YouTube AdvocacyThe Good, The Bad, and the Inadvertent

Sam Rhee1143715

Overview

Since the advent of the Internet, people have used its anonymity and broadcast power to further their causes and create awareness for a myriad of issues.

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Overview

As the Internet matured, three things happened in succession:

1. Video streaming became practical

2. Web hosting of large files became cheap

3. YouTube was created

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Specifications

Founded:

By:

Owned by:

Number of YouTube Viewers:

2003

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim

Google, Inc.

Over 100,000,000*

*Source: Social Media Optimization: http://social-media-optimization.com/2009/03/100-million-people-use-youtube/

Activism on YouTube

YouTube is well-suited for activism for several reasons:

• Free and ubiquitous

• Keyword Searchable

• Simple to use, organize, and broadcast

• Encourages interface with other websites

YouTube is used by activists to:

• Expose injustice and call to action

• Educate

• Create awareness

Exposing Injustice: Neda

Neda agha Soltan, 1982-2009 • Killed while walking through a

demonstration to get to her car• Demonstration was anti-government• Graphic cellphone video sent to

Facebook accounts• Widely disseminated via YouTube• Dozens, if not hundreds of tribute

videos show up on YouTubeResult:

• Became icon and rallying cry for the movement

• Circumvented heavy totalitarian suppression to expose Iranian government and anti riot policies

• Created global awareness and outrage

Education: The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement is developmentally mature in the United States. Its groups are:

• Highly sophisticated• Well funded• Politically connected• Epically historic

YouTube provides the Civil Rights Movement with:

• A space to archive a considerable amount of video footage• A mechanism for organizing said footage• A searchable index that is as powerful as Google• A memorable and easily accessed by children and adults from

almost any device that has an Internet connection.

Call to Action: Community Activism

Communication via video is uniquely suited for the concept of community activism.

• Sophisticated concepts that would normally take up volumes of text can be explained or shown graphically and with animation.

• Individual communities can be targeted with tag words for journalists and “civilian” viewers.

• YouTube fits within most organizations’ sustainability philosophy and budget.

Tools for Community Activism on YouTube:

• Council meetings• Local criminal activity,

safety hazards and other issues

• Vlogs of activists

• Primers/How To’s on organization and activism

• Access to channels set up by like-minded individuals

Challenges

YouTube, like any other large corporate subsidiary, has its share of downsides, issues and critical users:

Copyright Infringement

Piracy

Sheer Number of videos online

Pornography and Graphic Violence

Libel/Slander

Misinformation/disinformation

Too slow to remedy issues

For the community activist, the most important concepts to grasp are avoiding copyright infringement, misrepresentation, and any other liability issues, critical thinking in terms of a video’s validity, and searching techniques.

YouTube and ActivismYouTube is an indispensible partner for the modern activist. Its robust back end technology is based on many open source initiatives, promoting the community minded aspect of programming while being backed by a company with enough clout to withstand outside pressures.

With shortening attention spans and an ever increasing number of sources vying for that attention, reaching intended audiences and motivating them to act has become a challenge.

YouTube has consistently (if inadvertently) met that challenge. With its rudimentary but useful video editing ability to its ability to integrate with social networking sites and blogs to its limitless storage, YouTube is a powerful suite of tools for activism.

Sam Rhee1143715