systems

Corresponding to Barthes’ concept of a “denoted” message (1977, 17), this level describes in basic terms the discrete visual elements appearing within the frame (Appendix A).

Level 2: Signs as Stylistic Semiotic Systems

Rodriguez and Dimitrova define this level to delineate editorial and design conventions. Delozier structures his video chronologically around the action of the funeral, using a sequential technique (Shook, Larson, and DeTarsio 2009, 9) for heightened realism. He recreates how viewers would experience the funeral if they were there. Delozier himself never appears on-camera; he becomes a “fly on the wall” (Kobre 2000, 47) who uses his camera unobtrusively to capture character, relationships, and atmosphere on film. Delozier, who generally avoids appearing on-camera himself, says a key element in his reporting is establishing a relationship with the source, “so that they trust you enough to let you be there and capture the moments that really tell the story”. Delozier’s sparse off-camera narrations provide 14 basic facts as well as bridges between scenes.

Delozier employs another foundational news technique, the recording of natural sound (Shook, Larson, and DeTarsio 2009, 10), to add realism. Nichols says much of the “persuasive” quality of documentaries stems from the sound track (2010, 26), while Shook, Larson, and DeTarsio (2009, 135) point out natural sounds remind viewers of their own life experiences. Delozier creates a more memorable story by emphasizing the emotional reactions of his subjects (Shook, Larson, and DeTarsio 2009, 19). By focusing on feelings, expressions, and gestures, the producer conveys the character’s inner state, stirring in viewers a parallel emotional state (Nichols 2010, 134).

Delozier uses close-up shots of subjects’ faces to create a feeling of intimacy between viewer and subject. About 60 per cent of the frames position the viewer in “extreme close-up”, “close-up” or “mid close-up” proximity to the subject (Mediacollege.com 2011), thereby using the camera shot itself to signify an intimate or personal relationship between the viewer and the subject, according to the visual grammars of television (Berger 2005, 33).

Level 3: Signs as Symbolic Systems

This level corresponds to Barthes’ concept of a “connoted” message (1977, 17), or how society thinks of an image. Images of American flags, guns, and military crests provide constant metaphorical reminders of the funeral as a social event with patriotic overtones. In this context, the photographer’s use of the flag and other institutional emblems connotes the complex, deeply felt values about military service held by those who have served. In stark contrast to the institutional symbols, the emblems of biker culture express another layer of counter-cultural solidarity: leather jackets, baseball hats, bandanas, Harley-Davidson logos, and a skull-and-crossbones crest.

Continuing to imprint the military context on the production, Delozier uses the playing of Taps as ambient sound in 15 frames. Danesi (1999, 172) notes how the music accompanying an event can function as religious ritual and means of social integration, powerfully symbolizing group structure and values.

The conversations depicted in the video offer a glimpse of the underlying attitudes, beliefs, and socially constructed reality of the war veterans. Social semiotics holds that meaning is embedded in everyday discourse between people, in the perspectives they hold within a group or institution, and in the deep stories inscribed in culture (Jensen 1991, 19). The meanings of these signs are “potential” rather than pre-given, drawing on the collective and dynamic understanding circulating within the group (Van Leeuwen 2005, 4). The war veterans convey attitudes on a wide range of topics as they reflect on Betty’s death, such as: loyalty in friendship, reaching out to shut-ins, maintaining a sense of humour through adversity, carrying on despite poor weather, the existence of an afterlife, gender relations, characteristics of a fiercely independent personality, recognition of war veterans, fear of dying alone, and being there for someone who is dying. The emotions visible on the subjects’ faces (Ekman and Friesen 2003, 37, 50, 68, 103, 117) include: happiness, often conveyed in personal snapshots (frames 8, 10, 12–15, 17, 37); sadness (frames 18–20, 23, 31, 33, 34); disgust with the weather (frame 3); surprise (frames 11, 27); and fear, while recalling Betty’s fear of dying alone (frame 16). The veterans’ attitudes are conveyed naturally in interpersonal dialogue, rather than as objectified distillations transmitted from journalist to viewer. Delozier sets up the discussion; subjects construct their own reality. Soffer, applying dialogical philosophy to journalism, says (2009, 485): “The dialogical approach discards the message-driven perception and calls for journalism to reflect a variety of voices, avoiding the monologue that ultimately reflects the author’s own values and purposes”. A more conversational style of dialogue returns public discussion to its form before the mass media came along, Soffer adds.

Level 4: Signs as Ideological Representations

Following from Barthes’ “third reading” (1977, 54) and Panofsky’s “intrinsic meaning” (1970, 55), this level of analysis goes beyond the stylistic and symbolic features to ascertain the deeper attitudes of a nation, class, religious or philosophical persuasion, or period of history. Betty is portrayed as the unsung American war hero, an icon of individualism and patriotic service who is approaching an anonymous death in a small-town nursing home. She is rescued from her worst fear by a group of individualistic, patriotic men and women who share her values and who reach out to protect her, extending the Soldier’s Creed (United States Army 2011) to “never leave a fallen comrade”. The emotional eulogies focus on how the veterans came together like family in her time of need. When Biker 3 says (frame 36), “She’s a veteran, and, uh, she deserves not to be alone or forgotten”, he frames her identity as a soldier as her defining quality. The act of rescuing gives their lives meaning. In answering the call to serve, Betty’s friends become quiet heroes themselves, perpetuating the values of social cohesion and loyalty shared by veterans. Ong (1982, 11) suggests the depictions of ordinary heroes on TV relates to a widespread public “hunger for heroes” whose public lives are not tainted by scandal.

Discussion and Limitations

Journalism in a Social Role

This analysis demonstrates how Delozier’s production relies on the visual conventions of TV broadcasting, documentary filmmaking, and photojournalism to tell the story of a war veteran’s funeral. On technical grounds, the production cannot be considered groundbreaking compared to a story produced by a multi-person crew. However, the story is illustrative of three videojournalist craft values articulated by Smith as the “Rosenblum Model”: devote more time to a single story (2011, 9); develop a rapport between the videojournalist and subjects (14); provide a detailed visual representation of the subjects’ perspectives (27). Delozier says operating as a solo videojournalist enhances his ability to capture what he refers to as “storytelling” qualities:

The fewer people that are around, the fewer distractions that are around, the easier it is for the story subject to just be themselves and let the moments happen, and not be distracted by a crew. That’s not to say working as a two- or a three-person crew, great stories can’t happen. I just personally think it’s easier whenever there are fewer distractions. If it’s just me, just my camera, and I’m able to establish a relationship with them, it’s pretty easy for those natural moments to happen. (interview, February 7, 2012)

Moreover, I argue that videojournalism extends photojournalism into a social realm, beyond its traditional role as a recorder of visual truth frozen in time. For example, take this comment by Henri Cartier-Bresson: “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression” (in Kobre 2000, 350). In contrast, Delozier’s production is more concerned with representations of extended moments and reproducing what Meyrowitz describes (1985, 37) as “that ‘nebulous stuff’ we learn about each other in acts of communication”. By portraying emotion, gestures, vocabulary, posture, dress codes, and pace of activity, the solo videojournalist creates social moments rather than decisive single frames. Delozier says he typically tries to orient his reports around social and emotional elements of the story:

To me it’s far less important about the facts and figures of the story necessarily, as much just it is about peoples’ feelings and their emotions and what’s going on in their hearts and their heads. That story about Betty wasn’t about where she served in World War Two, or what her role was in World War Two, or where she lived after World War Two. It was about why she lived and why the people who surrounded her cared about her. (interview, February 7, 2012)

The multimodal streams over which the videojournalist has control—visuals, subjects’ words, narration, ambient sounds, and camera proximity—each affect the senses differently, conveying distinct meanings, or potential ways of knowing for the viewer. Delozier believes the emotional moments connect members of the viewing audience to Betty:

I can’t oversell how important I think emotion is in stories. A lot of times we think of emotion as simply being when somebody cries. But whenever something happens that makes you laugh or makes you react in any way, those are the moments in a story that make a story special and more memorable. (interview, February 7, 2012)

In the final production, the subjects themselves construct their social reality, as seen in their use of language, their personal and political values, and their social positions within the veteran community. Like O’Donnell’s examples of “listening projects” in journalism (2009), the shaping factors in Delozier’s story—rather than technology itself—are his editorial vision, his expertise, and the financial resources that support the production. Thus, journalistic practice is the decisive factor; technology plays only a support role. Because journalists define themselves not just by their formalized bodies of knowledge, but also by how they represent their knowledge (Zelizer 1993), the Rosenblum Model may take root as a convention within the fledgling profession. In this analysis, any video production—solo-produced or otherwise—can be seen to make a distinctive contribution to convergent journalism when it embodies listening practices, conveying the subjective social reality of the subjects.

What contribution does Delozier’s story make to the emotional sphere? In Pantti and Wahl-Jorgensen’s broad analysis (2011, 105–6), emotions are important to the constitution of citizenship and public life in three ways: (1) for the construction of collective identities and social bonds; (2) as motivators to political action; and (3) as a means of making political and moral judgments. I believe the “Betty” story falls into the first category. Delozier casts journalism in a “social role”, to use Meijer’s term (2010, 328), exploring the perspectives and emotional values of war veterans through a portrayal of everyday social interactions, rather than through rational claims. The story fosters a sense of community among veterans while transforming the funeral from a private to a public event. Ultimately, the account widens our imagination of citizenship (Meijer 2003, 22) as it depicts war veterans negotiating conflicts between individual and institutional values.

Through the Lens of a Solo Videojournalist: Journalism as Conversation

The photojournalist’s perspective on objectivity merits further reflection in the context of this analysis. News photographers view objectivity as representing people and scenes in a transparent, natural manner immediately understood by the viewer (Schwartz 1992). The goal is visual realism; the more real, the better. For news reporters, however, objectivity is seen differently: as a detached pursuit of empirical truth, in which journalists distill facts, seek evidence, dissect abstractions, and shun causes (Schudson and Anderson 2009, 92). What the news reporter sees, hears, and understands, is distilled and reframed according to journalistic interpretive writing conventions.

This contrast in journalistic conventions is central to understanding the distinctiveness of the Rosenblum-style videojournalism model. The photojournalistic emphasis on visual authenticity—extended to the auditory realm by video technology—has a shaping effect on Delozier’s story. He intervenes as a narrator only briefly as he digitally weaves together the final piece:

If I can get good interviews, good sound of my story subjects, I can tell a great story. Because basically all I do, is I identify those great sound bites for my story subject and then my job is to figure out the order that they go in to tell the story, and then write script to basically get from bite to bite to tell the story. But I let them guide the story. (interview, February 7, 2012)

Delozier’s neutral language as narrator (Appendix A) seems to convey a “view from nowhere” (Calhoun et al. 2007, 312), in contrast to the subjective language qualities of the subjects. In his emphasis on realism, Delozier produces a story that ultimately reflects qualities described by Carey (1993, 20) in his call for a more humble journalism modeled on conversation rather than on the metaphor of objectivity and science. This editorial vision echoes Soffer’s description (2009, 481, 482) of a more open, dialogical reformulation of journalistic practice which captures the importance of a particular moment: “Both the observer and the observed voices are evident”.

Conclusion

I set out to understand how one solo videojournalist, Delozier, creates visual and social meaning using digital technology. I find that Delozier deploys both video technology and his personal editorial vision in a “social role” as a journalist (Meijer 2010, 328) as he shows how the war veterans construct their social reality. Delozier extends his role from the visual to the social realm as he documents emotion, language, movement, and non-verbal messages. Thus, I describe the solo videojournalist representations as social moments, in contrast to the decisive single frames shot by still news photographers.

I see how Delozier’s production is influenced by two interpretive conventions. First, photojournalists seek to show people candidly in their natural environments. Second, solo videojournalists are encouraged by pioneers of the profession to spend time with their subjects, develop rapport, and detail their perspectives. Taken together, I argue that these conventions of naturalism and empathy produce a dialogical position in storytelling, manifested in Delozier’s video as a conversation between war veterans about their relationships, values, and attitudes toward social and institutional issues. In this respect, the Betty story illustrates O’Donnell’s theoretical construct (2009, 513) of “listening” by the journalist as the key practice needed to help people hear each other through the media and journalism.

At a time in history when media audiences expect authenticity from ordinary citizens as well as politicians and celebrities in the public arena (Nunn and Biressi 2010, 54), the Rosenblum Model (Smith 2011) tends to set journalism on a more experiential, connective storytelling course. Such storytelling, according to research by Meijer (2007), is especially meaningful to younger people, who find generic news unappealing, but who value the opportunity to live through an event, be part of the news, and feel associated emotions (110–1).

More than two decades ago, Carey (1989, 58–67) saw a struggle within the mass media between two contested views of reality: as rational, professionally endorsed information of record, or as understandings gained in conversation by a community of equals. Addressing this struggle today, current research into how journalism contributes to the emotional sphere seeks to bridge the two worldviews, with the goal of connecting meaningfully with audiences not satisfied by traditional definitions of news. The authentic, experiential qualities inherent in solo videojournalism productions offer promise as a means of connecting with postmodern audiences.

Notes

1. I encountered a variety of terms describing the members of this new profession, based on personal preference, employer context, academic setting, and era: solo videojournalist (SoJo or SVJ), mobile journalist (MoJo), one-man band, backpack journalist, digital journalist, multimedia journalist, and platypus. I agree with Smith (2011, xii) that the designation “solo videojournalist” most accurately describes what they do, while avoiding the gender difficulty of the nickname “one-man band.”

Appendix