English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

I stumbled upon a site that might be a useful resource. It's similar to YouTube, although it's focus seems to be more on user content that documents events in ways different from the mass media. It's subtitle is "Redefining the Media." It doesn't seem to have as many random videos as YouTube. In other words, I haven't seen any videos of cats flushing toilets or chasing balls of string. I have seen a few of the "confessional" videos so prevalent on YouTube but these all seem to be vlogs that record commentary on current events. I haven't seen any personal diary kinds of vlogging. Also, according to their FAQ page, after users upload content, the video is approved by staff before becoming accessible on the site's public areas but is still available under the user's tag, which as far as I know is not YouTube's policy. LiveLeak also has some kind of point system to reward users for uploading videos and posting comments and punish them for posting unacceptable content. I'm not sure what these points confer on the user. I've looked through the YouTube site and haven't found anything similar, other than the ranking of videos using the star system, which are user-submitted and different from the point system on LiveLeak. Maybe someone with more YouTube knowledge can provide more insight on this.

So the site is LiveLeak and it's still in beta, so I don't think it's been up and running for too long. I found it because someone had uploaded a video of a CodePink protester being escorted out of a Hillary Rodham Clinton rally. On the front page right now is a video entitled 3/8 Marines in Ramadi, Iraq. It's a compiled video with a soundtrack, so it isn't unedited footage from Iraq, which makes it particularly interesting from a visual rhetoric standpoint. I'm thinking about using some of these in my final project on representing trauma.