Page 417 - RUICHSS 2023 Proceeding

University of Ruhuna ISSN: 2706-0063
Matara, Sri Lanka

interested in clicking on their video, without having a concretely defined recipient. They are

addressed to everyone in the community or the platform on which the video is posted, such
as YouTube. In Romania, vlogging appeared in 2011, being defined as a video diary

containing thoughts, opinions or experiences filmed and then published on the Internet

(Băcescu-Condruz, 2017).

Vlogging has become popular among young people and not only for reasons that offer
people, regardless of age, profession, political or religious orientation, the opportunity or a

way out of anonymity and highlighted passions. This has brought a development of

personality with it. In addition, vlogging has helped to promote deeper and more personal
connections between creators and different segments of the public, with vloggers constantly

creating content based on their life stories. This attracts followers, as some find themselves
in these stories, while others tend to shape their lives according to the creator's account of

their experience. Luszczynska and Schwarzer (2005) argued that social cognitive theory
partially accounts for users' reliance on video content, their manifestation of certain content

producers, their behaviour on the video platform, and how their real-life manners are

influenced by the content they watch. Unexpectedly, watchers often apply new behaviours
after watching specific content creators and observing their actions. To attract a consistent

number of followers, vloggers resort to editing videos (Biel and Perez, 2011); however,
avoiding the overuse of editing software can be a strength, as the vlogger's choice to present

themselves in a video without filters conveys the idea of honesty and sincerity

(Andymooseman, 2008).

A social issue directly concerns both vlogging and vloggers is the trade-off between
copyright protection and consumer privacy versus the free use and circulation of information.

Vlogging offers the opportunity to document; express opinions and emotions; and freely

articulate ideas in expressive video content. However, this does not mean that vloggers can
freely distribute anything that may be related to private or commercial rights without

permission. There are various ways in which confidential data in vlogs, for example,
signatures can be protected. One such method is encryption, a technique by which data

358