How can we find out if ‘End of Times’ videos have an impact on people?
Have you noticed the amount of ‘End of Times’ videos on youtube? Simply put there are a lot of them. A quick google search can bring up thousands of different videos all ranging from five minutes to an hour. One of the most popular channels out there is Jason A with their videos gathering as much as 200 thousand to 400 thousand views. The channel ‘s videos are composed of snippets of news or other sources. Another popular channel is THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. His videos are more conspiracy based and he gathers the same amount of views. Videos of this nature tend to cover different topics such as religious ideas to natural disasters, and almost all of them have clickbait titles such as ‘The Biggest Cover Up in History!’ or ‘This Just Happened In Russia, And The “5G Event” Might Have Something To Do With It’.
However, it begs to ask the question of whether these videos have an effect on the viewer. Do they alter the viewer's view of the world? Are viewers more afraid of what is happening to the world and do they, the viewers, actually think we are close to the ‘End’? What impact do these videos really have on the viewer?
In my media theory and criticism class, we discussed some scientific methods that can help researchers figure out if these types of videos have an impact on the viewer or not. One thing that can be done is a content analysis. This way researchers can find out what content these videos have. Researchers can code through the content looking for key themes, ideas and count how many times they appear throughout the videos.
After researchers have the findings of the content analysis they can move to the next phase of research and do a survey. Researchers can make a survey that asks the viewers their thoughts about the world. Another thing that can be asked is the viewer's opinion on events in order to discover if they already have a negative or positive view of the world. This survey should be done before doing any experiments.
Afterward, an experiment should be conducted with a random sample of participants. In this experiment, the researchers should have the participates watch some of the ‘End of Times’ videos over a period of time. Following each time the participants view a video the researchers should ask a set of questions to help see what the viewer thought of the video. Periodically the participants should be given the same survey they did at the beginning in order to track any changes that may appear in their views. At the end of the experiment, they should do the survey again.
Once the researchers have done a content analysis, some surveys, and an experiment they will be able to see if those types of videos have an impact on the viewer or not. Even if they don’t find anything significant it will still be interesting to see what they find out about these ‘End of times’ type of videos and the viewer's opinion about them.
