Graduates from Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences deal with the flood of information

Cross-media review of the year questions how we deal with media

In times of social media and internet flat rates, vast amounts of unfiltered news land on users' smartphones every day. This can lead to concentration problems and excessive demands. But how should you deal with everything that appears in your newsfeed? Bremerhaven university graduates Justin Kempke and Tom Jansen asked themselves which topics occupy people and for how long. For their media project "AYR 2023", they analysed Google search queries from the year 2023. The result is a cross-media project consisting of a film and a booklet, which present the topics of information overload, as well as the short-term nature and contrasts of topics discussed in the media. In its final form, the project will be presented as a 3D visualisation in future exhibitions, which can also be experienced using VR glasses. The project team is still looking for cooperation partners for further realisation.

The flood of information that media users are exposed to every day is huge. On Instagram alone, users share more than 95 million photos and videos every day. Over 720,000 hours of video material are uploaded to YouTube every day. There are also other social media platforms such as TikTok and Facebook. Even news magazines and daily newspapers now often have their own websites and apps where they publish news several times a day. Is it even possible to cope with this flood of information? And how does it influence society's behaviour? These questions gave the two university graduates Justin Kempke and Tom Jansen the idea to take a critical look at the topic. "We asked ourselves which topics affect people at a certain time and how important they are later on. We wanted to address this in film and media," says Tom Jansen. 

Most searched terms as data basis for annual review

Together with Justin Kempke, who works as a research and technical assistant on the Digital Media Production degree programme at the university, he launched the "AYR 2023" project. Their first result, which was presented at the film festival in Bremen and on DMP Day in Bremerhaven, is an audiovisual review of the year 2023. "We used the Google search engine as a data basis and looked at the 25 most searched keywords in Germany for each month. We selected two of these and used them for our visualisation," explains Justin Kempke. When making their selection, they were not only interested in the frequency of the search queries, but also in the contrast between the topics. Therefore, in addition to keywords such as "Israel", "earthquake Turkey" and "flood", the terms "Gamescom", "Barbie" and "Wetten Dass" were also included. "It was a creative challenge to find a balance in the density of information and a suitable feel for the film music and editing: Between sensory overload and calm, the individual content and the overarching theme still had to remain accessible," explains Tom Jansen.

In addition to the film, the two have also designed a booklet in which the search queries are presented graphically. This makes it possible to compare the frequency of search queries from Germany for the keywords. Which of the 24 selected terms was searched for most frequently in 2023? The Eurovision Song Contest, or ESC for short. "The fact that the peak for this search term is so much higher than for others is surprising to many people to whom we presented the project," says Tom Jansen. In addition to the 24 selected keywords, the project team included the term "Ukraine" as an additional benchmark due to ongoing public interest. They researched and wrote short descriptive texts for each search term. They also introduced various non-profit organisations in Bremen that have been working on these issues over the long term. They were supported by student Katrin Harzmeyer.

Data volume barely manageable

There was plenty of material for the film review of the year. For their media selection, the two graduates created a table with around 2,500 videos for their 25 different keywords. To avoid having to manually download this amount of media from the Internet, rename it and convert it into various file formats relevant to the project, Justin Kempke and Tom Jansen automated these steps using a programme they wrote themselves. The two editors decided which excerpts could actually be included in the film. "We wanted to include a basic overview of each topic, as well as very contrasting opinions. Some of what we saw was so extreme that we didn't include it in the film out of consideration," says Justin Kempke. The two have left out too many disturbing scenes for the film's presentation so far. In the final version of the film, however, such scenes will also be visually integrated. The film already contains a trigger warning due to the highly sensitive nature of the subject matter.

Justin Kempke and Tom Jansen experienced first-hand what a flood of information can do during their work. For their project, they spent countless hours in front of their screens clicking through videos. "In order to work on the individual areas of the project, we ironically had to flood ourselves with media," says Tom Jansen. At the moment, he is therefore largely taking a media break in his private life.

Cooperation partners sought for exhibition

The work so far is only the beginning of the project. The two university graduates are already developing further visual design ideas and collecting data for the year 2024. They are also looking for cooperation partners to support them with their further ideas and exhibitions. Visitors will be able to immerse themselves in a flood of information using VR glasses. Interested parties should contact tom@pareidolia.studio or info@pareidolia.studio.

The initial development of "AYR2023" was funded by nordmedia - Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH.

The audiovisual review of the year can currently still be found on the video platform Vimeo as part of previous presentations: https://vimeo.com/941306028?share=copy.

They have provided the accompanying information booklet in the appendix to this article.