On a busy school day, it may be difficult to attend even the most important events at school. With this consideration, SIS’s media club, also known as Tiger News Today (TNT), began hosting live stream events to make school-related occurrences easier for the students and faculty to access from two years ago. Ranging from the school play “Wizard of Oz” to the Graduation Ceremony of The Class of 2017, TNT has already attracted hundreds of viewers by live streaming more than 20 events through their website. Thanks to this method of broadcasting, there has not only been a significant increase in convenience, but also the viewership of school events in the SIS community.
“I think live streaming is an effective way to let students who missed a certain school event stay updated and spread awareness about what is going around at school,” said Alex Oh (10), TNT member. “In fact, live streaming events actually showed an increase of viewership as more people who could not attend the actual event started watching through digital methods.”
Live streaming, or the act of broadcasting school events through the SIS website, has given people an option to watch campus events outside the venue. Although some consider live streaming a less engaging decision than actually attending events, others believe it to be a more convenient and timesaving option, making it more preferable to them. Furthermore, according to viewers, the proficient quality of the broadcasted videos creates an unexpected yet pleasant appeal.
“At first, I did not expect much from watching live streamed videos because I thought it would be a less engaging method of getting access to viewing school events,” said Junho Huh (9), viewer of live stream events. “However, once I actually started watching live stream videos, I noticed that it is actually a more convenient and smart choice of watching events I missed out on.”
Apart from individual benefits, live streaming so far has shown a significant increase in the number of audiences interested in viewing in-school events. For instance, according to recent statistics on the SIS live stream website, the graduation ceremony of 2017 saw a notable growth of about 400 viewers thanks to this digital medium of communication. As such, the new way of broadcasting utilized by SIS still continues to give every in-campus event more importance or significance as more people start to watch and promote the current events happening inside school.
“I would guess that there was an increase of viewership of school events ever since we introduced live streaming to SIS,” said Samuel Hopper, advisor of Media Club, “However, more importantly, although live streaming allows people to partake in an event while it is happening, it also provides them the prestige and ability to watch an event that has already happened even several days later.”
To further increase the viewership of school events at SIS, Tiger News Network began to upload live-streamed videos on social media sites. Moreover, according to Justin Ro (10), a video editor of TNT, the club started to publicize live stream occurrences through Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, establishing an effective way of gaining more followers on the TNT page and widening the pool of audience. Especially with countless students who frequently use SNS to stay updated with current news, live streaming on these digital sites is still drawing tremendous attention to the events happening in the school campus.
“The first time I got to know about live stream events was when I opened my Facebook account and opportunely saw the live streaming of a volleyball game,” Eric Hwang (10) said. “It was really nice watching the event through a live streamed Facebook video because I could watch the game even if I could not attend it in person. Simply put, Facebook live stream videos are not only convenient but also a good way of publicizing school happenings.”
Although the number of people in SIS who use the system of live streaming is increasing, a portion of the SIS population still do not know about this convenient way of watching school events. With the goal of increasing the number of people who partake in school activities or watch them, SIS continues to publicize their events to countless people.