Ryan Omizo, Ohio State University
2010
Editor's Note: Ryan Omizo's contribution to the special issue on Video and Participatory Culture is a flash-based web text titled "Vulnerable Video: A New Vernacular." Flash content has been blocked from running on browsers since January 2021, but Ryan was able to use Ruffle to recreate most of original content in 2026 and run it here:
https://rotemple.github.io/facultyforum.github.io/vulnerablevideo.html
Screenshot from the original Vulnerable Video Flash content.
From the Introduction . . .
This article offers a rhetorical assessment of the key terms driving what has become known as “participatory culture” (see Jenkins) and “vernacular video” (see Rheingold). In brief, participatory culture refers to a dialogic form of cultural production in which corporate media texts such as television, music, and movie trailers are repurposed by end users/viewers, which in turn influence or are re-deployed by mainstream media producers. Vernacular video--so termed because of its emphasis on mundane situations and demotic video personalities suggest a quotidian, even domestic, aesthetic--is a key constituent of this cultural shift.
But why has this become such a dominant form of cultural production? Why is it that certain home movies, personal vlog posts, and hissing cat videos surpass professionally crafted videos in viewership and longevity?
In this article, I argue that we can understand the rhetorical appeal of such texts through the keyword of vulnerability. Drawing on the work of Erving Goffman, I will demonstrate how significations of vulnerability foster rhetorical transactions in video networks and, consequently, how these transactions constitute a video vernacular, the knowledge of which can lead to a more robust rhetorical heuristic of video and participatory culture.