On the surface YouTube does seem to be a very egalitarian community. Anyone who wishes to visit the site can access pretty much anything they want, though age and area restrictions apply. Nearly 70% of all YouTube site traffic now comes from outside of the United States, YouTube has now localized in 56 countries and across 61 languages, (YouTube, 2013).
But as you can see from the image below YouTube is mostly used by westernized communities.
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| (Map of Top 10 Countries by YouTube Viewership: Retrieved from https://www.virool.com/blog/the-top-10-countries-in-youtube-viewership-or-virool-around-the-world/) |
Why is it that such a "diverse" community like YouTube is clearly localized within western society? Well, it predominately has to do with "Professional YouTubers".
A professional YouTuber is a person who has many thousands of subscribers to their channel, and because of this, they can make money through advertising in their channel. Within the YouTube community though these are the power holders, if we can agree with John Allen's interpretation that "Power...is a relational effect of social interaction" (Alllen, 2003). Because the more subscribers a pro-YouTuber has the more virtual social interactions there have been, and therefore they are more powerful than less viewed YouTubers.
In my opinion this makes YouTube less egalitarian because power is held by one demographic and not many. This is not inherently YouTube's own doing. It has more to do with the social aspects of other countries. For example China, as an ideological adversary of the west has banned YouTube since 2009. Which has closed off about 700 million viewers of YouTube, who would then begin to alter the distribution statistics.
Economics also has a role to play in the lack of equality in YouTube. Poorer nations and peoples may not have access to computer or let alone the internet. And if some individuals do have access to YouTube, the amount of time and knowledge of how to become professional is lacking, focus being paid to more traditional forms of income.
Power is, in my opinion not distributed evenly throughout the YouTube network. Predominately because our presence in a virtual social network is closely linked to the demands of reality. YouTube itself though, as an organisation, provides equal opportunities to those who are willing to invest themselves within the community.
Other Discussions:
For more information on the distribution of Power and Equality in popular social networking sites visit:
Virool: Popularity and Distribution of Equality in the Social Networks
Reference List:
Allen, J. (2003). Lost
Geographies of Power. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
YouTube. (2013,
August 24). Statistics - Press and Blogs. Retrieved August 24, 2013,
from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html
Image Source:
Map of Top 10 Countries by YouTube Viewership: Retrieved from https://www.virool.com/blog/the-top-10-countries-in-youtube-viewership-or-virool-around-the-world/
I agree with the above view, in particular the power inequality amongst Youtube users.
ReplyDeleteJames, in my opinion, You Tube has the potential to empower people as well. Allen (2003) writes of how power when recognized by its proximity can help us to take action. For example, sharing videos on You Tube enabled the Arab uprising in the Middle East which might have otherwise been undisclosed to the outside world. You Tube, as a virtual network is easily accessible and relatively cheap. Perhaps in the future more people will have the opportunity to expose their world.
ReplyDeleteAllen, J. (2003). Introduction: Lost Geographies, in Lost Geographies of Power (1-12). Malden, MA: Blackwell.