Friday, 6 February 2009

'YouTube' - The Role of the Users

YouTube is a website where anyone can post videos of whatever they like to the world (within reason) and get responses. Just in the name of the website we can see that it is all about personalisation, its not His or HerTube but YOUTube, this enforces the fact that anyone can post videos in relation to their interests wherther being humour, sport, music etc. The interactive nature of YouTube 'draw upon the popular discourse of neo-liberalism which treats the user as, above all, a consumer' (Lister et al). Neo-Liberalism's aim is to give the consumer all different kinds of choice from the market, this suggests that rather than being a passive user, the people who use YouTube are more involved and can post or comment on any topic they find fit and also in different ways such as, aswell as text comments YouTube also allows the users to comment and respond with videos of their own which they can link to others. The users of YouTube contribute substantially to the website which demonstartes that without the users the site would not exist.
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5 comments:

  1. HAPPY HAMMER12 February 2009 at 19:34

    RINCY

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  2. Matt Bemment12 February 2009 at 21:41

    Do you think that Youtube and other sites rely on us as consumers and users, or do you think that we have a desire and need for sites like it? Who is more dependent? I agree that Youtube relies on us, perhaps more so, but is it not also filling a void in our needs as a culture?

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  3. Alison Moore17 February 2009 at 11:12

    Neo-liberalism is a very sticky issue isn't it because it has that comfy feeling of allowing everyone choice to take part. But it isn't everyone is it? So one of the questions here is "to what extent do Youtube et al widen the digital divide?" Clearly continued existence is another issue - let's think about the rise (and fall?) of Friends Reunited, which used to be the next big thing. Did we need that? It's easy to say that we didn't - it was just a fad - but it served desire, entertainment, exploration, investigation, curiosity, nostagia, etc etc and lots of other urges, for a while.

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  4. Alison Moore17 February 2009 at 11:16

    Generally speaking though, pleased to see a link made between the site, and Lister and the whole neo-liberal issue - some sensible comments both here and in your responses Jason. Keep doing that thing - linking readings and lectures with "seminar" work so that I can see how well you are taking on unit ideas. Please label your posts with the week and task number - eg Week 4, Question 1a. Also see my email.

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  5. iSsy17 February 2009 at 21:47

    Rinsy.

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