As the network speeds of a region’s cellular data infrastructure increase, so does the viability of livestreaming quality video from a mobile phone. From the US to Ukraine and beyond people are increasingly using livestreaming to document and report on local events. My final project will look at a subset of livestreamers, who I identify as “civic livestreamers,” and describe a new platform I have been researching and designing to augment and enhance their efforts to distribute information that is relevant to the public sphere. I will argue that current streaming platforms have poor viewing experiences, and that engagement and participation could be increased through re-imagining livestreaming from a civic perspective.

My final project will have several components, the first of which will be an analysis of how we might conceptualize the activities of these civic livestreamers. From the broadcaster, co-participant, and viewer perspectives, how does this activity fit with traditional conceptions of the media, professional journalism, independent journalism, citizen journalism, and documentary? Civic livestreaming is partly an act of disintermediation, as streamers refuse to cede representational and narrative authority to the mainstream media, preferring to create their own narratives and video footage. This view is supported through interviews with livestreamers and their statements on social media. In this sense civic livestreaming seems to be part of a response to the failure of traditional media outlets to cover certain events, or a dispute over how certain events are portrayed.

For co-participants, civic livestreaming is a more contested activity. There is concern that livestreamers may be informants (knowingly or unknowingly), and there is an unwillingness to cede narrative authority to a single co-participant. There is also some belief that livestreamers care more about their viewing audience than their co-participants and that they expose participants to greater risk of arrest. This complicates the civic function of livestreamers and is worth examining in more detail. Further research will also be required to understand whether a significant portion of viewers of civic livestreams are actively engaged in seeking out alternative narratives about an event, or if they are simply looking for the more immediate and authentic experience of an event that is enabled by livestreaming.

After looking at conceptual frames for civic livestreaming from various perspectives I will also consider how effective it can be at creating change. Part of this relates to the difference between having a voice and having influence or power. I will examine how civic livestreamers try to increase their influence, and whether there are examples of change resulting from livestreaming. Some of the influence or power of civic livestreaming may also be based on the possibility of documenting human rights violations. Is such documentation an effective way to create change?

A third component of my project will be a close look at existing streaming platforms, considering whether they succeed or fail in creating communities based on civic values and principles of the networked public sphere, including increasing participation, openness, transparency, and interaction. These same values will be used to discuss design principles and features of my proposed platform. As an example, interaction on existing streaming platforms like Livestream.com and UStream.tv currently consists of a chat window (if the broadcaster enables chat), a Twitter feed (also if configured), and the ability to share a url of the stream on popular social media platforms. There is also various social-media-type functionality built into these platforms, for example if users create an account, they can “follow” and “like.” As discussed below, my platform can incorporate these features, but also creates new categories of interaction and participation.

I will include a description and prototype of my proposed platform, which seeks to enhance the experience of watching a livestream by creating a way for someone to add relevant contextual information to a stream. This information might include tweets or hashtags, blog posts or news stories, maps or timelines for key events, or even music, images, or gifs related to the event. In this sense it creates a new role in the streamer-viewer ecosystem, that of the curator. I will examine the values embedded in this role, which includes extending the sphere of participation in a livestream event beyond what current platforms allow. Curators are likely to be people who are sufficiently interested in, and motivated by, the events in a civic livestream that they want to contribute to the public perception and discussion of what is happening beyond sharing it on social media. This creates an opportunity to participate in a meaningful way for people who are unable to join the event either because of physical distance or other reasons.

The design process for this website includes interviews with people who both broadcast and watch livestreams. In addition to seeking to understand some of the motivations for these activities, I will also ask some streamers to suggest specific features they would like to see, and what features they don’t like in existing platforms. Paper prototyping for the platform involved scenario-based co-design with two individuals. This falls short of a full participatory design process, and final decisions will be made by the design team, but it does value user input from an early stage and will incorporate user feedback throughout the design process.

Civic livestreams are an emotionally engaging way to watch important events, but the user experience on current sites is poor. There is limited opportunity to participate, streams are hard to find, and viewers often start searching for further information about the event shortly after they start watching, leaving the streaming site and browsing elsewhere. The platform I discuss for my final project aims to increase viewing time and viewer engagement by including an authoring platform where information can be added to a livestream. This creates the possibility of wider participation and increased impact. It also creates a more direct ladder of engagement for livestreaming, where people can move from being passive viewers to active contributors, even if they are not physically present where events are happening. It therefore promotes the ideal that anyone who can livestream can create their own narrative of an event, that this narrative can be amplified and supported by other people without mainstream media, and that people can thereby bring attention to events they feel are important, enriching the networked public sphere with new perspectives and information from events that mainstream media may misrepresent or simply does not cover.