YouTube: The big video hub?
Ian Georgeson and Tyler Gaimanee
Social Media Platform Guide for News: YouTube
As more and more people move away from old media to spend their time online, the method of news consumption moves online as well. news from newspapers, radio, or television is becoming less and less popular among people, as they instead read all of their news on Social Media sites such as YouTube. YouTube, unlike other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, is made specifically for hosting videos at any length, and any quality. News providers and consumers alike have taken a liking to the website, with both fully produced news packages and raw videos being posted onto YouTube every day of the week.
In this guide for YouTube, we want to completely dissect YouTube in terms of how it relates to News. Who uses it, what goes on with it, how people use the website and why they do so.
WHAT:
First created in 2005, the premise of YouTube has always been the same, as a hub for videos to be created, uploaded and shared by people all over the world. It was purchased by google around 2006, and since then has only grown bigger and more popular with each passing year. As of now, it’s among the second most popular website across the entire internet according to Analytics, second only to Google itself. There are well over a billion people using YouTube monthly, with hundreds of hours of video being uploaded by the minute and about a billion hours of content being watched each day. With statistics like this, it’s no wonder at all how the News as we know it today make extensive use of the website.
Several different news organizations; FOX, CNN, ABC, among many others all have their own official YouTube channels, where they upload stories and packages that would typically be featured on Television as well. Instead of hour long broadcasts, videos are a few minute long clips of an exact story to make it easy for people to search for on YouTube. Besides that, there are many, many clips of news uploaded by third parties as well, making it even easier to search for a particular piece of news.
It’s not just the big news outlets that upload their own content onto YouTube. There are several people that use YouTube as their main avenue of hosting their own produced news shows. These kind of shows can vary wildly in popularity and quality. Sometimes, the shows can be very poorly made and garner maybe a dozen views per video. Other times, however, they can have the production quality of a TV show, and have millions of views per video to show for it. In the latter case, YouTube’s advertising can provide enough money for this to be a sustainable way to make income, encouraging continued production for these types of online shows.
WHERE:
So where do these news clips from YouTube come from exactly? For the big news outlets, their clips usually come from their actual TV shows, mostly unedited anymore then they already are but cut up into little clips for easy viewing. Of course, with how easy it is for just about everyone to use YouTube, news clips don’t have to come from just the accounts of big news outlets. Anyone could pull these clips off of TV and upload them directly onto YouTube, albeit they might have to deal with having those videos being taken down for copyright. The same applies to online original news show clips, either uploaded onto YouTube first or taken from other websites and put onto YouTube. These kinds of videos are also subject to copyright claims depending on who does the uploading.
That being said, it’s not even just news outlet clips that get uploaded. Raw, unedited video footage of events can be uploaded onto YouTube by anyone. Footage like this can either be filmed directly by the person who’s uploading it, or it could be something that someone pulled from anywhere else on the internet, such as other Social Media sites.
Speaking of Social Media sites, videos can be spread just about everywhere across the internet after they’re put onto YouTube. Many different Social Media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit, not only make it very easy to post links of YouTube videos to share with others, but even embed the videos directly so that you can just play them without going onto YouTube itself. With that massive user base that both YouTube and ever other major Social Media site has, this makes it incredibly easy for many news stories to be seen by a lot of people each and every minute.
HOW:
YouTube’s simplicity is what allows just about anyone to use it from every step of the way, from account creation to video sharing. Your average Joe can whip out his camcorder or phone and take a video of something and upload it to YouTube. A YouTube account can be created by anyone, including news networks who can create YouTube channels to upload their broadcasts. They have the ability to upload a clip of a single news story, or to upload their entire broadcast right from the front page just by clicking an option in the top right corner. And then from there, you can select whatever video files you want to upload to your channel and upload it straight onto YouTube.
While the website automatically handles the process of uploading the video, you can then go edit in information about the video. You can give it a title, a description filled with as much information as you wish, and give it tags. The tags allow the video to be found by people who search YouTube by those tags. You can then set the video to public or private, depending on if you want it to be seen publicly in the first place or not. And finally, you can then create and/or select a playlist to put the video into. All of these edits can be made to any of your videos at anytime, even long after a video has been uploaded. Those are only the basics of what YouTube offers, there are also tabs for viewing analytics, video editing, comment viewing, transcriptions, and other features all on the left side of the site.
After that, there’s still the ability to comment on and share videos, something that anyone can do with most videos. Provided that the uploader of a video has not turned off commenting, anyone with a YouTube account can scroll down below the video where they can post a comment. Other people can easily read these comments, then do things like directly reply to another comment, or like and dislike another comment so that comment can be seen near the top of the section. Anyone can also go share the videos. Directly underneath the video, right next to the like and dislike buttons, you can click the share button to create a link. You then get options of where to share it too, either to people that are in your google contacts list, or social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit. Besides that, you can simply get a link to the video and a time to choose when the video starts, where you can then copy that link and paste it everywhere across the internet.
This gives people the ability from all around the world to view your news stories and tune in. This gives people the choice to share the YouTube video and post it up to their social media account, then their friends can check it out. YouTube is without a doubt an amazing way to share your story.
WHO:
YouTube is basically targeting anyone on their website to use and follow news, you are able to subscribe to certain channels and receive their “reliable information”. Local News networks and Nationwide Networks both have there own range of content. Local news like WGN News will normally post news clips that have to do with the local area, mostly stories like these:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NvoQIEOt7M. Then nationwide news networks like CNN, will post more important stories that have to do with the nation, kind of like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpi1WZIyb5c. Anyone is able to go on YouTube so there are many networks that can get on YouTube and spread their message and upload their news stories. The funny thing about YouTube though, anyone can start posting their own version of “news” like vlogs and such. So anyone can start sharing their own crazy views, they will start getting shares and likes, and then possibly a big following. So it is a little worrisome when anyone can start spreading false news and raising hell on the internet.
We will be interviewing 2 people under the age of 30 and 2 people over the age of 30. We will be evaluating and see if they receive their news on YouTube, and why or why not. YouTube has over hundreds and hundreds of ways for it to provide news to viewers online. Most news outlets like local and world wide use YouTube as a platform to share their news stories. Almost everyone has watched news clips on YouTube. What social media platform do you use to get your news?
Abby B (College Student):
Q: Do you receive your news on YouTube?
A: Not unless i see a link somewhere from the news I am getting.
Q: Why or why not?
A: I have always gotten my news from other sources and I have always used YouTube for things like entertainment and things like that.
Q: Have you ever watched a news clip or broadcast on YouTube?
A: Yes, i have watched news clips on YouTube a couple times.
Q: What social media do you use to receive your news?
A: Only Twitter, I also have different news apps and watch news on TV.
Q: Why do you use Twitter for news?
A: I don’t really like other kinds of social media sites like Facebook and there are a lot of reliable Twitter accounts that post different news stories. There are also a lot of twitter accounts from newspapers and magazines that are reliable, so i can receive multiple articles from one website.
Beth J (Mother):
Q: Do you receive news on YouTube?
A: On ? No not news.
Q: Why or why not?
A: The only reason would be if it was linked there from somewhere else, tends to get news from other websites, not does not think of YouTube as a source of news rather than just an entertainment source.
Q: Have you ever watched a news clip or broadcast on YouTube?
A: I am sure that I have.
Q: What social media do you use to receive your news?
A: I use Twitter.
Q: Why do you use twitter for news?
A: Because I follow truthful and reliable news accounts like CNN and The Hill.
Faith E (High School Student):
Q: Do you receive news on YouTube?
A: Nope
Q: Why or why not?
A: I do not pay attention to the news.
Q: Have you ever watched a news clip or broadcast on YouTube?
A: Probably not.
Q: What social media do you use to receive your news?
A: None at all.
Q: Do you even watch the news?!
A: Nope, only when it is on in the background.
Matthew K (College Student):
Q: Do you receive news on YouTube?
A: I do not go on YouTube to watch news, only when there is a link on Facebook or Instagram.
Q: Why or why not?
A: Because I only use YouTube to watch funny videos and music videos.
Q: Have you ever watched a news clip or broadcast on YouTube?
A: Yes of course.
Q: What social media do you use to receive your news?
A: Facebook, everyone shares all the news on Facebook.
Q: Why do you use Facebook for receiving news?
A: Because everyone shares news articles on Facebook so I can always stay up to date with the news.
WHY: Over the time of examining YouTube and how people receive news on it, I have come to a conclusion that a lot of people do not use YouTube to receive news. They do not use it like how they receive news on Facebook and Twitter.
Many people will not subscribe to news channels on YouTube to tune into the news and watch the clips. Most of the time people will share the link on Facebook or Twitter or they will find a link on the social media platform. Not many people will use YouTube directly to look up their news articles. My research online has showed me that only a small percentage of people actually use YouTube to subscribe to news network channels and then tune in every time they make a post on their channel.
SUMMARY:
In conclusion, it’s incredibly easy to see why Youtube has had the massive success that it’s had with becoming a platform for news. It’s excelled in every aspect when it comes to getting videos viewed and spread around, allowed anyone to upload their own or someone else’s videos, and made the entire process easy yet fully fleshed out. This is combined with the exponential growth that the Website itself has had over the years, becoming used worldwide by well over a billion people. We have discovered that many people do not use YouTube directly for receiving their news. If anything, they would receive it from a link that has been posted on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Even though it is a popular platform to upload video content on it is not a main resource to directly collect your news like you would on platforms such as Facebook.
