Creating a News Show Together

Creating a News Show Together

An Examination of the Influence of Questions on an Active

Participatory Culture in the Philip DeFranco Show

By Frans Snackers (2061023)

Dr M. Esteve Del Valle

Dr H.B.M. Wijfjes

MA Mediastudies, Journalism

16/01/2018

1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr Esteve Del Valle, for his exquisite guidance during the

process of writing this thesis and equally as much for his incredible patience.

I want to thank my parents, for always being willing to reflect ideas to me and for willingly serving as

my proof readers.

And last but not least, Gitta, for enabling me to write this thesis in three different countries and the

endless list of other ways in which you have helped me complete this piece of work.

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 1 INTRODUCTION ... 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 5 NETWORK THEORY ... 5 DIGITAL NETWORKS ... 5 VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES ... 6

THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF NEWS PRODUCTION ... 8

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNS) ... 9

IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION ... 12

EFFECTS ON NEWS PRODUCTION... 13

CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND USER GENERATED CONTENT ... 14

YOUTUBE ... 16

WHAT IS YOUTUBE ... 16

YOUTUBE AS A SOCIAL NETWORK SITE ... 18

YOUTUBERS AND VLOGGING ... 19

YOUTUBE AND NEWS CONTENT... 21

PARTICIPATORY CULTURE ON YOUTUBE ... 22

ENABLING SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATION ... 23

ILLOCUTIONARY ROLES ... 25

TYPES OF INTERLOCUTORS ... 27

YOUTUBE AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE ... 29

PROBLEMS AS A PLATFORM FOR DELIBERATION ... 31

METHOD ... 34

DATA COLLECTION ... 35

DATA ANALYSIS ... 36

FINDINGS ... 39

MAKING EFFECTIVE USE OF AN ACTIVE PARTICPATORY CULTURE ... 39

HOW DEFRANCO ENGAGES HIS AUDIENCE TO PARTICIPATE ... 39

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DEFRANCO’S METHODS ... 40

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION RELATED TO CALLS FOR ENGAGEMENT ... 41

EFFECT OF THE METHODS ON THE ENGAGEMENT TOTALS ... 41

SUMMARY... 43

DISCUSSION ... 44

CONCLUSION ... 48

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 50

3

INTRODUCTION

Philip DeFranco is an American content-creator on YouTube where he hosts The Philip DeFranco

Show. Over the years this channel has attracted over 5 million subscribers, and currently his videos

garner approximately 20 to 30 million views each month. He describes his channel in the about-page

as “a 5 day a week, daily show where I talk about the news and pop culture that matters to me and

should matter to you” (DeFranco, 2018). On his channel he talks about news pertaining to current

events, politics, pop culture, and YouTube itself. In his videos, he explains and gives context to issues

like any other news show might do, but he also voices his own opinions regarding these topics. He

includes links to the sources he used for his stories, so people can read more about the topics he

discusses.

One of the most notable elements of his show is his encouragement for receiver feedback. DeFranco

often reminds his viewers to respond to the topics discussed in his videos. It is this encouragement

for user feedback that distinguishes his online news show from the traditional news broadcast on

television. The affordances of social media like YouTube allow for direct communication with the

viewers. On YouTube especially, content creators often emphasize their willingness to communicate

with their fans (Frobenius, 2014, p.59). DeFranco often states this explicitly through his now

well-known catchphrase: “This isn’t just a news show, it’s a conversation”

1

_{With the rising importance of}

social media for news consummation, it is interesting to explore how YouTubers like DeFranco

encourage an active participatory culture in their news shows. How can a news show that values

deliberation in an active online public sphere encourage its audience to participate?

Certain strategies content creators on YouTube use to actively involve their audience are commonly

accepted as being characteristic of the medium. For instance, YouTubers often directly address their

viewers. However, there seems to be a gap in the literature as to how effective these strategies

actually are. While asking questions to the audience is a common feature in a lot of vloggers’

content, there is no research that indicates that these calls for engagement actually result in an

increase of engagement within the audience. If an online news show hopes to spur deliberation

through the affordances of the medium, it would be helpful to know what strategies are most

effective at encouraging this deliberation. Thus, this thesis aims to answer the following research

question:

1 _{The catchphrase is used in multiple videos, e.g. DeFranco, P. (2016). Instagram Model's Disgusting Deal}

EXPOSED and Why People Are Arguing About It. [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/iza-Pqz-Y0I [Accessed 12

4

RQ: In what ways could a news show make effective use of an active participatory culture?

To answer the research question, this thesis first establishes a theoretical framework of research

based in network theory, social media, and participatory culture. On the basis of this framework, a

two-pronged method was devised, consisting of both quantitative and qualitative components. For

20 videos published by Philip DeFranco, the first 50 top comments were collected and analysed,

resulting in a total data set of 1000 comments. The results of the analysis showed that asking

questions was not found to have a significant influence on the number of top comments engaging

with the video content. However, the emotional content of video itself did seem to have a large

influence on the total engagement numbers.

This thesis adds knowledge to the field about what factors incite engagement by users of the social

media site YouTube. Directly addressing questions to the viewer is a tactic that is routinely used by

online creators, but research into its effectiveness was lacking. The findings indicate that the practice

might not be as useful as believed, as asking questions did not show a relation to increased

engagement. Instead, the main indicator for user engagement seemed to be arousing emotional

content. However, in videos with no remarkable arousing emotional content, questions did appear to

steer user engagement within the comments, resulting in a markedly higher part of the top

comments relating to the questions.

Some challenges were recognized in the creation of this thesis. Due to the necessary limited scope,

only the questions asked by DeFranco were examined in this thesis. Because of this focus, no

in-depth assessment of the role of emotional content can be made, even though it has been found to

play an important role for attracting user engagement. Furthermore, a larger sample size from a

more varied source pool would likely have resulted in more nuanced results, and the inclusion of a

control group could have given valuable insights. Lastly, but important to consider, is that the culture

of DeFranco’s channel, created by a continued emphasis on requesting and engaging with user

feedback, might have influenced the results. Nonetheless, this thesis provides a good insight into a

common practice of vloggers, the effectiveness of the practice, and how content creators should aim

to include it into their videos, if at all.

5

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

NETWORK THEORY

In the 21

st

_{century, society is increasingly being organized around networks. In this case, a network is}

defined by sociologist Manuel Castells as “a set of interconnected nodes” (Castells, 2004, p.3). These

nodes are points in the network where two or more edges intersect each other, thus finding a

common connector. What these nodes are, specifically, is dependent on the network itself; it could

be a person, it could be a company, it could be a country – it all depends on which level the network

operates (Castells, 2004; 2009) Nodes all play different roles and are of more of less importance to

the network itself. This does not automatically mean that a node with more connections is

necessarily more important than a node with less connections. The specific features of the node (i.e.

the amount of connections, or position in the network) are subservient to the ability to absorb and

process more relevant information, contributing to an increased performance of the network

(Castells, 2004); “The network is the unit, not the node” (p.3). The size of the network is open, which

is to say that the amount of nodes it is able to incorporate has no limit; it can expand indefinitely as

long as the new nodes add value to the network (Castells, 2009). Because of this, “networks work on

a binary logic: inclusion/exclusion” (Castells, 2004, p.3).

DIGITAL NETWORKS

Networks have always been a feature in societies throughout history. However, what is new today is

that these networks are now “built around microelectronics-based information technologies”

(Castells, 2004, p.7). These new information technologies, most prominently those enabled by the

advent of the internet, now allow networks to grow faster and larger than they ever did before

(González-Bailón, 2014, p.210). Furthermore, these technologies are enabling new, different kinds of

participation and engagement in all levels of society, allowing much more people to participate in

networks (Benson, 2017, p.37). In short, “networked individuals have new powers to create media

and project their voices to more extended audiences that become part of their social worlds” (Rainie

& Wellman, 2012, p.13). It is especially the mention of these social worlds that is of interest here.

The internet and other online technologies have vastly increased the reach of networks. Whereas

before people might keep up with far away relatives or friends by sending letters or not at all, online

technologies facilitate this kind of communication with ease – especially in the Web 2.0 environment.

This makes the boundaries of personal networks “less restrictive both in space and time”

(González-Bailón, 2014, p.220) as what they were before. Furthermore, social networks can now also be

extended more easily to people that exist outside of the original network. In theory, anyone who

knows how to operate a computer or smartphone and has a connection to the web could reach a

6

large audience (Rainie & Wellman, 2012, p.197) which extends beyond the people he or she is

already familiar with. For example, a text comment underneath an online news article might skew

the interpretation of said article by people who read it – influencing the social networks not directly

related to the writer of the comment. To go even further, the writer of said comment could also

write an article in response with a contrasting view, which has a bigger potential to reach a larger

audience through the web compared to, for example, having to get the article published in the local

papers. These digital tools have effectively blurred the lines between producers and consumers

(Rainie & Wellman, 2012, p.201), enabling many more people to contribute their stories or interact

with each other.

Castells (2004) argues that this new ability of people to be introduced as actors with relative

independence from power centres, which is enabled through now available technology, has helped

networks as a form of social organization overcome the vertical-hierarchical organization structure

that had historically been superior. However, more recent studies do not unequivocally agree with

this assumption. According to Reese & Shoemaker (2016) “The network perspective itself, […], does

not necessarily run contrary to a hierarchical approach” (p.405). They argue that while social network

analyses put the emphasis on the connections between nodes, these connections are still being

influenced “by larger systemic factors” (p.406), which include the characteristics of the members of

the networks themselves. For example, journalists writing articles with a pyramid structure even

when the medium they are using does not require them to do so. González-Bailón (2014) goes even

further, arguing that while online networks facilitate more decentralized forms of participation, they

are not “horizontal structures where all connections matter in the same way” (p.209). Moreover, it is

because of this unequal status that these online networks are so effective. Because some nodes are

so much bigger in terms of connections and status than others are, networks are effective at

spreading information quickly and also ensures all nodes are connected to each other by only a few

steps (González-Bailón, 2014, p.209). Thus, while the old hierarchical organization does not influence

the networks as much as it used to be, a new form of hierarchical organization has increased the

effectiveness of the horizontal nature of online networks.

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

The equal playing field of the web and the ability to reach people far removed from ones physical

location has given rise to communities that are formed online. These virtual communities are defined

as “electronic network[s] of interactive communication organized around a shared interest or

purpose” (Castells, 2009, p.386). These networks are not in an either/or relationship with physical

communities – they can co-exist and sometimes overlap, and are based on different kinds of

7

dynamics and rules (p.387). While these communities are often based around a unifying topic they

can include more polymorphic participation; imagine a motorcycle-forum where apart from their

bikes, members also discuss political matters. According to Rainie & Wellman (2012) the virtual

communitarians have shaped the “social forms, processes, and uses” of the internet, with the main

goal of fostering “networked individualism” at heart (p.78). They agree with Castells (2009) that the

networking tools afforded by these virtual communities are helpful in the organization of

communities, enable collective action, and help the collective construction of meaning (Rainie &

Wellman, 2012). However, they also argue that virtual communities are tools for problem solving and

getting emotional needs addressed (p.78) – emphasising the social functions of the networks.

Roughly one third of all people who are enabled by the previously mentioned affordances to

contribute online, post material that is meant to influence or help others (Rainie & Wellman, 2012).

These people are identified as participators by Rainie & Wellman, “they are the internet users who

create and share material online” (p.79). People create media for many different purposes, ranging

from simply documenting their memories in online photo albums, to writing articles and reaching out

to strangers (pp.198-199). With costs of this participation decreasing, and increasing amount of

people are spreading their ideas and interact with others doing likewise (p.201). This new breed of

media creators has reshuffled the relationship between experts, who used to have a neigh-monopoly

on media participation, and amateurs (p.220). This democratization of media production on the web

effectively inverted the balance of power, providing a platform for anyone with a message (Halavais,

2013, pp.252-253).

There are some perceived downsides to the democratization of media production that are

recognized. Rainie & Wellman (2012) claim that digital technology has been challenged for having

the same impact as the printing press had in its day: giving a platform to charlatans and quacks to

create and spread junk information (p.221). There is truth to this. “In the less hierarchical and less

bounded networked environment,” expertise is more in dispute as, as mentioned earlier, the experts

have lost their grasp on media production. Lay folk as well as experts now have the ability to reach a

large audience, creating uncertainty over the trustworthiness of information sources (p.18). Another

often mentioned downside of the influence online network have is that they increase the

polarization of opinions (González-Bailón, 2014). When people are given the opportunity to select

information and sources themselves, they are presumed to choose sources that are similar to their

beliefs. In this way, online networks are said to “amplify preconceptions and radicalize positions”

(p.214). For example, in the previously thought up motorcycle forum, one could imagine a vast

majority holding similar beliefs. Discussions on certain topics would thus become mere

echo-8

chambers, with any dissenting voices being drowned out. However, recent research has cast doubt

over the “polarization hypothesis” (González-Bailón, 2014, p.215; Esteve Del Valle and Borge Bravo,

2017). Considering the nature of virtual communities, they usually include members of various

background and beliefs; “since they have multidimensional interests, so are their on-line

memberships” (Castells, 2009, p.388). The motorcycle forum might have participants that are Hells

Angels, but they could also include members of motorcycle units of the police. As one can imagine

both these groups sharing an interest for their bikes, but otherwise being quite different.

THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF NEWS PRODUCTION

The effects of the democratization of media production – anyone can create media content that has

the potential to reach a large audience – is perhaps most felt in the news industry. The technological

advancements have caused an increase in the variety of information. While the traditional media is

being controlled by fewer organizations than ever, who provide a greater similarity in coverage due

to online availability and rapid dissemination of the news, the internet has provided people with a

tools to obtain more diverse information, and be more engaged with it (Rainie & Wellman, 2012,

p.227). News is more ubiquitous, with people running into news stories in activities that are not

necessarily news related. Where people used to, for example, get their daily news from reading the

morning paper or watching the evening news, this is now supplemented by everything they come

across on, for example, their social media or queries on search engines.

Not only has the variety of news content increased, there has also been an increase in the

dimensions of the news story itself. Whereas in era of the newspaper, articles would have only a few

elements as headlines, photos, and quotes, “in the digital age, the number of features of a news

story could rise to over fifty items” (Rainie & Wellman, 2012, p.225). This is not because stories have

become so much more complicated, but because the affordances of the web enable the inclusion of

more associations into the articles – the texts can include hyperlinks to previous articles, include

multimedia content, have a comment section, etc. These affordances also allow networked

individuals to respond to articles faster and easier than they ever could, changing the dissemination

of the texts by people who read said comments as they are available to the public (p.225). Through

these comments readers can add to the discussion, perhaps providing a unique insight or anecdotal

evidence, which “may add a potentially rich supplement to the original text” (p.226)

An increase in variety and depth of content might seem a great development for the networked

individual. However, a big complaint that has risen in this era is the complaint of there being too

9

there is simply too much content for people to keep up with, resulting in smaller and more

fragmented engagement with the news. However, in the networked era, this problem is being solved

by the networked individuals themselves. The vast information flows have given rise to a type of

active participant that adds value by stripping down news content to its bare bones and repackaging

it into bite-sized chunks for others to easily process: the news aggregator (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016,

p.394). Instead of having to filter through all the different news flows themselves, users can look to a

news aggregator that has already done that for them, and packaged the most relevant information in

a manner which is easy to process. Thus, not only has the variety of information and the depth of

information increased, the digital affordances have also changed the content structure (p.394).

These active participators, of which news aggregators are a part, are the most influential members of

virtual communities. They lead the way in shaping what is at the forefront in their digital networks;

they are creating a “Fifth Estate” (Rainie & Wellman, 2012, p.79). Whereas journalists are often seen

as serving as a so-called fourth estate, keeping the powers-that-be in check, the internet is argued to

give people the ability to act as gatekeepers themselves, “to seek and enforce new levels of

institutional and personal transparency” (p.79). This Fifth Estate thus seeks to influence the online

public sphere, bypassing the media, as networked individuals now have the ability to put issues on

the agenda they find relevant. In the public sphere, “people come together as citizens and articulate

their autonomous views to influence the political institutions of society” (Castells, 2008, p.78). The

shape and form of the public sphere is dependent on the context, history and technology of the time

(Castells, 2008). In the network society, Castells (2008) argues, the public sphere is organized on the

basis of the available media communication networks, which includes not only the mass media, but

also the internet (p.79). That the internet is included indicates a shift from “a public sphere anchored

around the national institutions of territorially bound societies,” as the internet is global in nature

(Castells, 2008, p.90). Reese and Shoemaker (2016) agree that, because of the shifting boundaries of

media due to the increase in citizen interaction and global connectivity through the web, the public

sphere should be deemed a “networked public sphere” or “global public sphere” (p.394). The

internet has provided a “horizontal network of communication,” which acts as a “organizing tool and

a means for debate, dialogue, and collective decision making” (Castells, 2008, p.86). The most

prominent way this horizontal network of communication is facilitated is through “the social spaces

of the Web 2.0” (Castells, 2008, p.90), commonly referred to as social networking sites.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNS)

Axel Bruns states that “all media are social, but only a particular subset of all media are

10

media of print, radio, and television” (2015, p.1). The sociality that sets social network sites apart

from mainstream media is primarily the fact that these new media allow for direct interaction

between the producers and consumers of media content (Marwick, 2013). Old media like print,

radio, or television generally broadcast on a one-to-many basis, with the content of the broadcasts

being decided by a select group of people that may or may not have commercial or public interests.

These new media, in contrast, operate on a many-to-many basis; put the “means of media

production in the hands of the people” (Bruns, 2015, p.1) and are practically “free from editorial

control or censorship” (p.1).

Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social network sites as “web-based services that allow individuals to

(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other

users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and

those made by others within the system” (p.211). Through social media, people are empowered to

“tell their stories, draw an audience, and often gain social assistance when they are in need” (Rainie

& Wellman, 2012, p.14), emphasising the social process of co-actively creating through new media –

“where people work together or engage in short- and long-term dialogues” (p.14). In other words,

social networking sites are web-based applications “that allow users to easily create, edit, access and

link to content and/or to other individuals” (Cabiddu, Carlo and Piccoli, 2014, p.175).

On the basis of these new applications, a social structure that is made up of social networks has

emerged in which social media affordances are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. With the

increasing popularity of websites and applications dedicated to social networking, other websites

designed for media sharing began to implement these affordances into their own designs as well

(boyd & Ellison, 2007, p.216). For example, news sites started incorporating “like” or “share” buttons

in their website designs which allowed readers to easily interact with the content of the website

through their social media, while at the same time driving more traffic to their own sites. This

coincided with social networking sites becoming the main facilitator of online communities:

“websites dedicated to communities of interest still exist and prosper [in the form of e.g. forums and

other message boards], SNSs are primarily organized around people, not interests.” (boyd and

Ellison, 2007, p. 219)

It is impossible to exhaustively define what a social networking site is, apart from the global

descriptions of their affordances. While Facebook is often hailed as the prototype social medium, it is

not the first and will not be the last. There are numerous different social media which all have their

“unique architecture, norms, and culture” (Khan, 2017, p.237) which influences the ways in which

11

users engage with them. For example, while it is possible to post video content on Twitter, this is

more prevalent on sites like YouTube – as technology advances, it is likely we will see an increase in

the range of different ways social media sites are shaped (Smith, Fisher and Yongjian, 2012, p.103).

Social networking sites have attracted millions of users over time, all across the globe. Many of these

now use these sites on a daily basis (boyd & Ellison, 2007). During the last decade, however, social

media sites have experienced an incredible growth (Shao, 2009). Pew Research Centre started

tracking social media use in 2005. At the time, 5% of all American adults used a social medium. By

2011, that number had risen to about 50%. Now, in 2017, 69% of all American adults use some sort

of social media. In the age group 18-29, a stunning 89% uses at least one social networking site (Pew

Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 2017). Social media have become a part of our daily lives.

And that is not just a figure of speech. Facebook has become the most-widely used social media

platform (Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 2017). Pew Research Centre reports that of

all the adult internet users in the US, 79% use Facebook (Smith, 2017). Three-quarters of those users

visit the site daily, 55% percent of those several times per day (Smith, 2017). It is safe to say that

social media have become engrained into society.

This popularity of social media sites has “encouraged social interaction and participation on an

unprecedented scale” (Khan, 2017, p. 237). Social networking sites has given women, minorities, and

other oppressed groups in society a more secure place to express themselves openly (Castells, 2009).

While women were only a minority of users up to 1999 (Castells, 2009, p.390), since 2014 the

difference between women and men has been about the same; “today, 68% of all women use social

media, compared with 62% of all men” (Perrin, 2017). While, as previously mentioned, young people

were the early adopters, senior citizens are catching up. Among the 65+ age class, use of social media

has tripled since 2010. In that year, only 11% used social media, whereas in 2017 about 35% make

use of social networking sites. Especially if one considers that in 2005, only 2% of those 65 and older

used social media, this growth is impressive (Perrin, 2017).

Apart from the US, other countries have seen similar growth. In the United Kingdom, the number of

people regularly using social network sites rose from 17% to 60% between 2007 and 2011 (Newman,

Dutton and Blank, 2014, p.138). However, the growth seems to have died down after that point as in

2017, 61% of adults in the UK report using social networks. In the UK, the older generations have not

caught on as they did in the US (Poushter, 2017). In Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, social

media use is the most common, with an average of 70% reporting to use a social networking site

(Poushter, 2017). However, there are also countries that have not taken up social media with the

12

same enthusiasm. Among these countries are France (48%), Greece (46%), Japan (43%) and,

remarkably, Germany (37%), where more than half of internet users do not use social media

(Poushter, 2017). Pew Research Centre reports that this discrepancy is partially due to internet

access and smartphone use – for example, in Greece, 40% of the people do not have access to the

internet or own a smartphone. On the contrary, in the US smartphone use in on the rise, especially

among the older generations: 72% of all American adults now own a smartphone (Greenwood, Perrin

and Duggan, 2016)

IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

Apart from having access to the internet and a device to operate, there are other requirements to

which users need to adhere. One of the main requirements of social media is that users

“self-consciously create virtual depictions of themselves” (Marwick, 2013, p.355) – that they create an

online identity. Marwick (2013) states that sociologist Erving Goffman concluded that “people

present themselves differently based on context (where they are) and audience (who they’re with)”

(p.356). In other words, people present themselves differently to different people; for example, in

the company of close friends one behaves differently than one would do in a formal setting with

relative strangers. Marwick (2013) thus concludes that identity is a social construct created with the

people we interact with (p. 356), and a construct needs to be created and maintained. In online

settings, this identity is created through the customization allowed by the particular medium and

remains under construction over time (p.358).

How exactly the identity management expresses itself is down to the affordances of the networked

media in use, but the explicit construction of the identity is a prerequisite in order to engage in

communication with others (Schmidt, 2013, p.365). Setting up an identity for yourself, however, is

only a part of the construction of identity. “Personal identity can only be developed through

interaction and communication” (Schmidt, 2013, p.366), as the reception of the social identity cues

that one gives off influence the impression of one’s own identity (p.368). For instance, someone who

introduces himself as a nice person, but continually makes racist remarks, will soon be seen as a for

what he really is – “social identity cues, which, in contrast, are given (off) by other people about me,

might also be used by others to form an impression of my own identity” (Schmidt, 2013, p.368).

These social identity cues are not limited to direct conversation. Any kind of information about ones

position in a social network can have an effect – things like comments, posted pictures, texts are all

indicators of a person’s online identity (p.371). For example, in regard to the social medium Twitter,

Bruns (2013) states that “users are what they tweet and who they connect to. The core indications of

their personal identity are what they have posted recently, what other users they follow, and which

13

users follow them” (Bruns, 2013, p.423). In other words, when users see an online profile on Twitter,

it is not just the short biography and profile picture that influences their reception of the identity of

the profile holder, but also the tweets placed, liked, and retweeted by the profile holder.

The idea that people engage in the creation of content on social media as part of identity

management is often overlooked. According to Burgess et al. (2009), content creation on social

media is often assumed to be a kind of self-aggrandizement, or self-promotion. “Amateurs are

represented as individualistic, self-expressive producer who are mainly interested in ‘broadcasting

themselves,’ rather than engaging in textual productivity as a means to participate in social

networks” (Burgess et al., 2009, pp.29-30).

EFFECTS ON NEWS PRODUCTION

Social media has had a big effect on the news industry. In recent years, the use of social networking

sites as a source for news and information has grown considerably. In some countries, the internet is

even beginning to rival television (Newman, Dutton & Blank, 2014, p.137). In 2017 in the US, 43% of

all adults report that they often get the news online, while about 50% often get it from the television.

With only 7%, the gap between these two sources is already very close. Moreover, in 2016, the gap

was more than double the difference at around 19%, indicating that internet use for news

consumption is experiencing a strong growth (Bialik & Matsa, 2017).

The arrival of the internet has not just changed the platform on which users consume news. The

internet has also changed the way users engage with the news. Consumers have switched from being

simply passive recipients of a message, “purely on the receiving end of media markets,” (Senft, 2013,

p.350) to a more take on a more active role. In new media, like social media and other internet

affordances, users not only watch the news, but are able to directly interact with it, as well as

produce it themselves (Senft, 2013). As Dynel (2014) puts it: “traditional media communication is

known to be primarily one-way communication, with audience’s participation being restricted to

active recipiency,” (p.45) compared to computer mediated communication in which viewers’ active

involvement is central, “for instance in the form of live active commentaries on what they see” (p.

45). Of course traditional media like television is now trying to change to a more interactive nature as

well, but is hampered in doing so by the restrictions of the medium – “they are increasingly reliant on

social media such as YouTube as sites on which participation can be realized in the form of text.”

(Benson, 2017, p.37)

14

Jay Rosen (2012) indicates that with the changing media landscape, the top-down dominance of the

traditional media is steadily disappearing. Where the distribution of video content was in the hands

of only a few channels before, due to financial and technological constraints, these barriers have

disappeared, “video is coming into the user’s hands, and audience-building by former members of

the audience is alive and well on the internet’’ (p.14). In the digital age, users can edit the news

themselves, and seek out news to engage with instead of being reliant on the news that is put in

front of them, indicating a shift towards a model based on peer-to-peer flows, instead of a top-down

construction (Rosen, 2012). Furthermore, in the digital age the users decides when, where, and how

he wants to engage with the news, no longer being reliant on the schedule of news broadcasts or

when the paper gets dropped on the mat (Rosen, 2012).

A big share of the engagement with news online flows through social networking sites, “as of August

2017, two-thirds (67%) of Americans report that they get at least some of their news on social

media” (Shearer & Gottfried, 2017). And this extends to all levels of society. In 2017, for the first time

in history, Pew Research Center reports that 55% of Americans 50 years or older are getting news

from social media, a 10 percent increase compared to the previous year. While a big increase, this is

still under the average; 78% of adults under 50 get news from social media (Shearer and Gottfried,

2017). Not only are more people getting news from use media, but people are also obtaining news

content from a greater variety of social media sites. In 2017, around a quarter of US adults uses two

or more sites to get news, an 8% increase from the year before (Shearer and Gottfried, 2017).

This does not mean that old media are losing their relevance. In fact, traditional news platforms are

often being used side-to-side with the use of social media (Shearer & Gottfried, 2017). As mentioned

before, old media also utilize social media to drive traffic to their sites (Newman, Dutton & Blank,

2014, p.140), and new media participants like news aggregators are, to a certain extent, reliant on

old media sources for news content. What social media has done, however, is made the news more

personal and increased the likelihood for follow-up action upon engaging with news content. Not

only has it done this by increase the ease of which users can engage, but also because of its social

character – news that is shared by people in one’s social network were acted upon in some way in

73% of all instances in a survey by Pew Research Center (Bialik & Matsa, 2017).

CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND USER GENERATED CONTENT

The new participatory affordances on the web has given rise to a new type of participant: the citizen

journalist. People can become citizen journalists by accident, for instance, by creating and sharing

content on social media, “providing a stream of eye-witness material in the form of comments,

15

pictures, and videos” (Newman, Dutton & Blank, 2014, p.138). An example of this is bystander

footage before or in the aftermath of catastrophes, like the 7/7 bombings in London, the death of

Neda Agha-Soltan during the 2009 Iranian election protest, or more recently, the 2017 Las Vegas

shooting. In all these instances, amateur footage was broadcast around the world. It is in this area of

breaking news that social media has had the biggest impact (Newman, Dutton & Blank, 2014, p.138).

Especially in areas where camera phones are everywhere, people with the ability to film are present

faster than professional journalists in practically every situation. This does not just provide news

broadcast with extra imagery, but importantly, the images recorded by the public “added to the

understanding of the event” (Silverman, 2011, p.55).

But it is not only video content that has this benefit. For example, people are able to stay up to date

with the latest developments of situations, or contribute to the story, through social media like

Twitter. In 2017, almost three-quarters of all users use Twitter for news gathering (Shearer &

Gottfried, 2017). This does not mean that these media are used to simply comment on what is

relevant in traditional media. In a survey discussed by Rainie & Wellman (2012), the lead story on

Twitter only matched the lead story in the mainstream press in four out of a total of 29 weeks; on

YouTube the stories were the same 8 out of 49 weeks (p.212). But even here, they emphasise, that

where the topics matched, “the treatment of them was very different” (p.212).

The material published on social networking sites is also called user generated content (UGC).

According to Smith, Fisher, and Yongjian (2012) UGC is content published by amateurs outside

professional routines and practices and “may be individually or collaboratively produced, modified,

shared and consumed” (p.103) in all the ways social media allow. Shao (2009) summarizes UGC as

follows: “content [that] is made publicly available over the Internet, reflects a certain amount of

creative effort, and is created outside of professional routines and practices” (p.8). Note that both

these definitions emphasise the amateur nature of the content. As professionalism increases in the

production of UGC, for example by YouTube creators earning their living with the content the

produce, it is an interesting point of discussion as to where to draw the divide between amateurs and

professionals.

Citizen journalists have thus not replaced the professionals, but they do add a valuable extra

dimension to the world of news production. Social networking sites allow individuals to “create,

collaborate, and share their own media” (Newman, Dutton & Blank, 2014, p.135), blurring the lines

between professionals and amateurs (p.135) However, while UGC has had a big impact on the nature

of news broadcasts, according to Silverman (2011) it still has a lot of unused potential, as he argues

16

“it has it has fallen short in providing depth, understanding and empowerment” (p.55). Furthermore,

not all new participants in the media world operate in the way in which the affordances of social

networking sites are idealised. Hoax content, deceiving edits, and other material encapsulated in the

now commonly heard term “fake news” has given rise to a need for “new markers of trustworthiness

and credibility” (Rainie & Wellman, 2012, p.229). One of these markers are popularity rankings that

have become a standard feature on social networking sites in the form of like-buttons and their

equivalents. The markers make use of the trust that exists in social relations between people (p.229),

and help people select relevant information – assuming they have trustworthy friends.

It is important that digital media and the news environment it enables is not seen as something that

is directly opposite to the old media world. While social networking sites are becoming more and

more engrained into our daily lives, it is important to recognize that “no one such website or

platform can now be considered in isolation” (Bruns, 2013, p.423). There is no either/or relationship

between the digital and traditional media. Users as well as producers make use of the affordances

and content of both, supplementing each other while at the same time increasing accountability

(p.146). The interaction between the two has given rise to a “much more complex ecosystem for the

creation and distribution of news” (p.145).

YOUTUBE

WHAT IS YOUTUBE

YouTube was launched in 2005, as a service aimed at removing the technical barriers to sharing video

online (Burgess et al., 2009, p.1). On the website, users were provided with the ability to upload,

publish, and view videos through a simple interface – no longer needing advanced technical

know-how, while working through the constraints of browser software and limited bandwidth (Burgess et

al., 2009, p.1). All visitors of the site can watch videos, however, users that have registered an

account can make use of more affordances YouTube offers (boyd, 2014, p.47). Apart from uploading

videos, registered users of the site can view, like, and comment on other videos. Furthermore,

through their accounts they can display what other users they are subscribed to, and which videos

they favourite, liked and commented on (Smith, Fischer & Yongjian, 2012, p.104) – “A tacit result of

these features is that static users are transformed into ‘‘co-creative participants’’” (boyd, 2014, p.47).

While in the early days the site was mainly seen as a “personal storage facility for video content”

(Burgess et al., 2009, p.4), the now well-known slogan “Broadcast Yourself” indicates a shift to the

idea of the “platform for public self-expression” (p.4).

17

Over the years, YouTube has become the place to go for viewing online video content. After Google

and Facebook, YouTube is the third most visited site in the world (Khan, 2017), and totals over a

billion monthly visitors that what over six billion hours of video content (Alhabash et al., 2015). The

website accounts for over 20% of the total traffic of the web, and 10% of the whole internet

(Siersdorfer et al., 2014). In 2009, YouTube made up about a 60% share of the online video streaming

market, with a 35% growth in use compared to the year before (Peer & Ksiazek, 2011). With rising

broadband internet speeds and growing mobile device usage increasing online video consumption,

this number is likely to have increased over the past years (Khan, 2017). Like with most technological

advancements, young adults (18-34 years old) are the main users of YouTube, making up about

two-thirds of YouTube and by now watch more YouTube than television (Alhabash et al., 2015).

The high usage figures has given rise to a sense that YouTube is a global website – in the sense that

the internet in general is: “it allows virtual border crossings between the geographical location of

producers, distributors and consumers” (Burgess et al., 2009, p.83). Not only is the adaptation of

YouTube very diverse on geographical level, it is also very diverse in a demographical sense. YouTube

serves as “an attractive platform for both amateur content creators and media companies alike”

(Khan, 2017, p.236) and is used by people from all walks of life, from artists to business men to

politicians (Khan, 2017).

The diversity of content that is found on YouTube is a direct consequence of this diverse user-base,

as YouTube is built on user-generated content, “As a media company, YouTube is a platform for, and

an aggregator of, content, but it is not a content producer itself” (Burgess et al., 2009, p.4). Instead, it

relies solely on the users to upload content to the website (Benson, 2017, p.31), in exchange for

providing those users with a higher likelihood of discovery and possible revenue stream through a

share of the advertising on the website (Burgess et al., 2009, p.4). As said, these users come from all

walks of life. Most of the content is submitted through individual internet users on an amateur basis.

However, corporations and public figures also release content on YouTube (Dynel, 2014, p.39), for

example musicians and their labels using YouTube as a place to release official music videos. These

groups are further complemented by a growing group of individual users who are making content

creation their profession. The combination of the content these groups provide has made YouTube a

“repository for a wide array of user generated home videos, clips from popular television

programming, and video blogging where users offer opinions regarding current events, politics, and

entertainment” (Hess, 2009, p.413).

18

Burgess et al (2009) argue that YouTube has become so successful “due to […] four key features –

video recommendations via the ‘related videos’ list, an email link to enable video sharing, comments

(and other social networking functionality), and an embeddable video player” (p.2). They reiterate

that YouTube is not in the video creation business, but rather that its business is supplying an easy to

use platform for the sharing of video content (p.4). The company relies on its users to supply the

platform with video material. This emphasis on sharing has made YouTube become known as a

platform that has the potential to make media products incredibly popular – taking away the

monopoly of a domain that was owned by the mass media (p.6). YouTube enables anyone with an

internet connection to potentially reach a large audience, circumventing traditional media outlets.

Burgess et al (2009) conclude that is most helpful not to understand YouTube as just a media

company or platform for user generated content, but as “a coordinating mechanism between

individual and collective creativity and meaning production; and as a mediator between various

competing industry-oriented discourses and ideologies and various audience- or user-oriented ones”

(Burgess et al., 2009, p.37). These functions in facilitating collective meaning productions and

mediating discourse is what set YouTube apart from old media. Consequently, watching video

content on YouTube is not done in the same manner as it is when watching on the television. Tolson

(2010) puts great emphasis on this: “whatever continuities we might discover between ‘old’ and

‘new’ media, watching YouTube is not like watching television” (p.287).

YOUTUBE AS A SOCIAL NETWORK SITE

Tolson (2010) emphasising the fact that “watching YouTube is not like watching television” (p.287) is

rooted in the nature of YouTube as a social networking site – offering a kind of “post-television”

(p.285). The difference, he argues, lies in that there is no strict hierarchy of discourse. In television, a

select number of producers dominate the entire medium, however, on YouTube, “clips of ordinary

people, media people and celebrities are interlinked, in a single network” (Tolson, 2010, p.285).

YouTube as a form of post-television offers a possibility for any kind of user generated video to be

released and potentially shape the discourse surrounding it, “irrespective of their genres or

objectives” (Dynel, 2014, p.39). Because of this, YouTube “is part of a whole ecology of openly

networked platforms supporting the spread of amateur and non-commercial media / production and

sharing communities,” (Jenkins, Ito & boyd, 2016, pp.18-19) commonly known as social media. In its

time, YouTube has become an incredibly popular and influential social network (boyd, 2014, p.47),

ranking only behind Facebook in terms of popularity: “77% of Internet users are on Facebook, while

63% use YouTube” (Khan, 2017, p.236) making it “the largest most used media-sharing site on the

web” (Benson, 2017, p.33)

19

YouTube is dissimilar to other social networking sites in the ways in which it is organized. On social

media like Facebook, the social networking function is largely based on the personal profiles and

friending mechanisms (Burgess et al., 2009, p.58), whereas on YouTube, Burgess et al (2009) claim

that “the video content itself is the main vehicle of communication and the main indicator of social

clustering” (p.58) and the YouTube community forms a “network of creative practice” (p.61) through

activities like “uploading, viewing, discussing, and collaborating” (p. 61). However, what Burgess et al

(2009) do not mention is the ability for users of the website to subscribe to YouTube channels.

Frobenius (2014) does argue this is relevant, “as subscribing to a vlogger’s [videoblogger] channel is

an active choice by individual users, one can assume that users base this decision on some sort of

knowledge of the vlogger’s output. Furthermore, the subscribers display an interest in watching

future videos by the same vlogger, thus help construct an established audience” (Frobenius, 2014,

pp.63-64). This established audience could be considered a community of shared interest (Benson,

2017, p.36), who are linked through each other by their subscription to the same YouTube channel.

What adds to the community building (e.g. through subscriptions) is the fact that users do not only

communicate through video content. YouTube enables its users not only to interact through videos,

but also through written text in the form of comments (Benson, 2017, p.36), “logged in users often

engage in dialogue with other users through text commenting” (boyd, 2014, p.46). The strong social

aspect of YouTube is built through the affordance of users being able to comment, through which

they not only interact with the related video content, but also with other users that are commenting.

In fact, this affordance is incredibly important to the success of YouTube and it has become a norm to

provide community feedback on videos through commenting (Khan, 2017, p.243). This does not

mean that all users do so, nor that users do so irrespective of the video content. The users “tend to

be dichotomised into active ones and passive ones, depending on whether or not […] they publicise

videos and comments” (Dynel, 2014, p.39), and users tend to comment more on user-generated

videos in comparison to professionally produced videos (Smith, Fischer & Yongjian, 2012, p.104).

Commenting does allow users of the website to “share, negotiate, agree, and challenge opinions,

often with seemingly no other end in mind than to interact and be in touch with other, often

unknown, YouTubers” (Bou-Franch, Lorenzo-Dus & Blitvich, 2012, p.502), and thereby making

YouTube content creation a dynamic process, influenced by “many interconnected instances of

participation, by many different people” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p.90).

YOUTUBERS AND VLOGGING

Around 13 percent of the total users of YouTube not only consume videos, they also upload videos

(Peer & Ksiazek, 2011, p.47). For a lot of users, this only means cutting up televised content and

20

putting it online (Dynel, 2014, p.43), however, there are also users that shoot their own content

dedicated for online publication, some of which have become well-known because of their activities

(Marwick, 2013). For example, the biggest YouTuber in the world is Felix Kjellberg, a Swedish national

who goes by the pseudonym PewDiePie. Over the span of his YouTube career, he has gathered a

subscriber-base totalling over 57 million users. The idea that anyone has the potential to become an

online celebrity is expanding cultural notions about fame and making it seem more inclusive (Senft,

2013, p.349). However, because of the medium that these new celebrities are natives of, they are

not like traditional celebrities. Because new media allows for direct interaction between celebrities

and their fans, between the producer and consumer, these new media celebrities are “expected to

be accessible” (Marwick, 2012, p.361). Rainie & Wellman (2012) observed that these creators do

behave as networked individuals by, for example, active engaging with their audience when they

uploaded a new video (p.217).

However, the way YouTubers interact with their fans is not the only way in which they differ from

traditional media producers. The videos they produce are also markedly different: “there is a

recognizable mode of production and a particular aesthetic style associated with the culture of

user-created content on YouTube” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p.90). The characteristic form of user

generated content, is videoblogging or vlogging (Burgess & Green, 2009) – while the form is not new

or unique to YouTube, it is an “emblematic form of YouTube participation” (Burgess et al., 2009,

p.53) and is “fundamental to YouTube’s sense of community” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p.94). Video

blogs (vlogs) have a wide definition. Frobenius (2014) defines vlogs as a computer-mediated

communication genre that features “a single speaker talking into a camera, employing multimodal

elements that are regularly part of spoken interaction, such as gaze shifts, shifts in posture, shifts in

facial expression, shifts in voice quality and pitch and also pointing” (p.59). According to Dynel (2014)

they are shot with a camera or mobile phone that the authors, either individuals or production

teams, then upload on YouTube (p.43). Burgess & Green (2009) state that they are structured around

a “monologue delivered directly to camera,” are produced with “little more than a webcam and

some witty editing,” and has subjects that are about “reasoned political debate to the mundane

details of everyday life and impassioned rants about YouTube itself” (p.94).

The critical point about vlogs is, above all else, that their form and character is very reminiscent of

interpersonal face-to-face communication (Burgess et al., 2009, p.54). The conversation-like

character that vlogs have, with a persistent direct address to the camera, or by extension, the viewer,

invites feedback in the form of “critique, debate, and discussion” (p.54). As mentioned earlier, when

the general public watches a video that is uploaded on YouTube, they have the ability to contribute

21

themselves by means of written comment, or even by uploading a video on their own account. The

final product of YouTube is thus not simply a video broadcast on a one-to-many basis, but an “an

asynchronous, mediated monologue tailored to a non-present audience” (Frobenius, 2014, p.59). In

other words, “vlogging on YouTube is seen as a distinctively original form of mediated

communication,” (Tolson, 2010, p.279) which success lies in “its excessive direct address, in its

transparent amateurishness and in the sheer volume and immediacy of ‘conversational’ responses,

by comparison with and relative to the constraints of traditional broadcasting” (Tolson, 2010, p.286).

YOUTUBE AND NEWS CONTENT

YouTube, as any other kind of social media, has also had a big impact on the news industry. Similar to

the rise of general video consumption on the internet, so too has the consumption of news videos on

the web; news being the most popular genre of online video content (Peer & Ksiazek, 2011). In 2017,

about a third (32%) of YouTube users got news from the site, up from 21% in 2016. (Shearer &

Gottfried, 2017). News videos on YouTube include both original content, like citizen journalist

uploads, and repurposed content, for instance segments from TV broadcasts (Peer & Ksiazek, 2011,

p.48). On YouTube, there are three groups of participants in the media environment: “big media”

companies (Burgess & Green, p.92), “Web-TV companies” (p.93), and “ordinary users” (p.93). The

first are the media companies that also have a presence on traditional media, like television. The

second are native to the web, circumventing the costs related to broadcasting through rational

media, but still fairly similar in the way they operate. The third are any other user, be it individuals or

groups. These groups can upload material of all kinds, from repurposed material to original content.

Peer & Ksiazek (2011) conducted a large scale content analysis of news videos on YouTube. They

collected 882 videos from the news category on YouTube and analysed their form and content. They

concluded that overall, “successful online news videos adhere to most traditional standards when it

comes to production elements, but display more relaxed standards when it comes to their content”

(Peer & Ksiazek, 2011, p.56). In relation to the content, the online audience seemed to have a

preference for videos that did not adhere to traditional media’s objectivity standards, favouring

biased content (p.54). This gives rise to concerns about the polarization of news (p.57), fearing that

people will mainly select content on the basis of a confirmation-bias (p.57). While other research has

cast doubt on the polarization hypothesis, emphasising the multidimensional aspect of online

communities (González-Bailón, 2014; Castells, 2009, p.388), this might not be the case for YouTube.

As mentioned, YouTube is organized differently from social networking sites like Facebook, with the

video content itself being the main indicator of social clustering (Burgess et al., 2009). Consequently,

22

if communities are based on biased video content, it is not likely that these communities will be

confronted by a dissenting opinion.

PARTICIPATORY CULTURE ON YOUTUBE

Participation is defined by Jenkins, Ito & boyd (2016) as “properties of the culture, where groups

collectively and individually make decisions that have an impact on their shared experiences” (p.18).

In a participatory culture, a link is identified between “accessible digital technologies, user-created

content, and some kind of shift in the power relations between media industries and their

consumers” (Burgess et al., 2009, p.10). These aspect culminate into a society in which anyone can

actively participate in creating and spreading content (p.10). Considering these conditions have been

met as argued in the sections above, we can say that participatory culture is at the heart of our

current networked society.

This does not mean that social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube are participatory cultures

themselves. Jenkins, Ito & boyd (2016) argue that these sites should rather be seen as tools

facilitating “social contact and sharing cultural productions” by participatory communities (p.12).

However, Burgess & Green (2009) argue that YouTube has been “a key site where the discourses of

participatory culture […] have been played out,” (p.89) emphasising the importance of the social

network in empowering users to spread their thoughts. “For YouTube, participatory culture is not a

gimmick or a sideshow; it is absolutely core business,” (Burgess et al., 2009, p.5) which is exemplified

by the fact that the platform was specifically designed “to enable cultural participation by ordinary

citizens” (Burgess et al., 2009, p.75). Benson (2017) argues that YouTube’s most important features

in this perspective are the ability of users to promote videos on a diverse range of social media, the

ability to rate content, and to engage with the content via verbal interaction (p.30). Burgess et al.

(2009) go as far as arguing that content creation on the media sharing website is actually secondary

to the outcomes of the cultural participation: “in YouTube, content creation is probably far less

significant than the uses of that content within various social network settings” (Burgess et al., 2009,

p. 58).

Thus, Burgess et al (2009) argue that YouTube should be thought of as “a continuum of cultural

participation,” rather than being focused on media hosting and broadcasting. In this train of thought,

all users of the site – regardless of status – should be considered as participants (p.57), who fulfil

different roles at different times, and can be “audiences, producers, editors, distributors, and critics”

(p. 82). This concept not only indicates that content creators who upload videos are participants, but

that audiences also actively contribute as participants through practices like simply viewing a video,

23

to commenting on and sharing of the video – “all leave traces, and therefore they all have effects on

the common culture of YouTube as it evolves” (p.57). The views, visible in the view counter of the

video, the amount of likes and dislikes, and comments, and their content, all contribute to the

production of YouTube texts. This makes the production of YouTube texts a fundamentally social and

interactive process, mediated by multimodal text messages on a many-to-many basis, with the intent

of being shared and discussed (Benson, 2017, pp.32-33). Moreover, comments can add value to the

original posted video by giving the impression of active interaction and discussion, adding to the

texts’ credibility (Khan, 2017, p.236). This collaborative creation of texts, enabled by interaction with

the original content, is “one of the unique defining features of engagement with online news”

(Ksiazek, Peer & Lessard, 2016, p.503), the affordances of the internet allowing for a closer

relationship, or even blurring of lines, between media producer and consumer (p.593).

ENABLING SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATION

There is a “very close connection between participation in the production of YouTube texts and

broader participation in worlds of popular culture” (Benson, 2017, pp.36). This connection is spurred

on by the culture of YouTube and how that culture is given shape. Communication between its

members is one of the key values of the culture of YouTube (Frobenius, 2014) and is most obvious in

the frequent requests that YouTubers make to users that watch their videos, “asking for feedback of

any kind” (p.70). This actively encouraged to and fro between content creators and users creates a

sense of “conversation” that is particular to new media (Benson, 2017). The users that are visibly

engaged with YouTube content – through viewing, liking, and commenting on videos – thus are

active in the process of “in shaping, contesting, and negotiating the emergent culture of YouTube’s

social network, the idea of a YouTube community” (Burgess et al., 2009, p. 63).

This active role that the users of YouTube have has called into question the validity of the term

‘audience’ in relation to watching videos on the social networking site. It is argued that the term

‘audience’ only encompasses passive roles of watching and listening (Benson, 2017). The term ‘user’

suits the character of YouTube better as, the ‘audience’ on the site can do a lot more than just

watching content – “there are additional dimensions to ‘using’ YouTube” (p.29). Shao (2009) argues

that individuals engage with user generated media in three different ways. First of all, individuals can

simply consume content (p.9). These users only watch, read, or view. Shao (2009) claims that this

category never participates, but as outlined before, viewing adds to a view counter that is visible to

other users and thus participates in that manner on YouTube. The second category consists of

individuals that participate (p.9); users that interact on a user-to-user or user-to-content basis. This

includes all activities from liking to commenting and engaging in discussions. The final category is

24

comprised of individuals that produce content themselves (p.9). On YouTube, this category consists

of content creators – users that upload video content on the website. To summarize, the term user is

more suitable in comparison to the term audience as the viewers on YouTube have the ability to

engage with the videos in various ways that are not available to the audience of traditional media.

User interactivity on YouTube is distinguished in two ways (Ksiazek, Peer & Lessard, 2016), as

previously mentioned above. The first is user-to-user interactivity, in which two or more users

interact with each other (p.505). On YouTube, this interaction is primarily realised by engaging in

discussions in comment threads. The second is user-to-content interactivity, in which users interact

with content and the producers of content (p.505). In this category, users engage with the video

content under which the comment is placed, and is thus realised through posting an initial comment

to a video – which could then result in more user-to-user interaction. Ksiazek, Peer & Lessard (2016)

found that videos that were “made exclusively for the web, garner higher levels of user–content

interactivity” (Ksiazek, Peer & Lessard, 2016, p.510). This is interesting, considering it emphasises the

role of social interaction on YouTube. Compared to content lifted from other media like television,

material made specifically for YouTube resulted in more user-content engagement. This is important

as this kind of engagement is usually were relevant discussions originate from (Bou-Franch,

Lorenzo-Dus & Blitvich, 2012, p.513).

YouTubers often engage with other YouTubers, through their videos or through comments (Hess,

2009). The extent of this engagement goes from texts concerning a video, its author, or independent

issues raised in other comments – which in turn can be replied to, turning it into threads (Dynel,

2014). These engagements can, like networks themselves, involve an indefinite amount of

contributors, as long as they add value to the discussion. Khan (2017) studied what motivated users

to comment on YouTube, and he found that the strongest motive for commenting was social

interaction (p.241): “engagement with YouTube content as well as interaction with other users is an

important means of fulfilling the social interaction need” (Khan, 2017, p.243). Khan (2017) continues

by arguing that commenting is a logical step in order to socialize as this is an easy way for a user to

enter into discussions, and that these comments can reveal “an individual's involvement or

concerns” (p.243) about the topics that are discussed. Through interaction, “YouTubers are thus able

to share, negotiate, agree, and challenge opinions, often with seemingly no other end in mind than

to interact and be in touch with other, often unknown, YouTubers” (Bou-Franch, Lorenzo-Dus &

Blitvich, 2012, p.502).