Youtube: Media for the Internet Age

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“The press has had a mixed response to this…The middle road had a lot of negativity. CNN intro’d and outro’d every segment with Glozell in a bathtub full of cereal, as did ABC’s morning show. It never occurred to me that the news media would react negatively to this. But the mockery began as soon as the interviews were announced.” Articles on the web even went as far as to diminish the job of being a YouTuber by unnecessarily placing the phrase “YouTube creators” in quotation marks (Green).

The reason these news platforms treat people who make a job out of YouTube so badly is because they fear what sites like YouTube have cultivated. The source of YouTube’s legitimacy is very different from the fancy news studios of major news networks is because of the authenticity YouTubers display. People trust them because they’ve spent years developing a relationship with each other. Their legitimacy comes from honesty, not from cultural signals or institutions. YouTube is seen as a direct line from a content creator to their audience. Legacy media accuses young people of being apathetic while actively attempting to remove them from the discussion. Young people don’t trust news organizations because news organizations have given them no reason to be trusting.

Even though there are many people from old media outlets that have said bad things about YouTube, that still hasn’t stopped television shows and journalists from moving over to YouTube, such as Jimmy Fallon, Disney, and nearly every major television station in the United States. And, as more distinguished people come onto the platform, it spreads a positive light about the site, allowing for professional content created by YouTubers to be seen by larger media companies. This has been apparent very recently, since many YouTubers who have made a name for themselves on the platform have been given opportunities to write and publish books, create new television shows, and even feature in Hollywood movies. As the world turns from their televisions to their computers in search of entertainment, it’s eyes are going to be on YouTubers and their content.

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Works Cited

Hopkins, Jim. “Surprise! There's a Third YouTube Co-founder.” USATODAY.com. 11 Oct. 2006.

Web. 4 Mar. 2015.

Strickland, Jonathan. “How YouTube Works.” HowStuffWorks. 10 Dec. 2007. Web. 5 Mar.

2015.

Anderson, Chris. “Chris Anderson: How Web Video Powers Global Innovation.” TED. July

2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

"Is YouTube a Driver for Social Movements like Occupy Wall Street?" Phys.org. 29 Oct. 2013.

Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

Green, Hank. “Holy Shit, I Interviewed the President.” Medium. 24 Jan. 2015. Web. 5 Mar.

2015.

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