Saturday, April 26, 2008

Nine youtube props

Within the first ‘idea’ I don’t really understand the concept here discusses here of powerful entities masking their power in order to participate in a networking culture. When it comes to the second idea I agree that youtube is definitely comes with a sense of more pluralistic communication and participation. Everyone feeds off of each other’s ideas and responses in order to create their own way of participating within the youtube culture. It’s not only a way to communicate ideas about different opinions or even broadcast talents and other homemade video clips, but also acts as a means to rebroadcast video clips from TV. Since you can find pretty much anything on youtube, people can regularly rely on this site to provide them with material they’re seeking. He makes a very good point about how almost everyone has some sort of video recording device with them at all times, since phones these days have video programmed into them. Due to this there has been significant growth in the videos that have been distributed throughout the internet. With regards to his eight idea, although the internet and it’s participatory culture are becoming a big part of our lives, I don’t think it is necessary for someone to be able to master using youtube, or have to post videos on youtube in order to be successful and meaningful participants in our culture. He’s putting too much emphasis on this aspect of our lives, when it should really compliment our participation rather than define it. It is true that a digital gap exists throughout the world; however, I think we can put our resources into more meaningful resources to expose people to, rather than give them the ability to access youtube, or have the ability to contribute to youtube. It is very true that youtube doesn’t portray a very diverse culture; however for the purposes that many use it for, such as finding music videos or clips from different tv shows, I’m not sure diversity is really needed for this aspect. I am aware that you can use youtube for other resources where diversity could greatly contribute to a person’s experience; therefore it may be reasonable to seek out ways of increasing the diversity in these areas. Overall youtube is getting a lot of press because of its growing popularity, and due to this, changes may be seen in its overall content in years to come.

1 comment:

Emily B said...

I completely agree with your comment on the necessity of YouTube in our culture. The digital gap between those who can utilize technological/media outlets and those who cannot is a definite reality. However, as YouTube is essentially a form of participatory culture I don't know if that really matters. There is no digital requirement in our society that forces people to be literate in technology in order to participate in our REAL culture. Unless we are considering the internet community as the only form of meaningful social interaction we shouldn't consider those who are unable to contribute to YouTube as somehow inferior. I understand the necessity of digital education and I agree that exposure to internet technology such as YouTube is essential to understanding the intriguing cultural moment we find ourselves in, however I don't believe that it defines our participation with society.