Groundbreaking Australian book gets to the heart of the YouTube phenomenon

13/08/2009

Australia's most successful YouTuber, Natalie Tran, is not a stripper, a file sharing pirate or a cy

ber bully as popular wisdom about the nature of YouTube might have you think.

YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture, by Jean Burgess and Joshua Green analyses the most successful videos with some surprising results. This analysis of the most popular, most viewed, and most discussed YouTube clips found that it’s not just videos about cyber-bullying or bizarre accidents that top the charts.

In the case of Natalie Tran, she is a highly successful performer who is also deeply embedded in the social network of YouTube, treating it as a virtual community where she is on equal terms with her audience. Tran’s regularly produced YouTube act (which goes under the name Community Channel) is based around the idea of a ‘bedroom vlog’.

“The Vlog, or videoblog, where the performer speaks straight-to-camera from an everyday setting like a bedroom, is probably the video form that is most representative of YouTube’s community and culture”, explains Dr Jean Burgess, the Australian co-author of the first comprehensive book on the YouTube phenomenon. “Many of YouTube’s most subscribed channels are home-grown examples of this form, not "big media" productions”

Rather than simply trading in negative and harmful images, the book demonstrates YouTube is a place where people share jokes, ideas and intimate details of their lives. It also found that when it comes to traditional media, the site is one where people go to understand history and current affairs through the sharing of news footage and political speeches.

So while most of us use YouTube to catch up on the latest viral sensation or to find our favourite music videos, for a small but significant number of users it’s also an online community where, as Burgess says, "Thousands of active YouTubers like Tran share ideas, entertain us and each other, and form an active network of lead users with high levels of digital literacy."

Also see Jean Burgess' blog for more details

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