Henry Jenkins. Source: HenryJenkins.org
Henry Jenkins is a professor of communications at the University of Southern California and a renown author of books on popular culture and media (HenryJenkins.org). He is also a blogger, and in his article – nine propositions toward a cultural theory of Youtube – he adapts a speech he gave about the significance of social networking: web 2.0 and it’s potential – back in 2007. It is interesting to note the nine propositions he gave on the value of Youtube back in 2007, less than a year after the site’s launch. I will quickly outline the 9 propositions:
- Youtube provides a mix of both amateur and professional content allowing anyone to be seen disrupting the traditionally professional nature of media.
- Youtube provides a collaboration ground for grassroots organizations being able to organize content and meanings that would otherwise be hard due to distance.
- Youtube can be a more powerful channel of growth than traditional broadcast channels.
- Youtube is very spreadable (can be shared easily).
- Youtube aids citizen journalism.
- Youtube can be used as a force for change, propoganda, transformation, and instigating change (this reminds me of Arab Flight)
- Youtube helps us notice what is culturally popular as well as creates a more dynamic culture.
- Youtube reinforces the importance of social knowledge (social networking/web 2.0) and the digital divide.
- Youtube reinforces that participatory culture is not diverse culture: Youtube is represented by a minority.
What’s interesting about this article is that Youtube is still not a diverse culture, even though it is currently ranked the number 3 most visited website in the world. I believe this is because number 8 and number 9 are closely related. So, I began to try and understand why Youtube is not as popular among minority cultures or as participated by minority cultures: one of the reasons I see is the country rank of Youtube in various countries: the digital divide.The divide between the access of countries is one main cause of it.
Youtube Country Breakdown. Source: Alexa.
However, Youtube content is represented fairly equally within the various sub-cultures found in America. What this means is that Youtube is fairly equally participatory in terms of user numbers with access, but this is focused mainly on sub-cultures found in America.
Youtube Demographics. Source: Alexa
I thought your blog post was very interesting. I agree that the digital divide does influence people’s ability to participate on YouTube. However, I think the digital divide aside, the participatory divide is not necessarily due to different minority groups (as evident in your graph). I think it would be interesting to look at different demographics, such as age, gender, level of education etc to see how that affects the participation gap that Jenkins discusses.