YouTube Users Watching and Sharing the News: A Uses and Gratifications Approach
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Introduction
The proliferation of inexpensive video camera and computer-editing software has made it possible for individuals to produce video content, a portion of which is available for distribution on video-sharing Web sites such as YouTube. Much of the content on YouTube is of the homegrown, amateur video variety, but an important subset is produced by professionals (i.e., by the mainstream media and other organizations uploading content to reach the large online audience or by individuals who record and upload professional media content). Included in that subset are news videos. Some industry studies suggest that news clips are the most widely viewed videos in the category of professionally produced content (Vorhaus, 2007).
The estimated audience for YouTube in December 2007 was 64 million visitors (Nielsen Online Reports TopLine U.S. Data for November 2007, 2007). Nielsen Net Ratings suggest that the audience for YouTube mirrors the U.S. online population as a whole: 19% of them are between the ages of 18 and 34 (YouTube Demographics, 2007). That age group is attractive to advertisers, and so their media use is important to traditional news companies, which have long attempted to bring young news consumers into the fold—often without success.
But YouTube is more than a substitute for the traditional TV news delivery system. The diffusion of news depends on interpersonal communication as viewers tell their friends about interesting things they’ve watched or read. Because it is on the Web, YouTube adds an important component to traditional post-viewing activity that earlier forms of television did not have—the ability to share the videos and to replay them within one’s circle of family and friends.
In a more traditional media world, post-viewing activity was typically a discussion about a particularly interesting program around the office water cooler the following morning. In the social networking world, those discussions can take place around an infinite number of virtual water coolers.
Individual viewers are now an important part of the media distribution chain. This study examines the viewing of news video on YouTube to see if this online delivery system can be a vehicle for electronic publishing professionals to reach a key demographic with news and information. It further examines the impact of certain background characteristics and motives for viewing news-related videos on YouTube and sharing them with others.
