YouTube: Giving a Voice to All

The Web 2.0 has created a space for many different people to have a voice. Today digital media and social network have qualities to promote a more vocal and open culture. YouTube in particular provides a platform for people to “connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe” through originally created content (YouTube, Community Guidelines). With over one billion users in over 88 countries around the world, YouTube is open and available to almost anyone (YouTube, Statistic). Utilizing the site as a platform for vocalizing ideas ranges from, making a video and uploading it yourself, or simply commenting on others videos. Watching videos on the site can even inspire users to embrace their voice as well. Despite YouTube’s core value of providing a safe place for anyone to have a public voice, there is discussion around the inequality of the space and how some voices are heard more than others. With ease in accessibility and usability, coinciding with today’s advanced technology and the ability to be anonymous, YouTube truly allows everyone to have a voice with expressing ideas and creating content.

In 2006 YouTube was bought by the leading internet search company, Google. Although this transition of ownership kept the “core fundamental principles about serving its users” the same, profitability was a new goal, changing the structure of the platform to suit more of their business ventures (Hooda, 2016). Google was looking to make more money off of the YouTube platform and in doing so partnered with “video content creators, advertisements, the introduction of rentals to watch movies for a limited time, and holding a presidential debate in partnership with CNN in 2007” (Hooda, 2016). These team-up’s with professionally produced content created a hierarchy of inequality between user-generated content and the professionally-generated content. David Carr (2011) says that “YouTube’s home page, which used to be a user-generated free-for-all, now has a clear hierarchy of channels,” all ranging from professionally produced news, sports and entertainment material. As more of this professional content is gaining a place on the site, particularly on the front pages and in the related content bars, user generated content of original expression is getting pushed to the depths of the site and out of view of many viewers. Jin Kim (2012) reported on how YouTube sells homepages and key words to many professional media companies. This is YouTube’s way of making money and larger media companies way of getting their content to be viewed and utilized by advertisers (Kim, 2012). As YouTube allows homepages and video positions to be bought they are limiting the voices of the everyday user-generated videos that get uploaded and can’t buy out higher slots on the site. This hierarchy is creating an unfair space that limits users voice to be heard.

The business of YouTube is looking to make as much profit off their site as they can. Although this hierarchy of paying to get primary positioning may slightly limit the scope of video viewership, they do so in order to say functioning as a profitable business entity. Without generating any profits, the site may not exist all together, hindering voices to be heard even further. Yet, even a hierarchy does not limit one’s ability to utilize their voice or from being heard by a smaller community on YouTube. YouTube is still a video sharing site that allows users to upload user-generated content as forms of free expression, discussion and debate. The site is providing the tools and space for expression to happen. People who enter into the site looking for specific material will find what they are looking for, whether that be on the front pages or not. A key feature of this video sharing platform is how it creates separate communities of people within the single online video sharing community. As a user describes, when “you look at YouTube, it really is 4-5 different communities,” (Rotman 2010, 325). YouTube’s platform brings together users in these communities where voices are more powerfully heard amongst the people that care, making the overall hierarchy less damaging to the voices of users.

Social media platforms and web interactions allow for users to take on no apparent identity. Users are able to operate and utilize the capabilities of the internet without having their personal name tied to what they are doing. Allowing this kind of separation gives YouTube users even more comfort to express their voice on their platform. Although YouTube is a video sharing site where identity may be hard to mask, video expression does not need to be user centered with the person in the video. On top of that, accounts made by uploaders have no direct ties to the actual person, and can be made to be whatever the creator chooses. Anonymity on YouTube is giving people the separation and confidence to state their full opinions and ideas. Hiding your identity helps in overcoming the fear and intimidation that keeps many individuals quiet (Berry 2015, 10). People often times have this fear because of the issues and true opinions that they have, typically opposing “managers, bosses, or governing authorities” (Ibid). This fear and intimidation from authority figures, or other peers who might claim authority over you, makes the risks of expressing your thoughts worse than simply keeping them quiet. (Ibid). Keipi and Oksanen (2014) look at how risk can play into whether or not teens openly express themselves online, and particularly how anonymity can eliminate that risk factor. Anonymity is described as a “tool of social freedom online, especially when the various risks involved had not yet been experienced” (Keipi and Oksanen 2014). Taking away someone’s offline identity can eliminate the risks, like bullying or ruining a certain reputation, that one may experience through links of identity. By masking identity and eliminating risk YouTube becomes a “stage for expression [providing] youth with methods of self-realization and reinforcement of identity paired with the exploration of previously hidden aspects of self” (Keipi and Oksanen 2014, 1107). YouTube anonymity becomes a way for individuals to self-explore or self-express without being scared or intimidated of being wrong and with the needed freedom for that exploration.

Another form of anonymity that creates separation for one’s real identity is creating a certain online persona. YouTube is particularly equipped for formations of online identities by playing out their lives and character through video. A persona defined by the Mariam-Webster dictionary is a character in a fictional presentation, in this case through video and often times acted out by a real person (Merriam Webster). In YouTube, characters, like the famous ‘Miranda Sings,’ can be formed to express ideas and jokes without having those comments coming directly from your real identity. The web provides a certain detachment between audience and creator that “makes it easy to conceal aspects of the offline self and embellish the online” (Bellingham and Vasconcelos 2013, 102). This distance makes it more comfortable for people to make new online personalities without getting mixed up in their real identity. Creating a new character that represent the thoughts, opinions and ideals that the individual is looking to express makes it easier for them to make those expressions in the public. It is as if someone other than themselves are making the claims (Bellingham and Vasconcelos 2013). Creating an online avatar, a digital character, helps as well with this detachment between real life and the life on the web. The expression and actions the avatar makes does not correlate in real life to how you will be treated or perceived. Expression of true ideas and opinions is much easier when there is no inherent risk to one’s personal real life, like a bad reputation or harassment on and offline (Keipi and Oksanen 2014). Creating new identities or avatars on YouTube is so available and easy that with each new need for expression, one could create a new online avatar. This way there is no worry about being effected in any sphere by risks associated with the self-expression wanted (Keipi and Oksanen 2014).

Technology has made significant leaps over the past decade and is spreading across our world at a rapid pace. Beyond the hierarches and features of YouTube, the basic idea of accessibility gives everyone the chance to have a voice on YouTube. Smartphones are in the hands of millions of people, providing internet access and photo, video and audio production capabilities. This increase globally has allowed for YouTube’s use to skyrocket. To participate within the YouTube world one only truly needs internet access. The Pew Research Center found that in 2016 emerging countries average of adult internet users were 54% and adults who reported owning a smart phone was up to 37%. This has been on a steady increase each year for developing countries (Poushter, 2016). Belinda Luscombe (2015) found “Of the 3.2 billion people who have Internet access, more than 1 billion watch YouTube” (72). All it really takes is the capability to create a video and access the site, and as “equipment is getting cheaper and easier to use all the time” people across the world and of different demographics can utilize this service (YouTube- Community Guidelines).

The ease of YouTube technology allows younger kids and less educated areas of the world to actually understand and utilize the platform. “That’s just the data” of YouTube, says Luscombe (2015), it is “free, searchable, mobile,” allowing users to navigate and understand what is happening in a better way (72). Not only is the platform understandable by a wide audience group, the equipment required to be a participant on this video sharing site is minimal and common place around the world. Smartphones are carried with owners almost anywhere they go and are said to be used the majority of the time for social networking, photo taking and video production (Anderson 2015). These functions are the skills that make up YouTube interaction. This basic level accessibility to the YouTube site allows everyone access to the tool, and to projecting their thoughts onto a public forum.

YouTube has created a place that promotes this easy method of getting involved and being active. The slogan of “Broadcast yourself” makes a welcoming invitation to voice opinions and thoughts of your own. It is not a limiting platform in terms of demographics, education or abilities, and gives the skills and ability to be heard to anyone that wants. YouTube is a space that people across the world want in order to project ideas. Michael Cornfield (2006) says that “when a journalist, voter or teenager in another country wants to comment on the seriousness of a candidate statement, she or he can now do so via video” (43). This expression through video often times adds “punch and legitimacy to words” making the voices of users more prominent (43). YouTube wants to give users the easy ability to make a substantial mark on the world, as well as providing an outlet for sharing thoughts and feelings. Pairing the ability to access the tool with its ideals of allowing everyone to have a voice through video sharing, gives this power to be heard to everyone around the world.

YouTube is allowing everyone to have a voice, through easy accessibility and the anonymity or taking on of an online persona. YouTube helps in promoting and facilitating free expression that lets everyone speak and be heard in a public setting. Although a hierarchy set in place by YouTube, making it a profitable site for Google, causes some users to think their voice is not getting heard, it isn’t actually hindering anyone’s ability to have a voice. YouTube is a safe and open place for everyone to express their opinions and ideas or to be who they want anonymously or through alternative personas. Giving everyone voice is progressing our society in a way that makes it more democratic. More voices and more information often times leads to further debate and discussion. Political voices are often heard on YouTube and therefore more people are getting informed and motivated to take action outside of producing a video, possibly by going to vote. Giving everyone a voice can create a more informed society that is capable of taking action outside the screen.

 

Work Cited

Anderson, M. (2015, April). 6 facts about Americans and their smartphones. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-about-americans-and-their-smartphones/

Bellingham, L., & Vasconcelos, A. C. (2013, February). ‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities. Journal of Information Science, 38(1), 101-112. Retrieved from http://jis.sagepub.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/content/39/1/101.full

Berry, J. N., III. (2015, September). The Need to be Anonymous. Library Journal, 140(14), 10-10.

Carr, D. (2011, March). The Evolving Mission of Google. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/business/media/21carr.html

Cornfield, M. (2006, September). YouTube and You. Campaigns & Elections (1996), 27(8), 43-43.

Hooda, R. (2016). 10 years ago Google bought YouTube and everything changed – Tech2. Retrieved from http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/10-years-ago-google-bought-youtube-and-everything-changed-339870.html

Keipi, T., & Oksanen, A. (2014, September). Self-exploration, anonymity and risks in the online setting: Analysis narratives by 14-18 – year olds. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(8), 1097-1113.

Kim, J. (2012, January). The Institutionalization of YouTube: From user-generated content to professionally generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 34(1), 53-67.

Luscombe, B. (2015, September). YouTube’s View Master. TIME, 70-75.

Merriam Webster. (n.d.). Persona. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/persona

Poushter, J. (2016, February). Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging Economies. Retrieved from http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies/

Rotman, D., & Preece, J. (2010). The ‘WeTube’ in YouTube – creating an online community through video sharing. Int. J Web Based Communities, 6(3), 317-333. Retrieved from https://ai2-s2pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/6ea3/7f25174eae5371461abd2e35805bc6a71db9.pdf.

YouTube. (n.d.). Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html

YouTube. (n.d.). Community Guidelines. Retrieved from http://youtube.com/yt/policyandsafety/communityguidelines.html