Here's a wonderful project by ID student Supreetha Krishnan, done while pursuing her Master's at the RCA in London. The project was done as part of their Object Mediated Interactions course.

While I'm not sure if social media has a net-positive influence on society, I can't deny that access to it should be democratized. That is the aim of this project.

Krishnan hails from Chennai, India, where she earned her undergrad in ID at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad.

Physical Tools for Digital People

The Filming Tools

Physical Tools for Digital People is a set of DIY filming tools for content creators in India to understand the reward mechanisms within social media algorithms. Through the use of cardboard, objects found in local stores and tutorial videos, the project allows creators to overcome the disadvantages they face due to the lack of resource and knowledge.

While social media has empowered a number of content creators from non-urban backgrounds in India to gain income, independence and fame, the TikTok ban in 2020 made it evident that creators can be stripped of this income and power overnight. In light of the digital bias present in social media alternatives that have replaced TikTok, there is a need to empower creators from rural communities through media literacy and technological access to take back control over these platforms.

As these algorithms continue to be trained to prefer high quality, high production-value content, how can we democratise the process of filmmaking to ensure these spaces remain diverse and inclusive?

Social Media in India

Screen Captures of Content Creators from India and China

With the introduction of 'Digital India' across the state, access to affordable internet, cheaper phones and content in regional languages was been made available. This has enabled a number of citizens from tier 2, tier 3 cities and rural India to participate on social media platforms and contribute to the creator economy.

In 2020, the Indian Government banned the use of Tiktok. This unilateral decision affected a number of Tiktok users who were dependent on the app. A majority of whom are 18-35 years old from Tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Tiktok's success could be attributed to its simple interface that overcame a language barrier, its library of regional music, easy editing tools and capacity to function on low internet speeds. These were features that other platforms (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook) were missing. Insta's 'Reels' displayed a number of biases that could leave content creators from marginalised backgrounds disadvantaged.

Internet nationalism and the restricted access to social media in India is not an isolated incident but global occurrence that often goes unquestioned.

Democratising Filming Tools

Social media platforms rely on user-generated content and have been successful in decentralising content creation. However in order to cater to urban audiences, the algorithms display a preference to movie like, high quality, heavily curated content that requires special and expensive equipment in turn reducing the number of people who can participate and the diversity on the platforms.

Through the use of recycled cardboard and other packaging a number of low tech versions of the existing filming tools commonly used by creators were designed. Each filming tool is accompanied by a instructable that explains a certain aspect and reward mechanism of the algorithms on current social media platforms. Each tool offers a chance to learn about content creation filming as well has how the technology you own can affect your digital presence.

The project has wider implications for the future of connectivity and mobile phone technology. The next couple of years will heavily dictate the freedom and flexibility digital spaces will have to offer. This project speaks to the need to consider people from all corners of the world when we make these decisions.

A Growing Material Library

Cardboard joinery 1

Cardboard joinery 2

Cardboard joinery 3

Cardboard joinery 4

Cardboard joinery 5

Material Library of Found Objects

Borrowing from the format of OpenStructures, the project intends to grow into a library of crowdsourced materials and cardboard templates that could be combined in different ways to create a variety of filming tools.

The material library will populated by content creators to share their ideas with other content creators. This can very much be popularised via the existing DIY culture on platforms like Reels and Tiktok.

Media Literacy

DIY Short Form Tutorials

User Testing – The toolkit was shipped to India for content creators to assemble and film with. A number of aspects of the prototypes were tested. Including details, affordances and the tutorial formats. Their feedback was incorporated into the final prototypes.

Instructables – Speaking with content creators who experienced the TikTok ban, it was interesting to see how they navigate these spaces and what their understanding of the algorithm on these platforms are. It came to light how much they have learned simply through observation of how other content creators use these platforms. A number of experts helped me with my research and provided me with feedback at various points of the project.

Video Tutorial Excerpts

Dissecting the algorithm and making this information tangible is central to this project. Instructables and DIY TikTok videos were designed for each filming tool to inform content creators of how their films can perform better on these platforms. Ultimately, these set of tools and Instructables make content creation equipment more accessible in order to inspire more creation by being DIY and low-tech.