YouTubers are taking over the internet
Are YouTubers a threat to accurate and safe reporting?
I stumbled across YouTube at the age of 13 thanks to a school chum. She showed me Jenna Marbles’ iconic “How to trick people into thinking you’re good looking” video on her phone. I had never seen anything like it. It was raw, hysterical, rubbish really — like reality TV but ten times more intimate and creative.
Surprisingly, this satirical video launched a career for Marbles, and ‘Get ready with me’ content has become a regular format for beauty gurus on YouTube.
Who knew watching a woman get ready for 20 minutes could be so entertaining?
YouTube became a near addiction for me as a teen. I spent up to five hours watching it every day, without fail — a statistic that does not seem uncommon.
Today alone, one billion hours of YouTube content will be consumed (according to YouTube’s official blog).
Defining journalism
The American Press Institute define journalism as:
the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. It is also the product of these activities.
But I believe that the definition needs updating to consider the affluent influence of social media on these practices. The court said in its judgment:
“the press, in its historic connotation, comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion”
Under this definition, YouTube is certainly a publication.
Placing YouTube in the media sphere
If we consider YouTube as a social network —given its user-generated content and social connectability, then it is as much journalism as posting a tweet.
Tweeting is now considered micro-blogging or even milli-blogging, but others are offended by this suggestion, such as this guy at Mashable. He argued:
“I find it insulting that Twitter is even considered to be in the same field as blogs. The idea that someone can send a 140 character twitpitch or let the world know where about in some city street they are is considered to be blogging is stupid and devalues the hard work that most bloggers do everyday.”
Most popular YouTubers put more ‘hard work’ in to their videos that the average joe does for a tweet.Whilst some YouTubers also write a blog, there are still distinctions between the practices necessary for both.
The news values established in the industry, such as magnitude and prominence, discount the majority of content on YouTube as news.
There is some crossover too — as a handful of YouTubers were invited to interview Barack Obama (and received over 3.4 million views) — an opportunity that all journalists dream of.
Nonetheless, YouTube is a powerful tool for journalists. News publishers can use it to grow audiences, engage with viewers and find/curate citizen-created videos — an expanding field within journalism.
What YouTubers call themselves
Initially, YouTube branded their stars as “partners” describing their cut of advertising revenue, but this became too vague. Co-founder Tim Shey said:
“These people were more than on screen talent. They could write, edit, produce, do community management, and were entrepreneurs.”
Most YouTubers dislike the term ‘influencer’ — likely due to its transactional connotations. It tends to describe those that monetise their following with brand deals or sponsorships — an area that is stigmatised. The term ‘content creators’ is preferred.
The misrepresentation within the press about YouTube
Journalists seem to be threatened. Some stories liken YouTube to alt-right forums; used to disseminate hate speech, gang violence, extremism and even cyber-hacking.
Take this headline published to LBC: Drill music: YouTube remove more than 80 videos for inciting gang violence.
Never have social media giants existed like Facebook and YouTube with such reach and impact on information and communication. We must scrutinise these new global superpowers and report on technology from angles like democracy, innovation, and politics.
Recently, YouTuber Logan Paul posted obscene footage of a corpse hanging from a tree, from his trip to a ‘suicide forest’ in Japan. Within a day, over 6.5 million people had viewed the footage.
Obviously an idiotic thing to do, but the media blew it out of proportion, with New York magazine framing it as the inevitable:
This kind of footage could never be published in the press — and in this sense, the content of YouTube does threaten the appeal of traditional publications.
Technology optimism following the dot com boom has been met with technology skeptics. Tools designed for good have been used by humans in the wrong way in some cases.
In a landscape with lacking regulation, individuals that use these tools must take on some responsibility.
The most popular app in the UK
Despite journalists pinning YouTube as a platform used by troubled teens and children, everyone outside of retirement age use YouTube the most, according to We Are Flint.
For 13-year-old me, YouTubers were the older sisters and brothers that I never had, they were someone to look up to, get advice from, and aspire to be like. For this reason, YouTube certainly needs to monitor content and move away from relying on algorithms, but similar worries have been raised over Facebook.
What is more worrying is that one in three British children (aged 6–17) want to be a full-time YouTuber.
But they have no chance, really. YouTube is such a saturated space that even the established creators are struggling to maintain viewing figures.
No other media escapes gatekeepers and political bias like it. I believe the almost complete freedom it gives is key to appeal, but also the route to its’ problems and fears.
Users get to post what they want and viewers get unfiltered opinions — something we have wanted from ‘the media’ for a while.
Maybe the argument isn’t whether YouTubers are replacing journalists — but whether they should.
Thank you for reading.
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