Evidence 3: Popular Culture and Social Network

Burguss and Green support their argument of YouTube being essential in the new media revolution by citing the site’s own popular culture and social network.  This support makes their argument even more compelling.  Through their research, Burguss and Green were able to classify different YouTube videos based on number of views and number of comments.  In this study, they found that while industry-created videos garnered the most views, user-created content overwhelmingly had the most comments.  The biggest contributed on YouTube’s user created content is by far vlogs.  Vlogging has become a the most viewed user created content due to the web cam and confessional culture that has emerged.  While so mainstream media may downplay this form of information and entertainment, vlogging has seeped it’s way into mainstream culture.  Popular vlogggers have been offered TV and book deals, with YouTube vlogger, Zoella, becoming a best-selling author this year.  Burgess and Green (2013) described the reason vlogging has become so popular is because among this every growing online world is because: “The vlog reminds us of the residual character of interpersonal face-to-face communication and provides an important point of difference between online video and television.”(p.45). The availability of comments is key to this difference, as they act as an invitation for the vlogger and viewer to co-create together, something TV can’t do. 

This increase in communication between creators and viewers can be extremely important to our social climate.  In “Social Structure”, van Dijk (2006) explains that,  “The use of computers and Internet can increase so-called ‘social capital’ in terms of social contact, civic engagement and sense of community.”(p.168).  This important sense of community is what can strive to create change outside of digital confines of the Internet. According to van Dijk (2006), virtual communities are much more heterogeneous than organic communities. People may be brought together by one common interest, but may be completely different in every other way.  This increase in heterogeneous communities creates environments to better facilitate control and authority problems, with the help of a variety of opinions.  Burguss and Green (2013) argue that all contributors of content on YouTube are potential participants supporting a wide range of uses and motivations.  However they also state that, “the model asks us to understand the activities also of audiences as practices of participation, because the practices of audiencehood all leave traces and therefore effects the common culture of YouTube”(p.57).  Creators and audience members both come together on YouTube to discusses and facilitate the struggles of control and authority in the environment of the new media revolution.