YouTube: Peoples' Medium

As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of 'do it yourself.'
Marshall McLuhan

In times of media conglomeration and corporate merger, many are branching out into alternative means of both production and content, whether it be food coops, biodiesel cars or DIY video. Since the Millenium or so, digital photos and music stored on-line have moved in on hard copy photo albums and CD collections. The "Millennial generation" that followed Gen X are known as media-savvy multitaskers and "Technology" has a section of its own in the news media.

Now that we are HTML-enabled on this website, we have been visually enriched with photos, graphics and YouTube videos. YouTube, for video-sharing, has existed only since February of 2005 but already has been the source of debate questions for the 2008 Presidential elections! YouTube displays commercial movie and TV clips as well as music videos, but also amateur material. I have made four videos: a Daft Punk concert, a Bush protest, a dance craze in Paris and a zombie event. It was far easier than I would have imagined. DCP reader Ralpheh keeps busy at YouTube with political videos.

YouTube is now owned by Google. There are at least 50,000,000 videos now, according to a Google search and up to 100 million videos views per day. Social networking sites allow posting of videos and they are traded like baseball cards once were. YouTube is also a popular means of band promotion.

2008 political candidates are using YouTube to advertise, both for the major and third parties. It has also been used by candidates recently in France, Italy and Australia. Republican Senator George Allen was defeated in 2006 after a YouTube video clip was shown in which he made racist remarks.

Content on YouTube is supposed to be copyright-free, but this is self-policed unless a copyright holder reports the infringement, and questionable material can be reported. The legal position on acceptable materials is still fluid, and will probably be shaped by a number of pending lawsuits. Viacom, BBC and others all have large lawsuits pending against Google. YouTube does have technology for detecting copies of licensed videos by examining the audio.

I had read about a controversy where teens were recording fights on mobile phones and putting the videos up on YouTube. When looking for something else, I came across threatening videos from opposing Hispanic gangs in LA. YouTube has removed videos, as from the teen serial killer in Finland. There have been other controversies, as in Honduras, where high government officials were posted in videos on YouTube which implicated them in corruption. The videos were considered espionage and privacy invasion. YouTube has also been criticized for allowing videos showing animal cruelty. Spammers and pornographers are constantly looking for ways to get their content through.

YouTube is blocked in Morocco and certain video types are banned in Turkey and United Arab Emirates. YouTube was banned in Thailand and is now unbanned. I did notice that FaceBook members from Pakistan were some of the first I saw to install the application that can show YouTube videos on the site. At a time of political turmoil in their country, the most popular videos they posted showed Japanese rap groups. Many schools and workplaces block access because of productivity and bandwidth usage issues, but savvy students find ways to get around the firewall.

YouTube is now available in language-specific versions in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Poland, Russia, Spain, China, and soon Turkey. Most of these versions are new, and YouTube.com (American English) has been available from February 2005. Right now size is limited as is quality, but larger playback is possible. Sound quality is gradually improving, if special software is used. YouTube videos can now be viewed on iPhone, iPod and Apple TV.

YouTube was originally funded by advertising, and this is still the case now that it is owned by Google.
Videos are classified as: Top Rated, Most Discussed, Top Favorites, Most Linked, Recently Featured and Most Responded. There have already been YouTube Video Awards.

We already have many YouTube examples on this site, and mainstream media even jumps on the YouTube bandwagon at times, as in this example video from CNN, called "How Do Videos Get Picked For Debates":