LAST OF THE LAST
Hey everyone! Welcome to the final installment of my blog, and in this post I will be sharing on User Generated Content & out team’s parody video!! 🙂
User Generated Content (UGC)
UGCs are contents that are created and put on social platforms by anyone with the aim to promote a particular brand. It could be pictures, videos or even blogs.
In the past, before smart phones and social media came into our lives, our source of media mainly circles around the TV, newspaper and the desktop computer, which isn’t that friendly to use. The contents exposed to us at that time by Mediacorp focuses more on current affairs and there’s only a limited amount of promotional contents that are usually put out there by the brand themselves. UGCs hardly ever exist in those days.
With the advancement of technologies these days, we have more access to media 2.0 which includes various interactive media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Youtube. Through these platforms, we often come across posts and videos about brands like Apple, Netflix and many others by content users and those are considered as UGCs.
UGCs can also come in the form of events that are carried out by brands themselves for content users to give them extra promotion. For example, Starbucks has a yearly Christmas event called the Red cup Contest where they launch red cups during the festive season and buyers have a chance to win a pricey give card when they upload a photo pf their cup on Instagram with the hashtag #Redcupcontest. (unfortunately, its not in Singapore ☹)
Overall, my thoughts of mainstream traditional TV has changed significantly with the availability of UGCs. I feel that mainstream traditional TV offers limited contents and focuses more on contents that are more suited for Singaporeans, whereas UGCs offers a wide range of contents that allows me to be more exposed to the ‘outside world’ and keep up with the latest trend.
Parody
For our video, we have decided to focus on the Uses and Gratification theory as it is a topic that we can all relate to and it kind of shows the way we use the media.
The 5 points showed in the video are:
- Cognitive needs: using the media to acquire knowledge, information, etc.
– Syafiq watching a makeup tutorial before trying out the look. - Personal Integrative needs: using the media to boost self-esteem
– Beatrice watching lookbook for the last trend and then gaining idea for her outfit. - Affective needs: using the media to satisfy emotion needs
– The 3 of us watching a funny video for comedy. - Social Integrative needs: using the media to socalise with people
– Syafiq texting Sara, and she replies with a meme. - Tension-free needs: using the media to relieve tension and stress
– Sara listening to an ASMR recorded by Beatrice as a form of stress release.
We have finally reached final blog post guys!!! 🙌 🙌 Thank you for reading my post all this while 💞
References
Uses and Gratification theory. (2019). Retrieved from : https://www.communicationtheory.org/uses-and-gratification-theory/
CYNTHIA 