Social Media Video Content as a New Toolkit for Screen Arts

Abstract

The influence of social networks turned out to be much stronger and more serious than one could have imagined 10 years ago, it drastically changed the structure of society and the model of social ties within it. And, as it is well known, the models of public relations inevitably influenced cinema throughout its existence.
The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the problem of integrating social networks into cinema has been very little studied. Thus, the main theoretical premise of the present paper is to use the study of social networks as an integral part of the modern media space to identify the main points of their interaction with cinema, to consider how the new audience perception affects film production and film business, as well as to determine the vector of further development of the modern film process. Of significant interest are the parallels between the live-action and non-live-action forms of cinema, which are embodied in two leading social networks: Instagram is a live-action form where all the consumed content is staged, whereas TikTok meets the basic requirements for a documentary (the most popular videos are the most truthful real-life images that capture the moment and reveal some instant of reality).
Psychologists are sure that in the new reality, when people are looking for new guidelines and are defining new norms for themselves, social networks are becoming a most important vector.
An interesting phenomenon is related to the fact that many filmmakers in the classical sense of the word are drifting into the digital space. Thus, in 2019, Boris Khlebnikov’s “Storm” received The Digital Reporter’s award “Best Internet Series”.
A marker of the era: the iconic auteur director of the 2000s completed the transition from the big screen through television to the smartphone screen in two years. This, in turn, reflects upon modern filmmaking. These changes in the norms of perception give rise to new forms of film idiom.