When analyzing the videos they took note of what the videos
appear to be and where they appear to be from to see how content might be perceived
and function within the site. They selected the videos from the four categories
(listed above) so that they could compare across categories to get a sense of
the way different kinds of video were made popular by audiences.
Actual Charts from the Book |
Under the subtopic of The Two YouTubes, Burgess and Green
again bring up the two frameworks that coexist in the site:
Ø
Top-down framework (traditional media)
Ø
Bottom-up framework (user-created content)
About 50% of the content they analyzed was user-created. 42%
was from traditional media sources, and the other 8% was of uncertain origin or
had been removed before analysis was complete. Burgess and Green then spend
significant time breaking down the four categories and analyzing which types of
videos show up in each. In the end, they report that “there is a great deal of
slippage between the categories of traditional media and user-created content”
(47).
Moving onto Clips and Quotes: Uses of Traditional Media
Content, Burgess and Green report that YouTube really only makes sense if it is
seen as something people use in everyday life. Utilizing the framework of participatory
culture, audiences can respond to culture without going to auxiliary media
sources.
YouTube is filled with short “quotes” of content that users
share to draw attention to programs. They are not intended to be seen as an
attempt at file sharing, but rather as a way people can “catch up on public
media events . . . break news stories, and raise awareness” (49). At the time
of the research (2007/2008) there were also vast amounts of presidential
campaign footage because YouTube was a site where both top-down and grass roots
campaigning could occur.
YouTube can help you see what you missed:
A short clip from the President's response to the Connecticut shooting.
Blogger, Jenna Mourey, isn't afraid to go there. |
Burgess and Green then move on to talk about the vlog which
is almost an emblematic form of YouTube participation. Vlogs are the
cornerstone of participatory culture because creators address the audience
directly, they invite feedback, discussion, and debate more than any other
video type that Burgess and Green could find. Vlogs were also on occasion used
as business ventures.
At the end, Burgess and Green report that to understand
YouTube it is helpful not to draw a sharp line between user-created content of
professional/traditional content. YouTube is more easily thought of as a
continuum of cultural participation where everyone who uploads content is a
participant and all activities of content creators and audiences are practices
of participation.
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