Abstract
In first-hand social videos, people who move between the Global North and Global South share their own first-hand experienced stories through visuals and narration and a personality frame (and voice). Within these narrations about societal interfaces, there are stories of human transactions: tuition for learning (talent for tuition), money for products/services, money for travel and tourism, health interchanges, and friendship and conflict. These interchanges may be broken down into three metanarratives of the transaction: >, <, and = (greater than, less than, and equal to), or “who comes out ahead.” This work involves the visual analysis of selected personal social videos shared on YouTube to better understand the visual messaging around >, <, and = in Global North and Global South transactions and what these visuals in social videos might suggest about human-to-human social transactions, advantage-taking, and people taking each other's measure, at the micro (or ego) level.
TopIntroduction
When should a person cooperate, and when should a person be selfish, in an ongoing interaction with another person? Should a friend keep providing favors to another friend who never reciprocates? – Robert Axelrod in The Evolution of Cooperation (1984, p. vii)
The “Global North” refers to developed countries which exist mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, and the “Global South” refers to developing countries, which exist mostly in the Southern Hemisphere. At the global level, there are many interchanges between the member nations within these two general entities: diplomatic, trade, investment, labor exchanges, and others. Those interchanges are defined by more formalized instruments like treaties and formal agreements. A less formal interchange involves person-to-person interactions between peoples from both regions: the Global North <-> Global South. Many have traveled broadly, and many have chosen to share their experiences through electronic word-of-mouth and social video.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Game Theory: A set of strategic approaches modeled using math and applied to different contexts
Global South: A swath of developing countries mostly in the Southern Hemisphere
Transactional Relationships: A class of relationships in which the social actors are self-interested
Global North: A swath of developed countries mostly in the Northern Hemisphere
Social Video: User-generated video shared on social video-sharing platforms