"youtube advocavcy"
Post on 22-Oct-2014
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Presentation on YouTube from "Acting Up - Using Theater & Technology for Social Change," from DePaul’s School for New Learning Distance Education Program, Winter 2010.TRANSCRIPT
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