2. YouTube allows billions of
people to discover watch and
share originally–created videos
Statistics
• Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
• 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
• Traffic from mobile devices tripled in 2011
• More than 20% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices
• More than 50% of videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from
the community
3. Citizen journalism
The Public Sphere
Changing role of mainstream media
4. Jay Rosen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYSmRZuep4
Citizen Journalism
The act of a citizen, or a group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of
collecting analyzing and disseminating news and information…[in order to]
provided independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information
that a democracy requires
Bowman and Willis (2003) in Antony and Thomas (p1284)
5. Habermas:
A sphere which ‘mediates between society and
state, in which the public organizes itself as the
bearer or public opinions ‘
Habermas (p50)
born around ‘sociological and
phenomenological fault lines…the public and
the private…experts and citizens…the moral
and the ethical’
Goode in Garnham (p208)
6. Plurality of contemporary social spaces
Modern societies can not be seen as
homogenous or integrated on issues of public
concern
Participatory media technologies that allow for
the creation and distribution of content
7. Watch Dogv Guard Dog
Media as the 4th Estate Media protecting the interests
of the powerful
8. The press is at once the eye and the ear of the
people. It is the visible speech, if not the voice
of democracy…there is no such democratic
debating place as in the columns of the press
WT Stead in Schultz (1998)
9. Discussion topic:
• How do you interact with YouTube?
o For what purposes do you use YouTube?
o Has YouTube replaced mainstream news media as a
source of news?
10. On 01.01.09, a group of young men were pulled
from a train car at Oakland, California, and
handcuffed
Grant was seized and pressed facedown on the
platform, then shot in the lower back
Footage was recorded by multiple train
passengers
Transit officers attempted to confiscate all
cellphone recordings
11. Goal: to interrogate the manner in which unfiltered
media generated by non-media professionals is
received by members (citizens) of the general
public
Analysis of viewer comments of videos – focusing
only on comments that directly addressed the act
of recording the event
Used Orbe and Kinefuchi’s model of critical
thematic analysis:
Repetition
Recurrence
forcefulness
12. Oscar Grant Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXWSgG-KNng&feature=related
What was your initial reaction to the
video, considering the research focus
of Antony and Thomas?
13. Those who approved of the pro-active
recording of Grant’s death
Appreciation for modern communications
technologies
Internet as a platform for protecting citizen rights
and liberties
Admiration and support for citizen journalism,
while advocating a need for caution
14. Those who were critical of the video recording
of Grant’s death
Poor quality of recording
Passivity of bystanders
15. Bentley, C. H. (2011). Citizen journalism: Back to the future? Geopolitics, History and International Relations, 3(1), 103-
118
Garnham, N 2007 Habermas and the public sphere Global Media and Communitcation 3: p201
Goode, L Social news, citizen journalism and democracyNew Media Society 2009 11: 1287
http://www.groundreport.com/content.php?section=about
Habermas, J 1974 The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964) New German Critique 1(3) pp 49-55
Schultz, J 1998 ‘Redefining the fourth estate’ in Reviving The Fourth Estate: Democracy, Accountability and the Media,
Cambridge; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
http://www.youtube.com/t/about_youtube
http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXWSgG-KNng&feature=related (Oscar Grant video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlwMWY5PG8&feature=related (Rachael Stern interview)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYSmRZuep4 (Jay Rosen)
