High Level Visualization of YouTube: “What is Being Organized?”
The analysis begins by identifying the collected resource(s) underpinning YouTube’s viability as an organizing system. Simply put, YouTube exists on the sole resource it organizes: videos. However, it is more complicated than that. “Video” vaguely responds to the first design question because the term can vary depending on the context and the discourse community using the term. The type of video YouTube organizes can be further explicated by analyzing the site's end-to-end pipeline in terms of how videos are created and ultimately shared. A momentary analysis of the site's structure will help elucidate the defining features of the "video" resources collected.
The site’s name is an appropriate starting point to frame the characteristics of its infrastructure. YouTube is a combination of the two words “you” and “tube.” “You” refers to the centrality of the user to the site and “tube” as a referent to the popular 1950s technology, the television. In essence, YouTube provides a digital venue for individuals to televise the video media they have captured. The notion of the “tube” informs users of the ways they should interact with the site. As G.V. Arroyo and S.J. Carter denote in their article “Tubing the Future: Participatory Pedagogy and YouTube U in 2020”, the evolvement of the word “tube” points to phrases such as “going down the tubes” and “boob tube.” YouTube leverages users’ prior knowledge of their engagement with the television set to promote successful engagement with their site (2011). YouTube is unlike the conventional television because truly anyone with access to the site can upload media.
The media seen on YouTube starkly contrasts the media televised on traditional televisions with regard to the content and the origination thereof. Dustin Kidd notes in his text Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society that television media are channeled through five major media conglomerations (2014). The affluent conglomerates—with financial backing to maintain major TV productions—control the information being disseminated to the masses. Information, before the advent of sites like YouTube, flowed into the Western society in a “top-down” fashion. YouTube re-directs the information flow. The videos being uploaded into the site are created by the masses, for the masses. Any person can capture footage on their smart device and upload it directly onto YouTube for the world (truly) to see. The videos on YouTube are uploaded without regard to socio-economic standing or financial status of a person.
While YouTube can be reduced to a site collecting videos as resources, the simplicity of the response is complicated with a deeper excavation of the defining features of the videos it organizes. There are various ways to obtain a more nuanced understanding of the resource. Clarifying questions such as “What organizational features does the site emulate?” and “Who creates and uploads the videos?” drive the first design question to a finer depiction. With certainty this analysis of the video resource can be further explored and complicated, but the analysis thus far provides ample data to move forward to the next question. With a comprehensive knowledge of the resources YouTube collects, the next design question delves into the question of “Why?”
The site’s name is an appropriate starting point to frame the characteristics of its infrastructure. YouTube is a combination of the two words “you” and “tube.” “You” refers to the centrality of the user to the site and “tube” as a referent to the popular 1950s technology, the television. In essence, YouTube provides a digital venue for individuals to televise the video media they have captured. The notion of the “tube” informs users of the ways they should interact with the site. As G.V. Arroyo and S.J. Carter denote in their article “Tubing the Future: Participatory Pedagogy and YouTube U in 2020”, the evolvement of the word “tube” points to phrases such as “going down the tubes” and “boob tube.” YouTube leverages users’ prior knowledge of their engagement with the television set to promote successful engagement with their site (2011). YouTube is unlike the conventional television because truly anyone with access to the site can upload media.
The media seen on YouTube starkly contrasts the media televised on traditional televisions with regard to the content and the origination thereof. Dustin Kidd notes in his text Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society that television media are channeled through five major media conglomerations (2014). The affluent conglomerates—with financial backing to maintain major TV productions—control the information being disseminated to the masses. Information, before the advent of sites like YouTube, flowed into the Western society in a “top-down” fashion. YouTube re-directs the information flow. The videos being uploaded into the site are created by the masses, for the masses. Any person can capture footage on their smart device and upload it directly onto YouTube for the world (truly) to see. The videos on YouTube are uploaded without regard to socio-economic standing or financial status of a person.
While YouTube can be reduced to a site collecting videos as resources, the simplicity of the response is complicated with a deeper excavation of the defining features of the videos it organizes. There are various ways to obtain a more nuanced understanding of the resource. Clarifying questions such as “What organizational features does the site emulate?” and “Who creates and uploads the videos?” drive the first design question to a finer depiction. With certainty this analysis of the video resource can be further explored and complicated, but the analysis thus far provides ample data to move forward to the next question. With a comprehensive knowledge of the resources YouTube collects, the next design question delves into the question of “Why?”