When it comes to going through the motions and steps of our project to make sure we are achieving and meeting all the goals and topics we plan and ensuring we are giving the best. It is important that we came up with a schedule so we stayed on top of each of our own responsibilities and our collaborative ones. The timeline we have created ensures we stay on target. Our first course of action was coming up with how we would display our project. We thought youtube would be really beneficial for us to be able to use our gaming niche to project the game and make it a podcast so that we could really talk about topics we felt fitted into our individual niches.
We started setting up our youtube channel and created an introduction video. Casie and I will alternate editing where necessary but for the most part we will screen share and work together to ensure we both are able to express our ideas. Weekly we will create individual weeks topics and game play to ensure filming is flawless. We will be recording episodes on a Wednesday and posting on a Friday. This gives us time to edit, clean or even re-film if needed weekly. We really want to be able to talk about real life topics and share that with people who share the same niche market. Whether this is from fitness and health, gaming, university, or plainly the sims community. being able to connect well with our audience is a big part of our aim for this visual youtube podcast.
ediTORIal. 
9 replies on “This one goes out to the PITCH in the back.”
Your blog was presented timely, and in a professional and aesthetically pleasing manner. However, background music within the video would be beneficial when enhancing the videos engagement further, perhaps Sim’s background music? The title of the piece was clever, engaging, and humorous. While some tags were used, a wider set of tags, would increase the reach of the blog, as well as changing the category name from BCM241 to something more accessible to wider audiences e.g. Media Ethnography or The Simps. There were some grammar and punctuation mistakes, but the blog and video as a whole were presented in an exciting manner that showcased your motivation and general interest in the project. The research plan was clearly evident and well explained, but there was no mention to the ethical considerations of the study. There was mention to the physical field sites ‘YouTube’ and ‘TikTok’ as to where the DA would take place, but the entirety of the field site concept, such as the personas you hope to present, and dominate personas within the niches you’re interested in, could be explored further. The flow of the piece of was consistent but overlapped in certain sections, such as the use of the schedule and tasks to be completed. To enhance the blog further, the use of links would help in making connections to lecture content and readings clearer, but research and understanding of the niche your project may fall under is apparent. A connection to autoethnography is kind of touched on but could be explored further with readings and other independent research to support your study. Some lecture materials that could help are:
Airoldi, M, 2018, Ethnography and the digital fields of social media, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, vol. 21, iss. 6, pp. 661-673.
Lundström, M, & Poletti Lundström, T, 2021, Podcast ethnography, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, vol. 24, iss. 3, pp. 289-299,
Marshall, D, 2013, ‘Persona studies: Mapping the proliferation of the public self’, Journalism, pp. 1-18.
Winter, R, & Lavis, A 2020, ‘Looking, But Not Listening? Theorizing the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography’, Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, vol. 15, no. 1-2, pp. 55 – 62.
Ellis, C, Adams, T, & Bochner, A 2010, ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, vol. 12, no. 1, art. 10.
Other articles that could be of use to your study are:
TikTok Revenue and Usage Statistics (2021)
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/
‘Playing The Sims as a Proxy for Life’
https://superjumpmagazine.com/playing-the-sims-as-a-proxy-for-life-7a0ef46a15e3
‘The Sims Made Me Realize I’m Ready for More In Life’
https://www.wired.com/story/sims-game-psychology/
Diane Nutt & Diane Railton (2003) The Sims: Real Life as Genre, Information, Communication & Society, 6:4, 577-592, DOI: 10.1080/1369118032000163268
Your blog post clearly highlights your area of study and research, as well as how you intend to conduct your DA. Links to research and autoethnography would help strengthen your study and connection to the subject. Overall, your blog post/video were really engaging and depicted your course of study and how you aim to achieve it. I’m really excited to see how it turns out.
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Hey again Tori, I like how you’re focusing on your own niches within the project, are you planning to have them overlap at all or be completely separate? You’ve also been quite broad with stating ‘the Sims’, are you considering playing different versions of the game or will you be sticking to the Sims 4 – if you have access to the other games, it may be interesting to compare some of their elements (depending on which niche you decide to focus on). Here’s an interesting comparison of how school has changed through the various versions of the sims; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqsdmQsjQds maybe you could do something similar.
You may want to consider the ethical concerns of showing people’s comments in future videos, but overall, I found the style of your pitch video to be engaging – it would be great to do something similar for the videos supporting your podcast.
I noticed you didn’t focus on your field map in the pitch. You’ve touched on all the areas included within it and linked them together well but providing a visual representation of it may help to narrow down your niche or provide areas to focus on more.
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Hey Tori!
All in all I found this to be a really great pitch! You clearly have a direction and are heading on track, even receiving some early positive feedback from fellow Twitter users. The idea of promoting your content on as many platforms as possible is incredibly useful in gaining exposure and providing behind the scenes footage, simultaneously building your online persona.
In terms of feedback, here is a video I found that details how to best garner attention to your YouTube videos and ultimately gain more views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__3Vh6KOtS8
You might even want to give an extra day between recording and uploading on the Friday as editing and preparing videos can be a tedious process especially early into the timeline when you’re trying to find a rhythm.
So in summary, feel free to check out the video and I’m super keen to see how your podcast turns out this semester, best of luck!
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Awesome pitch, Tori and Cassie! It looks like a lot of people will resonate with your relatable commentary, especially considering that you will be focusing your content towards university students with relevant topics including fitness and university work. This was really evident in the screenshots you provided of students responding positively on Twitter. Will you be using Twitter as a part of your research site as well? Using Tiktok as a complementary platform to notify your audience of new videos and giving them supplementary content is an impressive addition to your D.A. Your presentation was engaging however it lacked direct ties to lecture materials, as did the additional contextual post. Additional hyperlinks and references to posts and readings could support the content. There was minimal reflection on the ethical considerations of this particular research path that I would have liked to have acknowledged or mentioned in the contextual post or presentation. The eye-catching and creative heading as well as the tags are sure to grab the attention of those who reside in the Sims Media niche. I found a couple of resources that might be of use to you:
The Digital Dollhouse: Context and Social Norms in The Sims Online: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1555412007309583?casa_token=aOuxJNsukUYAAAAA:73hErmW1mxMRusdpOCDbvBkhjMZXA67G7hDDOsjuoS9UeAk9bCBYwVmCt2BlBbVo4jreBGu1ZXreazA
The Sims 4 Trait Update Controversy Explained:
https://gamerant.com/the-sims-4-trait-update-controversy-explained-hates-children/#:~:text=The%20issue%2C%20which%20many%20The,to%20consent%20to%20sexual%20activities.
Playing The Sims2: an exploration of gender differences in players’ motivations and patterns of play: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444809342267
Overall this is a fascinating study and I can’t wait to see it come to fruition alongside our studies. Best of luck!
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This post is of an incredibly high standard. It is clear that you have paid exceptional attention to detail, with your video in particular being extremely engaging and professional in its presentation. Your passion for the niche is also evident, as your prior knowledge of the topic is clearly conveyed through your detailed explanation of it. As an outsider to this niche, I also found your frequent use of images / videos referencing your niche helpful for my own understanding. The flow of your video is also excellent, with all of your points logically building upon each other. I found your commitment to doing additional research on the niche to be great, however some links in the text section could have been a good addition for the reader. It is also clear that you are very familiar with the lecture materials and are approaching this project with an analytical approach. The blog post also makes a great use of tags, with the video length also being spot on. All in all, I feel this is an excellent pitch post and look forward to tuning in to future podcasts!
Also, I’ve found a podcast that also covers the SIMS that you might want to check out. It might help in letting you know what existing creators in your space are discussing in relation to the niche.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/llama-drama-a-podcast-about-the-sims/id1434469054
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