YouTube, as I have said in my first blog "Broadcast Yourself", has more than 1 billion users, across 56 countries and 61 languages (YouTube, 2013). In relation to ,"Stuff", as Dr Wilkinson defined in his lecture as "commodities" (Wilkinson, 2013), YouTube is a powerful technology which can "enable globalization" to occur. (Dicken, 2007, p.438) Because it has vast reach across our global network, not only through its own site but also through other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It has even permeated in to conventional forms of media with news broadcasters utilizing the site for more human issue based stories.
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| A satirical cartoon of globalization. |
YouTube has managed this by adopting the use of advertising before and during videos. By using YouTube's "True-View in stream viewer" advertisers can now reach a specific target audience by uploading their ads to specific channels. Examples could be a large transnational gaming company uploading an advertisement for a new game on a gaming review channel, or a motorcycle manufacture placing an ad on the MotoGp channel.
However, YouTube cannot be seen as a transnational company because it is not a "Primary mover and shaper of the global economy" (Dicken, 2007). If anything YouTube is only a new and refreshing platform for those real transnationals, like Honda, who use YouTube to reach a wider customer base. See the Honda Dream Advert. And although YouTube is a technology Dicken (2007) states that technologies are not determining forces in the global economy.
In regards to stuff YouTube has ultimately provided a new and more direct platform for communication between a transnational manufacturer and the customer. It has helped enable globalization by its subtle manifestation into a tool for everyday use by over a billion people worldwide. And has great cultural power in influencing what commodities we are exposed to as consumers, though it is not a driving force behind globalization but more a middle man between producer and consumer.
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See how YouTube is out competing other social networks in the race for globalization at;
References:
Dicken, P. (2007). Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy. London: Sage Publications. p. 437-453.
Wilkinson, R.
(producer). (2013). Stuff, Markets and Manufacture [Video Podcast]. Retrieved
from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_312_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_42847_1%26url%3D
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