Flat Earthers

Production
Report

Scott McGloughlin, D00183470

The Making Of
I began this project not really sure of what my topic should be. I decided to narrow it down my terms
of practicality and my own feelings on certain topics that were cropping up in the news across my
Twitter feed. Thinking about things that bothered me, I realized that I was personally bothered by how
much and how often inaccurate information is circulated through the internet, with a particular focus
on conspiracy theories that seemed like they detracted from real problems. Eventually, I decided to
focus on Flat Eartherism, which seemed to be growing more popular online, and while I narrowed my
focus on that for a while, I found it easier to circle back the production to focus on the promotion of
paranoid conspiracy theories as a whole.
I looked at what was popular in these kinds of brief news productions today and decided to base my
video’s style off the infographic-like videos that are popular on Facebook and YouTube, similar to the
style used by organisations like The Dodo. It seemed like a straightforward formula that worked well,
so I followed it. I also thought it would be both easier to pull off and more familiar to a younger
audience than something that resembled a traditional news program’s layout. There was:

• Jaunty music.
• Explanations via text.
• Mostly or solely relevant video clips.
• Most audio muted, save for an occasional voice.
• About two to four minutes long.
• Certain words in the text emphasized with a different colour.

I followed all points save for the last, as it didn’t quite occur to me in time to edit it in first time around.
However, I sometimes felt that the tone of that technique could get a little annoying to viewers, feeling
almost like someone over-emphasising a word in a sentence despite you understanding it perfectly, so
I decided to leave it out.

First, I looked for free-for-use music and decided to use something with a jaunty tone by Scott Holmes.
It wasn’t quite long enough, but I was able to edit it a bit longer.

For the text, Premiere Pro’s text tool was used. The fonts were kept simple and the text was kept large
for maximum readability.

Video clips were mostly free-for-use footage of planet Earth, along with some relevant video clips from
news sites when individuals were mentioned- or at least implied to be mentioned.

Most audio was not used, as I felt it could get lost in the music and contributed little. Vox pops were
used, with a text-to-speech voice used as a substitution when the recorded audio turned out terribly.

The video was kept to about three minutes and fifteen seconds, as I felt my point had been clearly
made at that point and to do much more would be repeating myself. While I could have expanded
more, people are likelier to pay attention to shorter videos.

The opinion of disinformation expert Guillaume Chaslot was also quoted to lend greater credence to my
arguments.

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“Any fact becomes important when
it’s connected to another.” -Umberto
Eco
I particularly like this quote from Umberto Eco in the context of my chosen topic, the rise of
disinformation propagated by YouTube. Conspiracy theories rely on connecting often innocuous facts
while completely ignoring much more prominent ones that oppose their theory.

For example, people who believe that the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers was fake will say “jet fuel
can’t melt steel beams.” While this is technically correct, steel beams which have just been hit by a
plane are quite likely to weaken and break regardless and are considerably more susceptible to melting
than undamaged steel beams.

Theories and Analysis

• As stated by Barthes, interpreting meaning is something done in the instant by the reader of a text,
regardless of the author’s intent. Therefore, I felt the onus was on me to create something and try
to ensure it was as free from any of my personal biases as possible, something that would make its
meaning clear by itself.

• I used theories of semiotics and communication as described by prominent theorists in the field
such as Roland Barthes, Ferdinand de Saussure and Stuart Hall.

• As de Saussure states, language has both an individual and social side, meaning that what and
how we communicate may be perceived differently to ourselves as individuals and what it may
mean to others and society at large. For this reason, I used easily legible text and clear signifiers of
my intended meaning throughout the video to make my meaning as obvious as possible.

• Research into signs and signifiers was also used throughout the video. For example, the many uses
of footage of the Earth spinning (the sign) was meant to reinforce the point that the Earth was not
flat (the signified meaning) throughout the video, the implication being that other conspiracy
theories throughout were false.

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• As stated by Stuart Hall, culture is about shared meanings. Therefore, I used popularly shared
short news clips videos as my template for my video in order to ensure that it would be perceived
as part of a familiar culture and carry connotations associated with such videos, therefore
encouraging people to watch it in the first place and view it in a similar light.

On the whole, I think that my production ended up well-structured and had excellent clarity of meaning
while keeping to the brief’s demands, those being that it strongly resemble some form of news
report. I think it demonstrated that I have a good grasp of semiotics, preferred meanings and
audience inference.

SOURCES
• Planet Earth footage courtesy of Pixabay, Pexels and NASA.
• Alex Jones footage courtesy of InfoWars.
• Trump footage courtesy of CNN.
• B.o.B. footage courtesy of HotNewHipHop.
• Music from Scott Holmes, free for use.
• Intro effect courtesy of Pixabay.
• All footage, pictures and video effects are free for use without attribution or otherwise available
under Freedom of Information / Creative Commons licence. All footage which requires
attribution is watermarked and sourced.
• Information courtesy of The Guardian, Engadget.com, TheAtlantic.com, New York Times,
Newshub.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html

• https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/reason-conspiracy-videos-work-so-
well-youtube/583282/

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 • https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/17/study-blames-youtube-for-rise-in-number-
of-flat-earthers

• https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/18/researchers-blame-youtube-for-the-rise-in-flat-
earthers/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referr
er_cs=GEzJccvioZYBvOTOM4x6Vw

• https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2019/04/donald-trump-falsely-claims-windmills-cause-
cancer.html

REFERENCES
• De Saussure, F. Meisel, P. Saussy, H. (2011) Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade
Baskin. Columbia University Press.
• Doyle, G. (2012). From the Pipe to the Cowboy, MEDAU8002: Media Discourse
Analysis. Dundalk Institute of Technology, Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music.
[online] Available from: https://2019-moodle.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170 [Accessed
11/04/19].
• Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices . London.
Thousand Oaks, California.
• Barthes, R. (1967) The Death of the Author. 1st edition. London. Penguin Publishing.