Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Lucie Štolfová
Pragmatics of Let's Play: Viewers and Their Engagement in Videos Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D.
2018
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………….. Author’s signature
Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor doc. Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. for his patience, helpful advice and comments. I would also like to thank Mgr. Stefan Veleski, B.A. for his helpful comments and my family for their support.
Table of contents
1 Introduction ...... 6 2 Defining the new media and pragmatics ...... 8 2.1 Cyberpragmatics and CMC ...... 8 2.2 CMC genres ...... 11 2.3 Multimodality ...... 13 2.4 Phenomenon of YouTube ...... 14 2.5 Let’s Play ...... 17 2.5.1 Let’s Play commentary ...... 18 2.5.2 Extra-linguistic reality and time ...... 21 2.5.3 Participation framework and pseudo-interaction ...... 23 3 Analysis ...... 25 3.1 Data ...... 25 3.2 Involvement techniques in Let’s Play ...... 28 3.2.1 Non-verbal content ...... 28 3.2.1.1 Eye contact and facial expressions ...... 28 3.2.1.2 Eye contact and hand gestures ...... 30 3.2.2 Language content ...... 32 3.2.2.1 In-game text reading ...... 33 3.2.2.2 Use of pronouns ...... 37 3.2.2.3 Rhetorical questions ...... 40 3.2.2.4 Vocative ...... 43 3.2.2.5 Opinion sharing ...... 46 3.2.2.6 Fact stating ...... 48 3.2.2.7 Sharing personal information ...... 52 3.2.2.8 Written commentary in Let’s Play ...... 54 4 Conclusion ...... 57 5 References ...... 60 6 Appendix ...... 65 6.1 Extract and figure code names ...... 65
6.2 Video lengths ...... 66 7 Summary ...... 67 8 Resumé ...... 68
1 Introduction
Games have always been part of our shared culture. Since we were small children, we have engaged in many games ranging from sports games over lawn games to board games, all with the intention to entertain ourselves. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, people have noticed a rise of new type games connected with the rise of electronic gadgets – video games. Playing video games has nowadays become favourite pastime activity for many children and adults. With the rising interest in playing video games, many have found a way to connect entertainment with earning money by playing games while recording it and posting it on the internet. But some have gone even further and have started recording themselves while playing video games for public entertainment, pushing the fun factor of the game into the background. These videos are recognised under the name “Let’s Play” (LP). Let’s Play is an emerging phenomenon of the past decade, which attracts millions of people a day. It owes its success to the websites that thrive thanks to user-generated content – websites devised for mass consumption. Thanks to that anybody can now watch other people playing any video game and enjoy the entertaining commentary during it.
“Let’s Player’s” commentary is the most vital part people seek it for because each
Let’s Player as a person is unique, and so is the commentary approach to the game. And that is what makes it so attractive. There has been much research on how media connect and create a relationship with their viewers, creating pseudo-relationships, however, concerning LP as a genre itself there has been paid very little attention to it in linguistics.
Therefore, this thesis focuses on the presence of unique techniques that enable Let’s
Players to involve and address their audience in Let’s Play videos. Furthermore I argue that these techniques also enable them to engage in a pseudo-relationship with the viewers. To
6 analyse the engagement techniques, I will approach the selected material building on
Erving Goffman’s theory of participation framework and Anna O’Keeffe’s study on the creation of pseudo-relationships. These concepts will enable me to provide an overview of the involvement techniques used in Let’s Play videos and help me to distinguish them from other non-involvement material present there. Each technique will be analysed based on the audio and visual transcription of the events taking place in each video, accompanied by video screenshots when necessary. I will also show how the use of the techniques and subsequent commentary depends on the extra-linguistic reality Let’s Players experience, making the commentary and the technique use of each Let’s Player different.
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2 Defining the new media and pragmatics
In the first part of the thesis I will be dealing with defining the internet environment
LPs are situated in and what linguistic approach I chose to analyse it with. Firstly, I will begin with a general description of which theories in pragmatics and “cyberpragmatics”
(Yus 2011) are relevant to the application in the context of LP. Then, I will continue with the notion of genre and how it applies to LPs while emphasising a communication theory of multimodality. Then I will focus on a more specific description of the space LPs are located in, finishing by describing LPs themselves focusing on their unique features as an emerging genre of entertainment on the internet and how participation framework works to achieve interaction between the player and the viewer.
2.1 Cyberpragmatics and CMC
Pragmatics, as a linguistic discipline, is concerned with the meaning of utterance analysable only inside “the context in which it is produced and interpreted [and it is the] most suitable for the analysis of everyday communication” (Yus 2011: 2-3). Despite this statement, there has been an ongoing discussion on what really pragmatics studies and what its scope is. Fetzer and Oishi in their book Context and Contexts (2011) define the issue of the scope as follows:
“Pragmatics is fundamentally concerned with communicative action and its felicity in
context …The heterogeneous nature of context and the context-dependence of the
concept itself have made it almost impossible for the scientific community to agree
upon a commonly shared definition or theoretical perspective” (p. 1).
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This description shows how broad the scope of the discipline is and how challenging it is to define what it should include in its study. For that reason, there have been many scholars who provided various suggestions of what pragmatics should be concerned with.
Among them, there is Mira Ariel (2010) who provides an overview of possible subject focus of pragmatics. She distinguishes two approaches – border seekers and problem-solvers. According to her, border seekers function as a kind of restrictive element, restricting inclusion of topics which belong to both semantics and pragmatics at the same time. However, grammar is explained in simple terms, and its complicated issues are removed into its own area. This leads to significant restrictions on the part of topic inclusion. In contrast, there are problem-solvers. They are concerned with problem identification. Furthermore, the pragmatics in the conception of problem-solvers adopts a particular perspective on the object. This approach, therefore, is not as topic restrictive as compared to the border seekers and what is most important, is that i includes “the socio- technical constellations of the uses of language in CMC – … concepts such as “modes” and
“affordances”1 ” (Herring et al. 2013: 7).
Cyberpragmatics is a new, broad and changeable subject of study. Due to these qualities, the main issue that pragmatics of CMC deals with is the ambiguity of its content.
Susan Herring (2007) published an article in which she proposes a classification scheme of
CMC based on pragmatic methods of analysis. There she suggested three kinds of phenomena cyberpragmatics should focus on. The first category dealt with “classical core pragmatic phenomena (e.g. implicature, presupposition, relevance, speech acts, politeness) in CMC”. Secondly, the focus should be on “CMC specific phenomena (e.g. emoticons, nicknames, “Netspeak”)”. Lastly, the scheme should include “CMC genres or modes
1 Linguistics who has investigated the concept of affordances in recent years are Singleton et al. (2013) 9
(blogs, SMS, wikis, chat, etc.)” (Herring et al. 2013: 4). These categories convey that the scope of pragmatics in CMC is quite broad and at the same time, it is difficult to clearly classify the items into only one specific field.
As Herring et al. suggest, drawing on Ariel’s distinction of pragmatic approaches of problem-solvers and border seekers, the problem-solvers’ approach is the best one for dealing with the pragmatics of CMC. This approach is the most suitable because the conception fits the nature of CMC variable formats in the way it allows incorporation of many multimodal resources and affordances. In the same fashion Let’s Play videos are worth studying from the pragmatic point of view. They also show, as I will later discuss in more detail, that they can be put under the heading of problem-solvers’ approach, and they also fit into Herring’s division of phenomena as CMC genres and modes. However only classifying LP into the system of cyberpragmatics does not help in understanding it fully and that is why it is necessary to know what enabled LP to come into existence.
Undoubtedly, the content on the internet has gone through many changes since it was first launched. Scholars call the first stage of the content of the World Wide Web Web 1.0.
It was identified by the use of basic interface containing hyperlinks, personal web pages, guestbook pages, but also by the use of forums, chats and emails. The second stage is called
Web 2.0. As Herring et al. state, it contains some of the familiar phenomena from Web 1.0
– emails and chats only slightly altered. In addition to familiar phenomena there are new ones, which are entirely new or are just coming into awareness – blogs, social networks, media-sharing sites, wikis, etc.. Nevertheless the most important feature of the shift from
Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was that it did not impact only content but internet users themselves.
The first stage, Web 1.0, was characterised by a small number of content creators and by a high number of content consumers. In the latter stage, the numbers of creators and
10 consumers have risen (Cormode & Krishnamurthy 2008). Nowadays the web and all its sites are based on their users, and by them user-generated content, causing a revolution in
CMC. And for this reason, the rise of LP can be ascribed to Web 2.0, as both are based on the user-aimed and generated content.
2.2 CMC genres
Genres seem to be another vital part of CMC discourse. Moreover, in order to better understand Let’s Play phenomenon and what videos can be categorised as this genre, it is necessary to explore the concept of the genre itself more deeply. In normal circumstances, any communication that shares conventionalised characteristics and communicative purpose with others can be considered belonging to the same genre. However, the problem with genre definition of LP is its novelty and flexibility.
In this case, it is difficult to reach a consensus on whether a certain phenomenon can be classified as a genre, as sometimes features are unclear, and scholars can only observe certain tendencies occurring within. In the light of it, as Frobenius (2014) suggests, it might be rather helpful to look at the notion of genre in CMC context not from the subjective and outsider point of view, but from what the inside community recons to fit into the genre. The reason behind this thought process is there are no given rules of what “technical, social and institutional forces” (Erickson 2000) to use in LPs, but just what the viewers consider to be
LP.
In terms of genre, Giltrow (2013) states that “genre is a typifying concept: Instances of utterance resemble one another and can be classified or recognised thereby.
[Furthermore] genre is a phenomenon at the interface of language and sociality” (p. 717).
Nevertheless, this view is complemented by Giltrow herself. She states that genre is not a
11 rigid concept recognised by the sameness, but thanks to “language-users’ social positions”
(Giltrow 2013: 731) it becomes subjective and flexible notion. Herring with her use of genre/mode concept adds to this that there appears to be a shift of focus in CMC from a superficial approach to a wide pragmatic one, which emphasises users and their social identity.
The above genre theories show that it is necessary to look at the genre classification critically and with an open mind. It also further illustrates the point made by Frobenius with regards to the importance of considering emerging genres by the community, which recognises the patterns within a communicative situation. Furthermore, it illustrates the already mentioned user-oriented policy of Web 2.0.
Let’s Play, as a newly emerging type of entertainment and interaction genre in CMC, is hard to define as mentioned above. LP is a multimodal medium, exploiting at the same time physical and visual settings because it is created by a person in real word and then uploaded on the web. Taking into account these criteria and the genre theories above, it is better to regard LP video not as a genre from the outsider point of view but as insider community understands it. As a matter of fact, according to Arja Piirainen-Marsh (2012), the community classifies LPs based on a range of features that are variously combined: the type of platform the game is played on (Xbox, Smartphone, PlayStation, PC), narrative and character characteristics, the graphical perspective of the player (first person, text-based, third person, top-down perspective), the player type (single player, networked, multiplayer, cooperative) and the types of outcomes and rules incorporated. Therefore, describing videos as LP genre requires focusing on multiple features.
The goal of the thesis is to give a semblance of structure in Let’s Play videos and to give an account of techniques that are used to engage their viewers. In other words, the aim
12 is neither to provide a systematic analysis of the language and strategies employed in LPs nor to determine whether a video can be classified as LP or not. Such an analysis would require a different approach based on lexical features.
2.3 Multimodality
The discussion in the preceding paragraphs shows that CMC is a fluid concept that thanks to its broadness uses a number of resources in order to classify them as certain genres. For this reason, it is possible to speak about the classification in terms of multimodality; a feature that accompanies many types of new genres of CMC. Indeed,
Thurlow and Mroczek state that:
“Multimodality is—or at least should be—a “taken-for-granted” in new media
studies. … All texts, all communicative events, are always achieved by means of
multiple semiotic resources , even so-called text-based new media like instant- and
text messaging. … time and again, research shows how users overcome apparent
semiotic limitations, reworking and combining—often playfully—the resources at
their disposal.”(Thurlow & Mroczek 2011: XXV-XXVI)
To put it differently, current media, including the internet, use a range of semiotic resources at the same time in order to communicate meaning. Hence they are multimodal. Moreover, if users use multimodality correctly, they can modify already existing genres or even create new ones.
As mentioned above, semiotic resources are needed to create or transform genres.
Semiotic resources can be of visual, verbal, textual and audio character. It might seem that if multiple semiotic resources in a multimodal environment are used at the same time, it means that they are equally used through the communication. But it is certainly not the
13 case. In every type of communication, there is always one dominant element present.
Nevertheless, the element does not assume the main role entirely but just makes the semiotic resources connect and complement each other to create the final product as a communication unit with full meaning. A perfect example of the mutual relationship between semiotic resources is a TV sports commentary programme. The main semiotic resource the audience relies on is the visual representation of the sporting events on TV screens, which is the most prominent resource. However, there is also the audio track in the form of the sports commentator’s speech. By themselves, the resources would be only partial, but together they form the whole communication unit.
In the context of Let’s Play videos, semiotic resources are plentiful. As a new media genre, it should be looked at from a multimodal perspective “as a temporally unfolding, interactionally accomplished event shaped by the game as a material and semiotic structure which the players attend to in their verbal and nonverbal actions” (Piirainen-Marsh 2012:
198). Though an LP is a complete interaction consisting of a multimodal blend of visual, verbal, audio and textual semiotic resources, not all the resources are equal. The most dominant and foundational LP features are verbal and visual resources, this means the commentary, the player and the game recording. The LP features can be further expanded by audio resources such as the game audio or additional special audio effects. Then, in fewer instances, the added resource can have textual or other different visual properties such as manually added images and special visual effects.
2.4 Phenomenon of YouTube
YouTube, in its most basic sense, is a video-sharing website; however, this rapidly growing phenomenon is more than that. As soon as Youtube was created, it emphasised
14 users which, as the platform grew, became its core component. However, in its beginnings, it was not as pervasive as it is it nowadays. Keeping the users in mind, at first the aim of the site was to “remove the technical barriers to the widespread sharing of video online”
(Burgess & Green 2009: 15) while providing a simple interface, in which users without much technical knowledge could upload, view and link videos. At that time, YouTube considered itself to be “Your Digital Video Repository”, signifying its importance as a personal video storage facility, but as the number of uploads per day grew (Donchev in
2018 YouTube statistics states that 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute), the platform changed its policy, incorporating now famously known motto “Broadcast
Yourself” (Burgess & Green 2009). This change to space where everyone can express themselves happened, because not only the YouTube user-created content community has grown, but mainly because of a change that impacted the whole Internet. Firstly the change was the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and secondly the above discussed “user-lead revolution” (Burgess & Green 2009: 18). As it is, YouTube heavily relies on its user, because they are the ones who supply the enormous variety of content on the site, which in turn brings the different viewers, the new participants and the money into the business.
Since YouTube is dependent on the users and their content to keep them on the site, it needs to satisfy their needs. The needs lie in the affordances YouTube has to offer them.
Almost all of the affordances exploited by active users are based on that YouTube allows the users to create their own account. From the account, they can manage their history of watched videos, create folders to add videos in them, manage the subscriptions, but the most important of them all is the creator studio. Through this users can check notifications, organise, update and optimise videos, adjust settings on channels overall, and review
15 channels’ performance. As a creator of LP’s on YouTube one can create a thumbnail for them, organise them into playlists and add descriptions and tags.
Despite the diversity of content found on YouTube, two main categories can be identified – user-created videos (non-professional/amateur) and videos created by traditional media (professional). This distinction draws on the results of a research conducted by Burgess and Green (2009). The research aimed to identify the range of people who use YouTube. They drew on a sample of 4,320 videos which were gathered from
YouTube’s popularity categories at that time – Most Favourite, Most Discussed, Most
Viewed and Most Responded. Burgess and Green found out that over half of the material was uploaded by non-professional users – videos coming outside of the established media.
The content consisted mainly of vlogs, then music videos such as fanvids; live footage – sports events, musicals; informational videos – reviews and interviews; and scripted material.
On the other hand, less than half of the YouTube content was made by traditional media. Especially popular were informational programmes – news, interviews, talk shows and reality TV shows; secondly, this category included scripted content – the same as in non-professional category plus soap operas; live footage – music videos, debated and sport; and lastly promotional material – trailers and product advertisements. However, interestingly, the popularity categories Most Viewed and Favourited were dominated by traditional media and Most Responded and Most Discussed were dominated by the user- created content. Burgess and Green conclude that the results in the two first named categories reflect users’ need for self-expression, as the videos are “published as makers of personal taste and communicate recommendations to other users” (Burgess & Green 2009:
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60). The results suggesting that most of the content was uploaded by people outside of mainstream media only emphasises the idea of YouTube being the user-led community.
2.5 Let’s Play
A Let’s Play is a type of video which records a video game playthrough2 while incorporating a player’s recorded oral commentary, which is a feature that needs to be and is present in all videos for them to be considered Let’s Play. Firstly, it is important to note
LP’s functions which distinguish it from other similar types of videos. The closest video genre to LP is a video game walkthrough. Walkthrough functions, for the viewers/players, as a guide to improve their playing skills or to just simply assist and lead them successfully to the end of the game, by recording every step taken during the whole video game.
Overall, the primary aim of a video game walkthrough is to be an objective source of information for completion of the game. The next genre revolving around video games is a video game review. Usually, a video game review is characterised by an objective and critical appraisal of the played game. Since the game is not played in its entirety, and the video shows only interesting bits and pieces, this is what differentiates it from LP and walkthrough. In contrast, LP is about individual's subjective experience with a game and contains critical, amusing and sometimes irrelevant commentary, which is something not exploited in the two previous genres.
LP creators can take advantage of various pieces of technical equipment during the process of creating the final product in the form of LP video. Among the most important is a playing device such as a computer, a console or a smartphone (in addition to a mouse or
2 It is a recording of the content of the video game through its whole course, respectively from the beginning till the end, which incorporates live commentary. 17 some kind of game controller, a keyboard, a screen and sometimes even a capture card3).
Then there is a camcorder or a webcam, a microphone and a headset. As for the devices within the digital world and computer interface, they can use a game recorder, streaming software and a video and audio software in order to edit the outcome (add special effects such as sounds, pictures and texts or cut the video), however editing is not mandatory. For publishing, LP players use internet platforms to post it on. LPs are mainly uploaded to the video platform YouTube because it provides the user with more affordances than any other video oriented platform.
A person creating and appearing in a Let’s Play is called Let’s Player. As we now know LP is an enormous contemporary entertainment genre, to the extent that many Let’s
Players acquired large subscriber bases. There are two types of Let’s Players – those who record videos for fun and those whose real profession is to be a Let’s Player. Professional
Let’s Players have become a kind of internet and real-life celebrity, just like movie stars, and have legitimate fan bases. The proof that LPs are on the rise is the most subscribed channel PewDiePie on the entire YouTube with over 62 million subscribers and over 17 billion views on the videos overall and counting.4
2.5.1 Let’s Play commentary
Essentially, a commentary is “a spoken description of an event on the radio or television that is broadcast as the event happens” (Commentary, n.d.). Regarding LP, the definition is not complete and requires a slight modification. An LP video-game
3 A device used to capture the video content of external devices such as consoles or smartphones 4 According to the website Statista in statistics on most subscribed YouTube channels 2018 www.statista.com/statistics/277758/most-popular-YouTube-channels ranked-by-subscribers/
18 commentary is an oral voice-over description of an event taking place on an electronic device and transmitted to another device with access to the internet. LP commentary can be classified as a monologue because it is performed by one person (the Let’s Player), who expresses his/her thoughts and opinions aloud. Nevertheless, at the same time, it contains features which are typical of staged dialogue, since the speech is addressed to a non-present and imagined audience (Rodewald 2017), which listens to the commentary and does not provide a Let’s Player with an immediate response. All of the above reflects on how Let’s
Players construct their commentary and gameplay strategy.
How the commentary and the Let’s Player-Viewer interaction is carried out depends on three interlaced factors – the video-game, the Let’s Player, and the imagined audience.
The video-game forms the core of the commentary because every game was created with a certain narrative, which needs to be followed to progress in the video-game. Therefore, the video-game is superior to Let’s Players. Hence they depend on stimuli from the game to form their commentary. However, they do not have to necessarily describe the exact events taking place in the game, even though the commentary and the game are dependent on each other to form the LP.
The commentary is quite fragmented, but it is important to realise that the fragmentation occurs during some game events more than during others. In the first place, games contain slow narrative scenes or “cutscenes”5. In order to maintain the entertainment value and contact with the audience, Let’s Players in these situations often resort to sharing their opinions about the game and provide irrelevant commentary (stories about their lives or ridiculing some game aspects). Then most of the games contain fast-paced events. In this case, it is becoming harder for Let’s Players to comment, because in these situations their
5 In-game events which are not interactive and show character dialogues or other game effects 19 attention is drawn to the intense events, which they need to overcome to progress in a game. This means that the commentary suddenly becomes very fragmented, the number of utterances of interjections and profanities increases and so does the repetition of the same words and phrases. Lastly, some games contain in-game dialogues, either recorded dubbings or only written texts. With regards to written texts, it is up to each Let’s Player if he/she reads them. But when it comes to dubbing Let’s Players stay silent, only listening to it and occasionally expressing their thoughts during it.
Let’s Play commentary style is very similar to the form of sports commentary.
Chovanec (2018) states there are two types of sportscaster commentary – play-by-play and colour commentary. Play-by-play commentary describes the events taking place at the same time as the commentary, in other words, it describes the event-related actions happening at that time by merely stating the facts. Colour commentary works differently. It elaborates on the events later after they happened by giving background information, evaluating the past actions or focusing on the non-related activities. Based on this categorisation, the LP commentary done during the slow-paced scenes could be called colour commentary and fast-paced can be called play-by-play commentary.
LP commentary is created with the audience in mind. One of the main goals of LP commentary is to entertain and interact with the viewers. In order for Let’s Players to do that, they use certain strategies and activities in the game to deliberately entertain the imagined audience. At the same time, they simulate a collaborative play with the viewers, which already takes place during production and later reception. Vera Rodewald (2017) states that Let’s Players engage in a “theatricalisation” on a virtual stage. This means that
Let’s Players are trying to create a drama, for the enjoyment of viewers, by overreacting to
20 the game, which results in “riffing”, “ranting” and sarcastic remarks. Other entertaining oral commentary includes making up new words, use of profanities and prosodic features.
2.5.2 Extra-linguistic reality and time
The concept of multimodality accompanies extra-linguistic features such as reality, in the form of a game and real-life environment Let’s Players record their videos, and time, in the form of the time span it takes to create and post a video, in LPs. This includes the events and the activities in the played game. And because there is a certain goal in the game, the game changes and so does the player’s progress (game achievements, score, points, levels). Piirainen-Marsh (2012) says that “playing a video game is a complex, technologically mediated social activity in which the game as a material structure and resource shapes the players’ interaction” (p. 200). The game events and the characters shape the players’ experience during the game playthrough and this way they influence what kind of commentary they use. As mentioned, a game is not static, rather than that it has dynamic characteristics that make the commentary variable and its content dependent on the game events. Therefore to understand what is happening when the commentary is being created, it is necessary to include a chapter on extra-linguistic features inclusion in
LPs.
A Let’s Play, in its most basic form, is dependent on the extra-linguistic reality for its linguistic output. The extra-linguistic reality is represented by the game the Let’s Player plays, and the linguistic output is the commentary necessary for the LP. The dependence is however one-sided. The commentary cannot exist without the game (the extra-linguistic reality), but the game can easily exist without it and fulfil the entertainment purpose it was designed for.
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Therefore, it is apparent how significantly the extra-linguistic and linguistic realities are intertwined. From this observation, it can also be deduced that they influence both the content of the commentary and its form, depending on the textual, visual and vocal resources available in the game and on the pace of the game and the events unfolding within. As an example, it is possible to compare two types of LP videos of different video game genres – survival horror video game and strategy video game. While playing the first mentioned the Let’s Player’s commentary will focus on the immediate events experienced, as this genre is fast-paced but also frightening and attention demanding. On the other hand, the latter genre of strategy games is slow paced, because its main focus is on careful thinking and planning, making the Let’s Player’s digress from the immediate topic and the beginning of providing irrelevant commentary as a source of entertainment.
Nevertheless, the manner in which Let’s Players react to this extra-linguistic reality depends on the perspective of each one of them. This leads to the conclusion that subjectivity is a notion one needs to take into account when researching this type of field.
But this genre is not as unpredictable as it might seem. There are certain rules that govern it. First of all, it is the video game itself, as a depending extra-linguistic entity, which functions as a restrictive and guiding figure. The games are designed to be story-driven or to revolve around a certain goal that allows successful completion. However, to get to the end, every player playing the game needs to go through the same checkpoints in the game.
Therefore, it is possible for them to react in similar ways to the same stimuli, because they might predict the game event if they encountered it on several occasions before, but otherwise, the subjective reactions vary during a substantial portion of LP.
Following the point of subjectivity, it is also necessary to look into how Let’s Players accommodate their talk taking into consideration the extra-linguistic reality, because
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“different types of games create different kinds of affordances for action and interaction”
(Piirainen-Marsh 2012: 200). Needless to say, the Let’s Player’s commentary is dependent on the images presented in the game. The language here is put in the context of dynamic actions, and the Let’s Player’s comments need to be coordinated to reflect the game and also the interaction with the viewers.
2.5.3 Participation framework and pseudo-interaction
Each person takes on a certain role when participating in a communication. This applies to a face-to-face conversation as well as to an interaction in media. Goffman’s model of participation framework (1981) distinguishes two main role assignments participants assume in a communication – production side and reception side. The participants on the production side can be categorised as principals, authors, and animators. On the reception side, Goffman distinguishes addressee, auditor, overhearer and eavesdropper. The framework, which was originally based on media texts, can be modified as to apply it to the new types of media. This idea reflects in how interaction in media is seen today. Recipients or the audience of interaction are aware that what they are watching or listening to is an act performed for them, even though they are not in fact present in the same physical space as the those who are on the production side of the interaction (Chovanec 2017). This is also illustrated in Goffman’s note on radio and TV talks monologues which are “not addressed to a massed but visible grouping off the stage, but to imagined recipients” (1981: 138).
In order to simulate presence, direct contact, relationship and intimacy between the production side and the reception side, media use certain techniques to do that. These types of interaction are called “pseudo-relationships” (O'Keeffe 2007: 90) or “pseudo-
23 participation” (McQuail 2005: 444). O’Keeffe (2007) states that in order to achieve a sense of relationship between the producer and the recipients, it is necessary for the recipient to feel secure and ratified and for the producer to create a sense of co-presence, given that they are physically present in the same environment, as it was noted in Goffman’s participation framework. The notion of co-presence can be carried out by techniques such as giving authenticity to presenters’ personas, referencing to their physical surroundings, and change of footing. Other markers bridging the gap between the audience and the presenter include various uses of pronouns, vocatives and other stance and discourse markers.
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3 Analysis
In this part, I will firstly focus on data collection, mainly what criteria played the most important role in selecting videos. Then I will divide the involvement techniques observed in the LP videos into two categories – physical gestures and language content.
Involvement techniques based on visual cues are eye contact with facial expression and eye contact with hand gestures. Language involvement techniques include in-game text reading, use of pronouns, rhetorical questions, vocative, opinion sharing, fact stating, sharing personal information and written commentary in Let’s Play. There are altogether ten engagement techniques which will be transcribed, analysed and their effect on the audience described.
3.1 Data
The material for analysis consists of fifteen Let’s Play videos, of total length 7 hours
24 minutes and 27 seconds (see Appendix for the exact lengths), recorded by three different
Let’s Players. The primary criterion for selecting the Let’s Players was the highest number of subscribers on their respective Let’s Play channels on YouTube among the other LP channels. They were selected because they give a better overview of the norms of the genre, considering the fact that so many people are exposed to them.
Except for the number of subscribers, the criteria for selecting the channels were as follows – the player had to speak English, use a camera to record himself (as opposed to
Let’s Players who record only their voice, because it is possible to track more techniques with the access to a visual source) while playing games and had to play mostly single- player games. As a result of these criteria, the final channels included in the research are
PewDiePie, Markiplier and jacksepticeye. I will be referring to the Let’s Players with the
25 same names as their channels’ names, and I will use the name shortcuts PewDiePie (Pe),
Markiplier (Ma) and jacksepticeye (Ja) in the video transcriptions.
Except for the Let’s Players using pseudonyms and similar equipment setting (the use of a camera and a microphone), the channels differ from each other. PewDiePie is a channel with around 62 million subscribers. At the beginning, marked by 20106, the channel was focused on horror gameplay. Then vlogs and reviews began to be posted, and nowadays the channel is a mix of game Let’s Plays regardless of their genre. The Let’s
Player’s commentary style can be characterised as crazy, entertaining and unfiltered.
Markiplier is a channel with around 20 million subscribers. In 20127 the channel started by uploading horror and indie8 games. This format later expanded into comedy sketches, game collaborations and occasional vlogs. However, this channel is mostly known for its charity live streams, which are usually dedicated to collecting finances for various charities, while he is playing videogames with his friends. Markiplier’s commenting style can be described as hyperbolic with many interjections and made up phrases, but also screaming and swearing.
The third channel jacksepticeye has around 18 million subscribers. This channel was launched in 20129, and it has been from the beginning a blend of LPs of various genres, ranging from playing action over horror to indie games with few instances of vlogs and occasional gameplay collaborations and reaction videos. The video commentary style can be described as overly positive, chatty, loud and cheerful.
6 https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie/about 7 https://www.youtube.com/user/Markiplier/about 8 Independent games created and released without funding from a publisher. 9 https://www.youtube.com/user/jacksepticeye/about 26
As for the video selection, which is the main data source, the main factors influencing the chosen videos were their shared game Let’s Plays by the Let’s Players, in order to compare the engagement techniques used by them. Further requirements for selecting the videos were that the Let’s Players had to play a game which was categorised as a subgenre of horror game genre because such subgenres include slow and at the same time fast paced in-game situations that give the Let’s Player larger environment to use more involvement techniques. The game’s only available game mode had to be single-player as opposed to multi-player since this mode is more focused on interaction with other co-players rather than the intended focus on a player and the audience.
The video data were processed in two phases. The first phase was watching the selected videos and noting down any interaction that even remotely looked as using involvement techniques. The second phases consisted of identifying the engagement techniques based on O’Keeffe’s proposed pseudo-relationship techniques with the extension of some more. At the end, I selected the best transcriptions and screenshots representing each involvement technique.
The game series that were fully played by all the three Let’s Players are Layers of
Fear, Outlast 2, Resident Evil VII: Biohazard and Five Nights at Freddy’s. The chosen video games’ subgenres are survival horror games, which apply to the last three games, and psychological horror applies to the first game. The games are from ten minutes to an hour long (see Appendix for the exact video lengths) and all of them are from the first-person perspective. The first-person perspective mode allows the player to see the game from the narrator’s point of view and allows them to relate and identify with the character.
Furthermore, all the games consist of slower narrative and fast-paced scenes. Thanks to these scenes a Let’s Player is forced to interact with the audience and perform while often
27 being under time pressure and trying to handle the game situations and to keep the game character alive, while frightened by the sounds or graphics featured in the game. This environment leads to authentic reactions and a broader range of involvement techniques produced by the Let’s Player.
For the purpose of this thesis, I will exclude from the engagement techniques analysis of “intro” and “outro”10 video sequences due to their complexity and a clear purpose of using viewer oriented language.
3.2 Involvement techniques in Let’s Play
3.2.1 Non-verbal content
Hargie (2003) distinguishes two main components that comprise an interaction– verbal and non-verbal. Even though normal LP settings do not allow wide range of movement, surprisingly Let’s Players try to fully exploit and stretch the limits of it. Based on the LP videos analysis, data indicate that Let’s Players use physical gestures to engage the viewer in videos as follows – eye contact, facial expression and hand and body gestures.
However, it is necessary to mention that most of the physical gestures do not occur on their own, but they are accompanied by the linguistic content and vice-versa. However, to emphasise their function I decided to analyse them separately.
3.2.1.1 Eye contact and facial expressions
Eye contact and facial expressions appear to be the most important amongst of all the physical gestures. Therefore not incidentally, they are also the most used physical gesture
10 Outro is the final part of an LP where a Let’s Player is saying goodbye to the audience e.g. “Don’t forget to subscribe’’ or “See you in the next video’’. 28 in LPs, occurring during the course of an hour long video every two minutes as opposed to every three minutes of hand gestures. If a person decides to hold eye contact during interaction with others, it establishes a relationship between them by encouraging the involvement (Hargie 2003). Let’s Plays are no exception. In the following example, featuring screenshots from the game Layers of Fear, we can observe how by using eye contact and a facial expression the Let’s Player PewDiePie involves his audience in the LP.
Extract 1 (Pe: 1 – Layers)
01 Character: So I used a razor in fact and then carefully
02 {the game shows the object in the figure 1. and 2.}
03 Pe:{looking into his computer screen figure 1.}
04 Character: flayed the skin…
05 Pe:{looks into the camera and grimaces figure 2.}
Figure 1. (Line 01-04) Figure 2. (Line 05)
Lines 01, 02 and 04 are focused on the unfolding events in the game, showing character’s monologue and the object referred to by the character. In lines 03 and 05 we can see the Let’s Player’s reaction to the previous lines. Firstly, he is just looking at the computer screen, listening to the character speaking. However, the change happens as soon as the object in figure 1 and 2 appears and line 01 is completed by line 04. The stimuli
29 result in PewDiePie looking at the camera, as if he was looking directly at the viewers and that way inviting them to also assess the stimuli as he did.
The change can be traced to the theory of shift in footing. The shift in footing is here represented by the PewDiePie’s eye movement from the game to the camera. Hence, he is looking at the viewer. By looking up from the game, the Let’s Player recognises and validates the audience and allows them to feel like they are participating in the interaction framework, eventually creating the feeling of being in the pseudo-relationship. This way a viewer can be effectively involved in the LP.
3.2.1.2 Eye contact and hand gestures
Among the nonverbal behaviour examples discussed here, there are hand gestures. In face-to-face interactions and during public speeches, speakers use hand gestures, accompanied by other instances of body language such as eye contact and stance, to reinforce the message and to establish rapport with the intention to engage their audience.
The same technique is used to various degrees by Let’s Players. In their immediate reality, they use a range of gestures, as seen below in figures 3-7, which are mostly accompanied by eye contact. Moreover, in LPs, personal quirks and ticks also appear frequently when
Let’s Players forget themselves in the heat of the moment while playing a video game.
These, however, are not relevant for the study of engagement techniques. Additionally to the hand gestures, when their use is compared to the space in real life, people can see full body display in which the speaker is operating. Nonetheless, in LP the gestures are limited by the camera setting, which is another feature Let’s Players need to be mindful of.
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Figure 3. ( Ma: 1 - FiveP2) Figure 4. (Ma: 2 - FiveP2) Figure 5. (Ma: 3 - FiveP2)
Figure 6.(Pe: 1 - FiveP2) Figure 7.(Pe: 1 - Outlast)
First factor Let’s Players need to take into account is their immediate reality and how they can use it based on the camera proximity. That is, what their viewers will see when they decide to use some physical gestures. As they do not want the camera too far or too close, the only visible recorded part is their upper body from the shoulders up. This means that the viewers can sometimes see fully visible gestures as in figures 3, 5, and 7, or they can see only partially visible gestures as in figures 4 and 6 which are nonetheless still recognisable and fulfil the purpose of involving the viewers.
There are two types of viewer involvement techniques by hand gestures in LPs. First of them is the Let’s Player’s reaction to the game and the conveyance of his opinions and feelings to the audience. Figures 3, 4 and 5 perfectly illustrate the first type. Figure 3 is a reaction to the beginning of the game starting with the in-game dubbed explanation of the game inner mechanics. The Let’s Player looks excitedly into the camera and shows thumbs up, leading to a conclusion that he is very enthusiastic to play the game. Figure 4 shows the
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Let’s Player pointing with his left hand to the computer screen, while angrily referring to the unpleasant revelation in the game. Figure 5 is depicting pointed pointer finger upwards is connected with the sentence “I don’t appreciate it” (Ma: 3 - FiveP2). The Let’s Players uses the gesture here as an emphasis of the said sentence. The rest of the figures are more audience-oriented as they directly interact with the viewers.
The second type is a direct address and involvement of the viewer, which is closely tied to the language use. The direct address is shown in figure 6 and 7. In figure 6,
PewDiePie raises his clenched fist and says “Halfway there, bros, c’mon” (Pe: 1 - FiveP2).
Figure 7 shows a moment when the Let’s Player is high fiving the camera while saying
“High five, we did it” (Pe: 1 - Outlast). Both figures share their connection with the Let’s
Player’s celebration of success and its sharing with the audience, using hand gestures as an emphasis and involvement feature.
Although, both types of gestures refer to a different object, game or the viewer, they are based on the same concept of the shift in footing and participation framework layout.
For the Let’s Players to involve their audience, they need to distance themselves from the game and realise they are entertaining other people and this is what they do. As in all the figures the Let’s Players use hand gestures that are during playing video games alone very uncommon, therefore they are addressed to the viewers.
3.2.2 Language content
Non-verbal communication cues are not the only way Let’s Players can engage their audience. The most relied on is the verbal commentary during the gameplay. The situation is the same as with physical gestures, meaning that Let’s Players again rely on the game to provide them with the stimulus to comment on it, be it visual (such as in-game text or the
32 game graphics) or auditory (such as music in the game background or character’s speech).
The involvement techniques drawing on language-based commentary are in-game text reading, various uses of pronouns, use of engaging rhetorical questions, use of vocatives to address, sharing opinions and impressions, stating facts such as describing game mechanics or playing process, but also sharing personal information and engaging viewers via written commentary in LP.
3.2.2.1 In-game text reading
To start with, I am going to focus on the audience involvement technique of reading in-game text files relying on oral transmission. Every game contains a series of text files.
They are there for a number of reasons. Menus, tutorials and texts introduce players to instructions, game rules, game objectives and possible choices they can make in the game and because these writings are staples of games, Let’s Players refer to them during the gameplay. Reactions to the in-game text differ from player to player, but generally, either
Let’s Players can read the text silently, or they can decide to involve the audience by reading the text aloud. They can also react to the text by showing understanding, mocking it or treating it as a nuisance (Piirainen-Marsh 2012).
In the following short extracts from two Let’s Plays of the same game, I will compare the same situation, but performed quite differently by two different Let’s Players
(Markiplier and PewDiePie), regarding the use of the involvement technique of reading the in-game text. The extract takes place at the beginning of the game Layers of Fear. After the initial character´s voiced monologue, accompanied by storm sound effects, the game incorporates a quote by Oscar Wilde. The quote was not voiced by the character and appeared only as a text for the Let’s Player to read it himself. I will start by transcribing the
33 commentary (extract 2.) connected with figure 8 and continue with extract 3 connected with figure 10.
Extract 2 (a) (Ma: 1 - Layers)
01 Character: A way to bring back what life took from me.
02 Ma: {looks into the camera excitedly, smiling and nodding few times}
03 Character: The only precious thing …
04 Ma: {looks into the camera excitedly, smiling}
05 {a quote “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the
artist, not of the sitter – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray”
shows on the screen in the corner as in figure 8.}
06 Ma: {leans into the microphone, speaking aloud dramatically} Every
portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of
the sitter.
07 Ma: {leans back, looks into the camera, still speaking aloud dramatically}
Oscar Wilde, The Picture… The Painting {stutters, shaking head}…
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Figure 8. (Line 05-07)
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Extract 3 (b) (Pe: 2 - Layers)
01 Pe: {looking into computer screen}
02 Character: A way to bring back what life took from me.
03 Character: The only precious thing …
04 Pe: {looking at computer screen, eyebrows raised, speaking aloud}What is
it?
05 {a quote “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the
artist, not of the sitter – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray”
shows on the screen in the corner as in figure 9.}
06 Pe: {speaking aloud with mocking voice} Every portrait…
07 Pe: {mumbling quietly for himself} that is painted with feeling is a
portrait of the artist, not of the sitter… Oscar Wilde
Figure 9. (Line 12 -14)
These two LP extracts illustrate the audience ratification based on the concept of footing shift and participation framework outlined in the chapter on pseudo-relationships.
In lines 02a and 04a, Markiplier is already connecting and acknowledging his audience by looking into the camera, which the viewers perceive as if he was interacting with them in the face-to-face communication. He continues in lines 06a and 07a where he deliberately
35 reads the quote in the game aloud. By this, he again makes the audience feel that they are part of the participation framework, simulating involvement. The connection is further reinforced by the dramatic reading and eye contact.
On the other hand, in lines 01b and 04b, PewDiePie does not acknowledge and address his audience at all, because he is looking at the screen for the entire length of the extracted sequence. In line 06b, he starts reading the in-game quote aloud, but in line 07b he seems to deem the text unimportant because his voice gradually lowers to the point, he is only mumbling the quote for himself to contemplate about. To add to this, at the end, he is not even bothering to read the name of the painting. This is a signal for the viewers that right now, they are not being acknowledged as a part of the framework, because the Let’s
Player reverted to address only himself by not deciding to read the text aloud.
Reading the text aloud is what makes the two extracts different. Markiplier is intentionally splitting his attention between the game and the audience and involving them in the video, even though he could just let the audience read it themselves. PewDiePie takes a different approach and only momentarily changes footing from the game and the focus on himself to the game and the audience, which as seen in extract 3, quickly reverted, deciding not to involve his audience at this point. Therefore reading aloud can be used as a tool to involve the viewers and that way to create a pseudo-relationship, mimicking intimacy of being personally read to. The inclusion in the framework can also be emphasised by comparing the reading aloud to a normal gameplay at home, where a player reads the text only for himself/herself. When reading, players read the text inside their head, not stressing its importance, but when the Let’s Player reads the text aloud, the text is suddenly significant, because the viewer is the direct addressee.
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3.2.2.2 Use of pronouns
While pronouns have a grammatical function (a function of replacing nouns), they can also have some additional functions such as inclusion and exclusion of others. Thanks to pronouns, people can include or exclude themselves or even other people and objects in an interaction. For example, "we did it" includes the speaker and the companions, but compared to "they did it" excludes the speaker and points only at the companions. Let’s
Players use the method of inclusive pronouns to engage their audience in LP videos.
However, since they are working in a two-layer environment consisting of the audience and the extra-linguistic reality in the form of a video game, it is necessary to distinguish between situations when they refer to in-game characters and when they are interacting with the viewers. Here I focus on the pronouns we/us, as the method of involvement based on inclusion with the Let’s Player and the pronouns you/your, as the engaging/addressing method.
All of the three following extracts were taken from the game Outlast 2 played by
PewDiePie and jacksepticeye. Extract 5 focuses on the use of inclusive pronouns we, us and everybody, which include both, the Let’s Player and the viewers here.
Extract 4 (a) (Pe: 2 - Outlast)
01 Pe: {looking at the screen, loud sound effect of screaming is playing,
speaking louder and fast} Let’s hide here. {character hides behind a skin
drying rack }
02 Pe: Ok, we’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine,
shut up, we’re fine, we’re fine, everything is fine, I’ve never been this fine
in my god damn life.
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03 Pe: I’m fine, we’re fine, everyone is fine {sound effect recedes into the
background, voice changes to sweet}, everybody’s happy and fine.
Line 01a sets the situation in which the character is in a precarious state when he has just stopped being chased by the enemy and now he is hiding behind a skin drying rack.
Line 01a is also the first line PewDiePie uses pronoun us to refer to himself and the audience. In 02a, the Let’s Player continues by assuring himself and the viewers of being safe with the pronouns I and we. The interaction is concluded in line 03a where there is again the use of I and we with the same sense of reassurance, but there is one additional pronoun everyone that refers to three objects.
As written above, PewDiePie mainly uses the pronouns I, we, us and everybody for the purpose of involving the viewers and creating a pseudo-relationship with them. Firstly he uses I to refer to himself. This is an important piece of information because it helps to determine that he feels merged with his character, as the game is played from the 1st person perspective. Therefore, he is using the pronoun I to refer to them both. The pronoun everybody is just an extension of I. By using everybody, the Let’s Player is now acknowledging three entities in the interaction: himself, his viewers but also the character.
This is followed up by the use of we, which based on the explanation of I and everybody, it was possible to define together with us that they are used here as an inclusive pronouns including the Let’s Player and the viewers. All things considered, this way the viewers get the impression that they are participating by “playing” the same game and at the same time with PewDiePie. This notion of participation and being part of the framework creates between them a relationship on the pseudo-level. Nevertheless, plural pronouns are not the only ones used for engaging the audience.
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In this example, jacksepticeye finds himself with his character in a mid-action scene.
This results in that he has time to explain the in-game concept of using the camera and to involve his audience in the LP video by using personal and possessive pronouns you and your.
Extract 5 (b) (Ja: 1 - Outlast)
01 Ja: {looks into the camera, scratches his forehead} So your battery gets
used up when you’re using night vision, doing this {zooms in and out in
the game} doesn’t use up battery.
02 Ja: Or at least, it didn’t in the original, so I’ll try to use night vision as
least as I can.
03 Ja: {looks into the camera} Are you with me so far? Are you getting
spooked? {looks at the computer screen}
04 Ja: {looks into the camera} You better be strong for me. ‘Cause {looks at
the screen and pauses for a second} I’m gonna need it soon.
Extract 6 (c) (Ja: 2 - Outlast)
01 Character: It’s not just a cult. It’s two sides. Christians
and…{jacksepticeye presses lips together}
02 Character: Something else…
03 Ja: Really {looks briefly at the camera}, you’re gonna just throw out the
exposition like that?
04 Ja: Just, beat us over the head with it?
In line 01b jacksepticeye starts by describing how the in-game mechanism of the camera the character uses works. He puts it as an example as if the viewers would play it afterwards and he is giving them a piece of advice how to play the game. He continues
39 involving the viewers in line 03b by directly asking about their understanding of the video.
In line 04b you is used as a command for the viewers to keep supporting him, even though for him the audience is purely imaginative and they will be able to watch the LP much later in the month than it was created. All of the uses of the pronouns and their effect on the involvement are enhanced by jacksepticeye looking into the camera. This way, he is simulating eye contact of a face-to-face interaction, thus creating a pseudo-relationship based on the immediacy and direct address. Additionally, in line 02b, he refers to himself as a real-life person, indirectly referring to a physical space where he is playing the game that adds authenticity to his persona. But you does not have to address only the viewers.
Extract 6 shows a different use of the pronoun you as stated at the beginning of this subchapter. Jacksepticeye is reacting to the main character’s assessment of the current events taking place in the game. He is commenting by addressing this character as you in line 03c and the audience and himself as us in line 04c. This only solidifies the argument for that you, as shown in extract 5, is used as engagement feature in LP videos.
To conclude, all of the extracts show that the use of engagement pronouns depends on contexts in which they are used. From the examples, it is also possible to conclude that pronouns indeed are used by Let’s Players to involve their audience in the LP. Moreover, by directly addressing the viewers by using you and including them by using we, they create a pseudo-connection based on these pronouns, feeling like the Let’s Player is really reaching out to them.
3.2.2.3 Rhetorical questions
Rhetorical questions are used all over the media spectrum – books, talk shows, presentations and also in Let’s Plays. In a face-to-face conversation getting addressees’
40 attention and engaging them is achieved through turn-taking, as they have to be ready to react to the author’s message. However, engaging addressees in settings where they are only witnessing an interaction as an audience, not being able to produce an immediate response, is problematic. For this reason, speakers use rhetorical questions. The main idea behind using rhetorical question is to make a point, to draw addressees’ attention and to make them think. Hence to involve them in the context of LP and eventually connect with them on the pseudo-intimate level. The example below, by Markiplier in the game Resident
Evil VII, illustrates the use of this rhetorical device.
Extract 7 (Ma: 1 - Resident)
01 Ma: {sees the object in figure 10.} Whoa, what the fuck is that? What is
that? Oh what is that? What am I…
02 Ma: I don’t know what I’m looking at?
03 Ma: I still don’t know what I’m looking at!
04 Ma: Is that a pair of pants, or is that dead body?
05 Ma: I can hardly tell the two apart!
06 Ma: Whatever that is, it dun look good.
07 Ma: I still...whu {stammers}
08 Character: {moves closer to the object}
09 Ma: Is my brain just not able to comprehend what the hell this is?
10 Ma: Are those decaying pieces of flesh or is that a pair of pants?
11 Ma: I legitimately can’t tell. I’m gonna assume it’s flesh. And not the
good kind!
12 Character: {turns around}
13 Ma: Oohhh it was flesh. OH I should looked to the left…
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Figure 10. (Line 01-11) – Red rectangle added here for visibility
In the extract, the game shows an object (in the middle of the screenshot), which for some unknown graphic reasons cannot be properly identified. A feature that a viewer would not notice unless pointed out by the Let’s Player. Markiplier uses this uncertainty of the situation to insert a commentary loaded by rhetorical questions in lines 01, 02, 04, 09 and 10.
Line 01 begins the interaction and continues in line 02. Here Markiplier points out the object to the audience by using a rhetorical question. The audience is presented with a puzzle, which invites them to really think about the solution with the Let’s Player. They are nevertheless just allowed to anticipate the real solution as it is based on what Markiplier sees in the game. In lines 04, 09 and 10, Markiplier gives the viewers’ two possible solutions to contemplate about, again inviting them to think based on his ideas. In line 11, he answers the previous rhetorical questions by that he is “gonna assume it’s flesh” (Ma: 1
- Resident). This solution is confirmed for everyone in line 13, after the character turns and the viewers can see that the object came from the “flesh monument” (Ma: 1 - Resident).
The extract shows us that rhetorical questions in LPs are certainly used to involve the audience in the video. It is done by facing a conundrum, the solution of which depends on
42 the Let’s Player. The phenomenon of the rhetorical question can also be interpreted as based on the theory one-of-us. When there is created a connection between the Let’s Player and his audience.
3.2.2.4 Vocative
The use of the vocative is another of verbal cues exploited by Let’s Players. O’Keeffe states (2007) that vocatives are very close to “address terms” that “is any device used to refer to the addressee of an utterance, while a vocative is just one particular type of address term” (p. 101). In other words, vocative is used to address a particular person or set of people directly. Similarly to the use of pronouns, it also fulfils the function of inclusion and exclusion from the interaction. This way, Let’s Players can successfully involve the viewers in the LP and at the same time determine what kind of relationship is between them and the addressees. From the LP scope delimited in the chapter focused on data collection, my data set has revealed the use of the vocatives bros, ladies and you guys. This can be seen in the examples below from the games Outlast 2 and Layers of Fear played by
PewDiePie (extract 8 and 9) and Five Nights at Freddy’s played by jacksepticeye (extract
10).
Extract 8 (a) (Pe: 3 - Outlast)
01 Character: {crawls through the hole in the fence}
02 Pe:{looks into the camera} Here we go. {tits his head to side and raises
eyebrows for a second} Doing great so far, bros.
03 Pe:{looks at the screen} It’s almost like I’ve done this before.
04 Pe: {looks into the camera} Thank you, {looks at the screen} you’re so
kind. Honestly
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Extract 9 (b) (Pe: 3 - Layers)
01 Character: {looking at a portrait of a man in figure 11.}
02 Pe: Oh you look hot as fuck man. He look like he stuck a potato up to his
face, like a really big baked potato?
03 Pe: {looks into the camera} Am I right ladies? {high fives the camera}Up
top, yeah!
Figure 11. (Line 01-02)
Extract 10 (c) (Ja: 1 - Five)
01 Ja: I’m good. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it. YEAH! {looks into the
camera and smiles}
02 Ja: {looks back at the screen} You guys believe in me. You guys know
what’s up.
In extract 8, the character has just moved to a new area by crawling through a hole in the fence. Looking into the camera, the Let’s Player is affirming this action with the audience in line 02a, giving them an opportunity to ponder upon the statement. At the end of line 02a, he decides to directly address his imagined viewers by referring to them as bros. Then PewDiePie continues in line 03a by addressing himself and boosting his
44 confidence. Finally, in line 04a he returns to directly addressing the audience as you, where he is thanking and flattering them for watching the LP.
Extract 9 shows the similar situation as in extract 8. PewDiePie is in line 01b directs the character to look at the picture as seen in figure 11 and proceeding commenting on it in line 02b, describing how unflattering the portrait is. The ugly painting stimulates him enough for him to decide to directly address a particular group in the audience, the ladies in line 03b, by asking them the question, seeking affirmation. The question is then followed by virtually high fiving the ladies, that way directly interacting with the audience.
Last extract 10 starts by line 01c, where jacksepticeye is encouraging himself during a scene he is getting to know how the game mechanics work. He then continues by directly addressing the viewers you guys in line 02c, seeking affirmation to the encouragement in the previous line.
In summary, the Let’s Players use vocative referencing to the imagined audience they have in mind rather than the actual people who will view the LP. However, as seen from lines 02a and 02c, they try to use a neutral address such as bros or guys to address all their viewers regardless of gender or age. Nevertheless, sometimes the situation changes as in line 03b, when the Let’s Player wants to call out a particular group of people, in this case ladies among the audience. In all of the extracts, the vocative is used to directly address the viewers with the intention to get them think and affirm what was said and that way involve them in the LPs. Based on the inclusive and interactive feature of vocative, it can also create a pseudo-relationship between the viewers and the Let’s Players. Moreover, the notion of vocative is rooted in the theory of footing shift as it was with the physical features of involvement because Let’s Players still need to shift their address from the game to the audience and vice-versa.
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3.2.2.5 Opinion sharing
Another way of engaging the viewers and creating a pseudo-intimate relationship between them and the Let’s Player is an expression of an opinion and the use of stance markers. This means speech units indicating Let’s Player’s attitude towards a situation, an action or other stimuli presented in the game. LPs are perfect CMC genre for sharing views and using stance markers because they rely on subjectivity, which is a feature LPs are appreciated for. In the following example from the game Outlast 2, this engagement technique can be observed in a scene where jacksepticeye shares with his viewers opinion on what should a school feel like.
Extract 11 (Ja: 3 - Outlast)
01 Character: {is in a school hallway figure 12.}
02 Ja: See, this kinds shit is just fuckin’ freaky.
03 Character: {zooms in with the camera the character is equipped with}
04 Ja: I don’t like it…
05 Ja: ‘Cause, I think why, why it freaks me out {looks into the camera} is
‘cause you’re so used to school being like {looks back at the screen} a
hustle and bustle place, and every time you’re there, your friends are
there {looks into the camera}and people you know and people you
trust {looks back at the screen}and school is supposed to feel like a safe
place.
06 Ja: {looks into the camera} It doesn’t always, but... {looks back at the
screen}
07 Ja: That’s what it’s supposed to be; a place of learning, a place of joy
and friends, and…
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08 Ja: class and learning and all that kind of stuff.
09 Ja: But then when you’re here after hours... it’s kinda freaky.
Figure 12. (Line 01-09)
In this extract, the character is located in a haunted school with nobody around, as in figure 12. As the game intensity is dampened, jacksepticeye has the opportunity to comment on the events which are not strictly game related but only associated. In lines 02 and 04, he refers to the visual environment the character is in at that moment but uses only pronouns this and it, leaving the viewers to wonder what he means. What he means is revealed in line 05, where he makes eye contact with the audience. Here he elaborately explains his idea of school life, which is decisively concluded in lines 07, 08 and 09.
The audience engagement takes place on two levels. As mentioned in the introductory paragraph of this chapter, attitude markers play a significant role in involving the viewer. The examples are in lines 04 I don’t like and 05 I think, which are signals for the viewers that the Let’s Player is going to share his opinion on the matter of hallway from line 01. Right here, the viewers are acknowledged as participants in the video because they are indirectly addressed as the recipients of the opinion.
47
The second level of inclusion is the expression of the opinion itself. As stated above the Let’s Player is sharing the opinion in line 05 to 09 with his viewers and not with the game, as can be seen from the gaze shifting and also the discourse markers. Jacksepticeye is carefully guiding the audience into the participation framework, for them to accept his viewpoint about the school. He does that by first vaguely stating what his monologue is going to be about and slowly eases the audience into the talk, even contradicting himself in line 06, to ensure that he included and that way even involved all the people that make up his audience.
These two engagement techniques complement each other in engaging the viewers, while stance markers are marking and preparing the audience for the interaction, the opinion is trying to get as many people as possible on board. Moreover, the interaction has its base in the change of footing. The shift of footing is performed most visibly by the shifting gaze between the screen and the camera (the viewers), but also by overall viewer- oriented, and not game, speech layout.
3.2.2.6 Fact stating
The audience of Let’s Play videos can also be involved even by a fact stating. This means that during the gameplay a Let’s Player states the intentions concerning mainly the organisation of the said gameplay, but also the description of the overall or the current game structure and mechanics. Together with simple fact stating, this particular engagement technique relies on a variety of discourse markers that enable smoother sentence sequence flow too. Fact stating with some of the discourse markers is illustrated in extracts 12 and 13. There Markiplier is playing the game Resident Evil VII and is firstly trying to explain the inner game mechanics and secondly his actions in the imminent future.
48
Extract 12 (a) (Ma: 2 - Resident)
01 Character: {acquires a herb from the trash bin}
02 Ma: Fine, what did I just get? {views the game inventory with the herb
figure 13.}
03 Ma: Oh, herb, ohhhh okay…
04 Ma: {looks at the camera} That’s that’s typical to the Resident Evil
games is herbs…
05 Ma: Stuff that you can use to heal your health, like that’s very typical
of the Resident Evil games.
06 Character:{walks down the hall}
07 Ma: I’m looking for a save point right now and I think I…{gasps as he
sees the enemy}
Figure 13. (Line 02-03) - Red rectangle added here for visibility
Extract 13 (b) (Ma: 3 - Resident)
01 Ma: {looks at the camera} So the lockpick wasn’t there.
49
02 Ma: {looks back at the screen and sweeps his hand in the air partially
obscured by the camera setting frame} And there was no benefit to doing
it before, because the fuse was no longer there.
03 Ma: Because originally in the demo if you opened the game early, and
you opened {goes with the character to the hidden opened passage door}
this early, there was a fuse waiting for you over here. {directs the
character to look behind the cabinet }
04 Ma: Now I’m not gonna back down there, so what I gotta do is I gotta
figure out a way to get that Fuse #1.
05 Ma: Because I gotta get upstairs to the attic because that’s what
the…Zoe anyway told me to do, so that’s what I intend to do.
In the first situation in extract 12, Markiplier is reacting to the character picking up into the inventory an item that looks like and is called herb (figure 13). The Let’s Player proceeds by acknowledging the presence of the herb in line 03a and continues by commenting on how herbs are a common collectable item in this game series that has the ability to boost the character’s health in lines 04a and 05a, where he skilfully inserts the inclusive pronoun you. In line 07a, he then continues by sharing with the viewers what he is doing now, that he is looking for a place to save the game progress, which is eventually interrupted by the sighting of the enemy. A significant part of the excerpt is purely stating facts of the game overall mechanics for the audience, as the Let’s Player already knows about the healing properties of the herbs. The last sentence also involves the audience, because Markiplier feels the need to explain his actions to the viewers, rather than to keep it for himself when he could leave them uninformed.
50
In the second extract, the event focus is on the explanation and justification of the
Let’s Player’s game organisation. In here, Markiplier focuses firstly on the game placement of the items (the lockpick and the fuse) in lines 01b, 02b and 03b. In these lines, as in extract 12, he comments on the in-game structure, and to make it more engaging, in line
03b, he uses the pronoun you. From line 04b, the Let’s Player starts to comment more on his own activities. In line 04b, he states he is going to look for the way to acquire the fuse, which is elaborated on in line 05b, where he states he is definitely going to the attic on the recommendation of another game character named Zoe.
The two interactions are intertwined with discourse markers. The discourse markers appearing here are that’s, so, because, and, and if. They are integral features of a story narration, in this case narrating factual information. The discourse markers serve the purpose of making the narrative viewer-friendly because it makes it easier to follow the
Let’s Player’s thought process.
To summarise, both extracts show how effectively the viewers can be involved in
LPs by the mere statement of fact. The engagement is based on the Let’s Player’s acknowledgement that people are watching him while he is playing the game. He does that by creating a participation framework where he is the speaker, and the viewers are addresses. In the first extract, the Let’s Player possesses knowledge about the game, which does not have to be known by the viewers. Therefore by voicing the piece of information from lines 04a and 05a, he involves a particular group of viewers by acknowledging that some in the audience might not know what picking up the herb from line 03a means.
Similarly, in the second extract, the Let’s Player employs the same strategy for creating participation framework in lines 01b, 02b and 03b for the viewers who have not watched him play the demo version of the game. In lines 04b and 05b, the commenting
51 focus changes from game description to his action description. Here, he continues in the set framework, but now he is stating facts for every viewer, because the actions he is going to perform are new information addressed to the audience to help them to guide them to understand, together with discourse markers, what he is doing. Additionally, the involvement level is also increased by the use of the pronoun you in lines 05a and 03b. The participation structure allows the Let’s Player to create with the audience a relationship based on a pseudo-intimacy. This means that the viewer can feel as someone suitable to be shared knowledge and game strategy with.
3.2.2.7 Sharing personal information
Another way for Let’s Players to involve the audience and to create a pseudo-intimate relationship with them is when they add authenticity to their personality. Since Let’s
Players are public figures acting for their audience, one might see them as an unattainable people behind the camera. Therefore, it is necessary for them, when engaging with their viewers in the video, to present themselves as “one of us” (O’Keeffe 2007). A person who is average, with ordinary problems, thoughts and experience the viewers can relate to.
Extract 14 was taken from the game Outlast 2 played by jacksepticeye and extract 15 from the game Layer of Fear played by Markiplier.
Extract 14 (a) (Ja: 4 - Outlast)
01 {sees a pitchfork in the game} Take the pitchfork, you might need it
02 {looking into computer screen} ’Cause I don’t know about you, but if I
was in this situation,
03 {raises eyebrows, looks into camera} well first of I wouldn’t be,
04 {looks back at the computer screen} and I’d be out already,
52
05 but my spidey senses would be going {stops speaking} pretty crazy
right now
Extract 15 (b) (Ma: 2 - Layers)
01 Ma: Whenever I think of Patton Oswalt, I think of Ratatouille,
02 Ma: which is my favourite {looks back at the camera, curls hand to look
like a perfect sign and beckons with it 3 times}, FAVOURITE Pixar
movie…
Extract 14 starts in line 01a with jacksepticeye advising the game character to take pitchfork seen in the game, because as it is implied, the character is in a dangerous situation. This way, the viewers see the Let’s Player is depersonalised from the character, and therefore you used in the interaction is referring to the character. In line 02a, the Let’s
Player starts the interaction and involving the viewers. He begins to relate, not his personal story, but a constructed story that reveals his personality to the world, about what he would do if he were in such a threatening situation as the character. The insight, although about imaginative situation, involves the viewers within the participation framework; he assigns them a role of a confidant. Jacksepticeye gives them a piece of information that makes him look human, and the viewers can relate to it.
In extract 15, there is more personal information provided than in extract 14. In line
01b Markiplier stars by associating character’s voice to the voice of the actor Patton
Oswalt, who worked on the movie Ratatouille, therefore the association. In line 02b, the
Let’s Player tells his audience about his love for this movie, in particular, emphasising it by physical gestures such as eye contact and the perfect sign hand gesture. The audience engagement lies, as in extract 14, in the technique presenting the Let’s Player as an
53 ordinary person who, as his viewers, likes completely ordinary things like animated movies.
Both extracts are similar in the way the Let’s Player’s present themselves by sharing personal stories with the viewers. As the audience is privy to the private information, they form a pseudo-relationship. This pseudo-intimacy is based on the change of footing because, for the Let’s Player to connect with the viewers, he needs to step out of the game and reorient his attention on them.
3.2.2.8 Written commentary in Let’s Play
An LP commentary does not necessarily need to be only in an oral form. Although not frequently, Let’s Players employ written commentary instead of the spoken one. The employment happens just for one particular reason. As an LP is based on what is recorded during the gameplay, be it the game itself or the commentary, a Let’s Player may want to add more commentary due to some mistakes made during the playing or just to increase the entertainment value, but cannot because everything has already been recorded. This problem is easily solved by adding written commentary. A written commentary is as equally important as a spoken commentary with regards to involving and addressing the audience. Here the commentary fulfils the role of feedback for the audience. For the analysis of the written commentary as one of the involvement techniques, I will be working with figures 14, 15 and 16 from the games Layers of Fear played by Markiplier (figure
14.and 16.) and Resident Evil VII played by PewDiePie (figure 15.).
54
Figure 14. (Ma: 3 - Layers) Figure 15. (Pe: 1 - Resident)
Figure 16. (Ma: 4 - Layers)
In the first screenshot (figure 14.), Markiplier thinks that the voice of the character that has been speaking seconds ago belongs to a famous actor, but he gets it factually wrong. However, during the filming of the LP, he could not have known he said that piece of information incorrectly, and he only found out after the session while editing the video.
For the sake of the viewers, he decided to correct himself by adding written commentary over his oral commentary, correcting himself this way by the text “IT’S NOT” (Ma: 3 -
Layers).
In figure 15 there is in the upper right-hand corner a square where there is supposed to be located the camera feed displaying the image of the Let’s Player, however, instead of this, there is “WEBCAM NOPED. FOR A FEW MIN. SORRY!” (Pe: 1 - Resident). This
55 signals that there were some technical difficulties during the recording, and were noticed shortly after, and corrected during the editing process.
Both figures 14 and 15 might seem like a technique of last resort in case of mistake or even a feature similar to walkthroughs, but it is not entirely correct. Figure 16 is a continuation of figure 14 and it reads “I´M DUMB” (Ma: 4 - Layers). An LP and a walkthrough certainly share the aspect of written commentary. However a walkthrough is only about factual, unbiased information without personal comment and figure 16 shows the Let’s Player making fun of himself. This way he is giving a personal assessment and entertaining the viewers, which is a feature not found in walkthroughs.
In both similar instances of using written commentary instead of oral, the Let’s
Players are engaging their viewers in the same way, as they would engage them when fact stating in verbal interaction. This means the Let’s Players firstly perform the shift in a footing by means of transcending the game to add meta-commentary, which enables the viewers to be part of the participation framework, as acknowledged addresses of the correction intended for them to read and therefore engage in the LPs.
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4 Conclusion
The thesis focus was on a Let’s Play as a new genre of the CMC. The main aim was to analyse whether the creators of these videos employ unique engagement techniques in order to involve and address their viewers in them, with the encompassing goal of creating a relationship based on a pseudo-intimacy.
Firstly, it was possible to conclude that LP stands in the system of CMC as an independent genre based on multimodal semiotic resources that allow a great variability and for each LP video to be unique. In like manner, the LP commentary shares the same feature of variability as the LP itself. However, the commentary is the one most influenced by the extra-linguistic reality the Let’s Players create the LP and the commentary in.
Together the Let’s Players and the commentary are dependent on the game narrative - the events and the pace; and on the semiotic resources.
The analysis itself, which was built on O’Keeffe’s and Goffman’s theories, was based on the sample of fifteen LP videos of various lengths from three Let’s Players. It showed that the Let’s Players use ten basic viewer engagement techniques altogether. The first two techniques relied on non-verbal communication features – eye contact and facial expressions and eye contact and hand gestures. The other eight involvement techniques were based on the Let’s Players’ language output – in-game text reading, use of pronouns, rhetorical questions, vocative, opinion sharing, fact stating, sharing personal information and written commentary.
The data showed that physical gestures (eye contact; hand gestures) are deeply rooted in the theory of shift in footing. The Let’s Players, to involve the audience, shift their attention from the game to the camera to look at it or physically interact with it as if they
57 were directly interacting with the viewers themselves. This way, they acknowledge the audience as a part of the participation framework as direct addressees.
The language techniques have a similar framework and shift in footing layout, but they also rely on other means of engagement and pseudo-relationship creation. Starting with the in-game text reading, the involvement is based on the acknowledgement of the audience as active listeners of the text being read. To engage, Let’s Players also use inclusive pronouns, which include the viewers in the participation framework as fellow co- players. Rhetorical questions include the audience in the framework from the position of thinker when the questions are posed for the audience to actively contemplate about them.
Vocatives work in the similar way as pronouns, that means that they can include and exclude a particular group of people from the interaction in the LPs. Opinion sharing is used by the Let’s Players as a tool for the viewers to feel like recipients of an opinion. This technique is further complemented by stance markers that inform the viewers they are going to be engaged. Another involvement technique is sharing personal information by
Let's Players with their audience. Sharing personal information relies on the Let's Players acting with a sense of approachability and everydayness of their personality, which makes the sharing personal and the viewers feel like confidants. Lastly, there is fact stating and written commentary. Both of these techniques are based on the same notion of audience ratification as intended targets of address. The fact stating is also complemented by discourse markers, which make the new information and strategy easy to follow.
From the thesis, we can conclude that creation of pseudo-relationships and direct inclusion in the participation framework is crucial for the viewers to feel engaged in the videos. Nevertheless, despite the LP phenomenon being so popular and sophisticated, there
58 is very little attention paid to it by scholars, and hopefully, in the near future, this lack of interest will change and it will stop being considered only as a source of entertainment.
59
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6 Appendix
6.1 Extract and figure code names
Code Link in text Duration Sequence
Pe: 1 - Layers Extract 1. 19:05 [16:21-16:28]
Ma: 1 - FiveP2 Figure 1. 24:34 [0:37]
Ma: 2 - FiveP2 Figure 2. 24:34 [6:28]
Ma: 3 - FiveP2 Figure 3. 24:34 [13:54-13:55]
Pe: 1 - FiveP2 Figure 4. 10:49 [8:35]
Pe: 1 - Outlast Figure 5. 21:52 [17:32]
Ma: 1 - Layers Extract 2. 21:25 [0:55-1:12]
Pe: 2 - Layers Extract 3. 19:05 [1:03-1:20]
Pe: 2 - Outlast Extract 4. 21:52 [15:51-16:09]
Ja: 1 - Outlast Extract 5. 1:04:04 [19:19-19:41]
Ja: 2 - Outlast Extract 6. 1:04:04 [45:28-45:41]
Ma: 1 - Resident Extract 7. 51:53 [6:08-6:43]
Pe: 3 - Outlast Extract 8. 21:52 [13:10-13:16]
Pe: 3 - Layers Extract 9. 19:05 [3:32-3:43]
Ja: 1 - Five Extract 10. 19:50 [14:44-14:49]
Ja: 3 - Outlast Extract 11. 1:04:04 [50:22-50:54]
Ma: 2 - Resident Extract 12. 51:53 [47:00-47:18]
Ma: 3 - Resident Extract 13. 51:53 [33:17-33:47]
Ja: 4 - Outlast Extract 14. 1:04:04 [15:11-15:29]
65
Ma: 2 - Layers Extract 15. 21:25 [1:19-1:25]
Ma: 3 - Layers Figure 14. 21:25 [1:13-1:18]
Pe: 1 - Resident Figure 15. 37:50 [27:29-27:34]
Ma: 4 - Layers Figure 16. 21:25 [1:24-1:25]
6.2 Video lengths
Let’s Player Game/Code Length Jacksepticeye Outlast 2/Outlast 1:04:04 Resident Evil VII: Jacksepticeye 58:42 Biohazard/Resident Jacksepticeye Layers of Fear/Layers 30:03 Five Nights at Freddy’s Part Jacksepticeye 20:22 2/FiveP2 Five Nights at Freddy’s Part Jacksepticeye 19:50 1/Five Markiplier Outlast 2/Outlast 33:37 Resident Evil VII: Markiplier 51:53 Biohazard/Resident Markiplier Layers of Fear/Layers 21:25 Five Nights at Freddy’s Part Markiplier 24:34 2/FiveP2 Five Nights at Freddy’s Part Markiplier 17:44 1/Five PewDiePie Outlast 2/Outlast 21:52 Resident Evil VII: PewDiePie 37:50 Biohazard/Resident PewDiePie Layers of Fear/Layers 19:05 Five Nights at Freddy’s Part PewDiePie 10:49 2/FiveP2 Five Nights at Freddy’s Part PewDiePie 12:32 1/Five
66
7 Summary
This diploma thesis focuses on the emerging phenomenon of Let’s Play videos as a new type of computer-mediated communication. The primary objective of the thesis is to confirm that Let’s Players use in their videos specific techniques that enable them to engage/involve the viewers in the said videos and create with them a pseudo-relationship.
The thesis is divided into two main parts: the theoretical part and the practical part.
The theoretical part starts by classifying Let’s Play videos in the system of CMC and the pragmatic approach used for the analysis. Then the thesis focus shifts to a classification of
LP as a genre containing multimodal features on the internet website YouTube. The end of this part presents basic information about what LP is, description of LP commentary and how extra-linguistic features such as time and reality manifest in them.
The second part of the thesis focuses on the analysis of fifteen Let’s Play videos. The methodology used to analyse the videos and select the involvement techniques is based on the participation framework, shift in footing and O’Keeffe’s study on pseudo-relationships in media. This part is divided into two subcategories – language and non-verbal features.
The first category describes engagement techniques involving physical gestures. The two non-verbal involvement features are eye contact and facial expressions and eye contact and hand gestures. The analysis of language features yielded eight techniques. The seven of the techniques are of oral character – in-game text reading, use of inclusive pronouns, asking rhetorical questions, use of vocatives, sharing opinions, stating factual information and sharing personal information. The last involvement technique is text-based, manifesting as a written commentary after the editing process of the video.
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8 Resumé
Tato bakalářská práce se věnuje rostoucímu fenoménu Let’s Play videím jako novému typu komunikace zprostředkované počítačem. Hlavním cílem této práce je potvrdit přítomnost určitých technik, které Let’s Playeři používají ve svých videích, aby upoutaly své diváky v těchto videích a vytvořili si s nimi pseudo-vztah.
Práce je rozdělena na dvě hlavní části: teoretickou část a praktickou část. Teoretická
část se věnuje klasifikaci Let’s Play videí v systému počítačem zprostředkované komunikace a pragmatickému hledisku využitému k analýze těchto videí. Poté se práce zaměřuje na základní informace týkající se zařazení Let’s Play jako žánru obsahujícího multimodální rysy na internetové stránce YouTube . Konec této části podává základní informace o Let’s Play videích, popisu Let’s Play komentáře a také jak se extra-lingvistické rysy jako je čas a prostor v nich projevují.
Druhá část práce se soustředí na analýzu vzorku patnácti Let’s Play videí.
Metodologie použita k analýze videí a vybrání zapojovacích technik je založena na participační struktuře, posunu v postavení a studie O’Keeffe zabývající se pseudo-vztahy v médiích. Tato část je rozdělena na dvě podkategorie – jazykové a neverbální rysy. První kategorie popisující zapojovací techniky zahrnuje fyzická gesta. Tyto dvě neverbální zapojovací techniky jsou oční kontakt a výrazy obličeje a oční kontakt a gesta rukama.
Analýza jazykových rysů ukázala přítomnost osmi technik. Sedm z nich jsou ústního charakteru – čtení herního textu, používání inklusivních zájmen, ptaní se rétorických otázek, použití vokativu, sdílení názoru, konstatování faktů a sdílení informací osobního rázu. Poslední zapojující technika je textově založena, manifestující se jako psaný komentář po editaci videa.
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