"6 Minutes of Law": a video format success for the University of Bayreuth

Almost 5,500 subscribers on YouTube, more than 1,700 followers on Instagram, more than 250,000 clicks in 2021: what Prof. Dr. Knut Werner Lange and his team from the Civil Law V research group have achieved in recent years is certainly impressive. But there is a lot of work that goes into the six-minute clips.

"We work with relatively simple means," explains Prof. Lange. A lot of it was "learning by doing". Nevertheless, it means an enormous amount of time and effort. Katharina Schedel and Tamara König spend ten to twelve hours on post-production. That means they edit the film, add graphics and give it the typical "6 Minutes of Law" design. The two young women are lawyers as well, and not trained in video editing or anything like that. "I brought some experience with me from the private sector," Schedel explains. "And when you watch the videos so often, it's like a learning unit, you're constantly repeating the material that will eventually become relevant for the exam," König adds with a laugh.

The two students seem to enjoy working in Professor Lange's video team. And they are not alone in this. Two other members of staff are involved in the production of the videos. Michael Putz and Nicolas Kretschmann are both doing their doctorates at the Civil Law V research group, and are being supervised while recording. "In the beginning, we printed out the text spoken by Professor Lange in large print and held it out, but in the meantime, we have set up a kind of teleprompter," Kretschmann reveals. The actual content of the videos, however, is a "matter for the boss".

"But we are always exchanging ideas," says Lange. He is happy to accept ideas or suggestions. In the beginning, he processed the content of his own lectures. "But the idea came long before the coronavirus, in fact, from the student council," he explains. "That's when the desire arose for a lecture to be recorded." However, it quickly became clear that the attention curve quickly dropped and hardly anyone watched a complete lecture. "The videos are not intended to replace an entire lecture," Lange emphasises. "We see it more as a support tool, for example if you want to revise something." And that is going down well with the students.

The number of views of the videos fluctuates enormously. "Sometimes we think the video will definitely get a good number of clicks, then that's not the case at all. With other topics, we think it's not quite as captivating and then the numbers are very high," Lange explains. The access figures, which were around 250,000 views last year, have stabilised in the meantime. "But I would already say our channel was one of the winners out of the coronavirus," Lange says with a laugh. Especially during the time when no face-to-face events could take place, the access numbers increased enormously.

Despite the many positive reactions, it is a lot of time and dedication that Professor Lange and his team put into the videos, and there are a few negative voices, too. "Of course, everything that takes time costs money in the end," he says. It has to be weighed up to what extent our production rate - currently three videos per month - can be maintained. However, Lange does not want to completely give up the short explanatory videos, which are just as compelling for non-lawyers. "At the end of the day, I'm a university teacher," he explains. "That means we are there to teach. And that includes developing new forms of teaching." Lange is convinced that professors need to move away from simply giving a lecture. For example, he wants to bring in experts for certain areas from the real world more and more regularly to provide bursts of fresh ideas in his lectures. "At the moment, that still requires a lot of technical effort and doesn't work in every lecture hall," he says. "But I'm convinced that we as a university will have to get involved with technical developments much more quickly."

The plans for this year's videos are already in place, by the way. And in addition to the classic topics that already take up a lot of space in university timetables, something more "everyday" will soon be on the agenda. "Sometimes we simply deal with well-known court decisions. The next topic will be the well-known sign 'No liability for left items” in the cloakroom," reveals the chair. So, it's worth subscribing to the channel - even for people unconnected with the field.