The “stageless” action Griffith pioneered ended up also driving the 180-degree rule, and master-shot format, where you had to establish a longer view of where the characters and objects were in relationship to each other first, and then respect those relationships in space/time through subsequent closer shots so that the audience wouldn't get confused. This was another paradigm that MTV disregarded and changed forever in the music video age… another story for another time

But you're also touching on two other conventions in your comment: metric montage and mise en scene. The former creating flow and meaning from the timing and shot duration during the montage; the latter proposing that every object “within the scene” carries deeper meaning.

Where this comes into play — for me — in social media is really complex, interesting, and dynamic in terms of narrative construction. First, social media, like screenwriting, at this point in time is more the perception of communication rather than “real' communication.

Tweets, status updates, and the like are clipped bits of text that are rewrites of our own narratives. They're viewed linearly, with a beginning/middle/end to the session. However, to the creator, the construction has to accommodate circular narrative: a main topic altered and filtered my multiple perspectives back and forth in time.

And I love the idea of Facebook as a stage, which I think it is. An old adage, and I forget who coined it, goes something like, “The most important parts of any play are the entrances and exits.” Social Media, and especially the current Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter interfaces are largely dramatic entrances and exits. The best being compelling, ambiguous and revealing new information.

All great thought-provoking points. Thanks again for contributing.

The “stageless” action Griffith pioneered ended up also driving the 180-degree rule, and master-shot format, where you had to establish a longer view of where the characters and objects were in relationship to each other first, and then respect those relationships in space/time through subsequent closer shots so that the audience wouldn't get confused. This was another paradigm that MTV disregarded and changed forever in the music video age… another story for another time

But you're also touching on two other conventions in your comment: metric montage and mise en scene. The former creating flow and meaning from the timing and shot duration during the montage; the latter proposing that every object “within the scene” carries deeper meaning.

Where this comes into play — for me — in social media is really complex, interesting, and dynamic in terms of narrative construction. First, social media, like screenwriting, at this point in time is more the perception of communication rather than “real' communication.

Tweets, status updates, and the like are clipped bits of text that are rewrites of our own narratives. They're viewed linearly, with a beginning/middle/end to the session. However, to the creator, the construction has to accommodate circular narrative: a main topic altered and filtered my multiple perspectives back and forth in time.

And I love the idea of Facebook as a stage, which I think it is. An old adage, and I forget who coined it, goes something like, “The most important parts of any play are the entrances and exits.” Social Media, and especially the current Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter interfaces are largely dramatic entrances and exits. The best being compelling, ambiguous and revealing new information.

All great thought-provoking points. Thanks again for contributing.

Interesting take on use of film! I'd like to complicate matters a bit by suggesting that the function of juxtaposition (contrast) functions on two axes in film: action and time. You mention Eisenstein — at the time he was developing the montage shots unique to cinema (as a form of art), American film-maker DW Griffith was working out the editing language for action. Some say that Russian and American film then took different trajectories: Russians mastering montage; Americans mastering action.

Both require use of shot juxtaposition to develop and hold a narrative in time, and through editing, to capture action. (One could get creative and claim that the multiple rings of activity on a circus floor are in fact a visual montage.)

I think time comes into play in social media — after all, communication is a series of (sometimes episodic) transactions *over time*. Perhaps one might also extend the film analytic to close, medium, and long shot techniques of data visualization (around social activities). For example, the shot of the user, the shot of the group, the shot of the site's overall use and activities?

It might also be possible to extend narrative and dramatic forms to social media: in the framing of talk (posts, exchanges, threads; or testimonials, questions, answers..), in the contextualization of activity (dating, jobs, movies, socializing?), in the use of biography, in production of news, and of course in entertainment.

That said there's neither script nor stage, really, in social media (if FB were a stage, its audience comes and goes, and there's no “fourth wall” experience that transforms the stage into theater).

Deleuze's two books on cinema offer a great number of “signs” unique to film — I've thought one might create a similar kind of semiotic for social media: symbolic gestures, acts, tokens and objects; rituals and pastimes; forms of self-presentation; forms of episodic (discontinuous in time but still time-based) interaction; audiences (single, pairs, groups, communities, public); and so on… Would be an interesting project to get some old “new media” folks together and do a wknd on film and social media theory.

cheers,
adrian