In this episode of AntroPodi Renata Lisowski speaks about her autoethnographic research of UMK online fan-culture, particularly the making of Youtube reaction videos.
Renata Lisowski has combined her passion of making reaction videos and researching culture in her doctoral research, where she takes a participatory position in online fan-culture producing UMK-reaction videos to her own Youtube-channel. UMK (Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu) is the Finnish national Eurovision selection competition. Reaction videos are a niche of media-culture, where the content producer aims in immersing themselves in to a new experience, recording it and sharing it to the audience. The goal is to share first thoughts and display feelings that are authentic and emerging in time of the video recording. There is no script for reaction videos, and they function as a commentary on the media material the producer reacts to.
In her research Lisowski is using autoethnographic method, where a researcher connects their own experiences to a wider cultural context. The method allows the researcher to be an active participant in the study of their topic. Autoethnography calls for open reflection on the researchers’ own identity and positionality.
The interview was recorded in two separate sessions.
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