Youtube Apparatus

The academic agenda for studying social media and politics has been somewhat haphazard. Thanks to rapid technological change, a cascade of policy-relevant crises, and sheer scale, we do not have a coherent framework for deciding what questions to ask. This Element articulates such a framework by taking existing literature from media economics and sociology and applying it reflexively, to both the academic agenda and to the specific case of politics on YouTube: the Supply and Demand Framework. The key mechanism, traced over the past century, is the technology of audience measurement. The YouTube audience comes pre-rationalized in the form of Likes, Views and Comments, and is thus unavoidable for all actors involved. The phenomenon of 'radicalization' is best understood as a consequence of accelerated feedback between audiences and creators, radicalizing each other. I use fifteen years of supply and demand data from YouTube to demonstrate how different types of producers respond more or less to this feedback, which in turn structures the ideological distribution of content consumed on the platform. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

List of contents

1. Foreword; 2. Setting the academic agenda; 3. There is something wrong on the internet; 4. Media panics within the supply and demand framework; 5. The apparatus; 6. YouTube system; 7. Supply system; 8. Demand system; 9. Describing YouTube politics; 10. The academic agenda for studying social media; 11. Self-Indulgent Postscript: Poetry as social science methodology; References.

Summary

This Element presents a flexible but coherent framework that draws on existing literature from media economics and journalism to reflect the supply-and-demand realities of a given social media platform. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Foreword

This Element shows the Supply and Demand framework for studying social media, with 16 years of political YouTube data.

Product details

• Authors: Kevin Munger, Kevin (Pennsylvania State University) Munger
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2024
• EAN: 9781009486002
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0948600-2
• No. of pages: 88
• Series: Elements in Politics and Communication
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Media Studies, POLITICAL SCIENCE / General, Economics, Digital lifestyle, Film, TV & radio, E-commerce: business aspects, Media studies: internet, digital media and society, Graphical & digital media applications, Internet and digital media: arts and performance, Digital or internet economics, Digital video: consumer/user guides, Digital video: consumer / user guides