Do You Favor YouTube as a Source for News? Study Says Growing Number Do
- Posted on July 16, 2012 at 8:10am by
Liz Klimas
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(Image: YouTube Screenshot)
NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — Is the ‘Tube where you get your news? No, not the good old television, but YouTube. A new study has found that the video-sharing website is emerging as a major platform for news, one to which viewers increasingly turn for eyewitness videos in times of major events and natural disasters.
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism on Monday released their examination of 15 months of the most popular news videos on the Google Inc.-owned site. It found that while viewership for TV news still easily outpaces those consuming news on YouTube, the video-sharing site is a growing digital environment where professional journalism mingles with citizen content.
“There’s a new form of video journalism on this platform,” said Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “It‘s a form in which the relationship between news organizations and citizens is more dynamic and more multiverse than we’ve seen in most other platforms before.”
More than a third of the most-watched videos came from citizens. More than half came from news organizations, but footage in those videos sometimes incorporated footage shot by YouTube users.
(Image: Pew Research Center)
The Japanese earthquake and tsunami was the most-viewed news event during the length of the study, which spanned January 2011 to March 2012. The top videos from Japan included footage from surveillance cameras, a news network and a Japanese Coast Guard vessel — a typical variety of sources.
Such dramatic events were often among the most watched videos. Other popular news events included the Russian elections, unrest in the Middle East, the collapse of a fair stage in Indiana and the crash of an Italian cruise ship.
“One of the things that emerges here is the power of bearing witness as a part of a news consumption process,” said Mitchell. “Many of the most viewed stories that we’re looking at here have real powerful imagery around them.”
Here are some of the results from the study, but view all the analysis here:
- The most popular news videos tended to depict natural disasters or political upheaval-usually featuring intense visuals. With a majority of YouTube traffic (70%) outside the U.S., the three most popular storylines worldwide over the 15-month period were non-U.S. events. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami was No. 1 (and accounted for 5% of all the 260 videos), followed by elections in Russia (5%) and unrest in the Middle East (4%).
- News events are inherently more ephemeral than other kinds of information, but at any given moment news can outpace even the biggest entertainment videos. In 2011, news events were the most searched term on YouTube four months out of 12, according to YouTube’s internal data: the Japanese Earthquake, the killing of Osama bin Laden, a fatal motorcycle accident, and news of a homeless man who spoke with what those producing the video called a “god-given gift of voice.” Yet over time certain entertainment videos can have a cumulative appeal that will give them higher viewership.
- Citizens play a substantial role in supplying and producing footage. More than a third of the most watched videos (39%) were clearly identified as coming from citizens. Another 51% bore the logo of a news organization, though some of that footage, too, appeared to have been originally shot by users rather than journalists. (5% came from corporate and political groups, and the origin of another 5% was not identified.)
- Citizens are also responsible for posting a good deal of the videos originally produced by news outlets. Fully 39% of the news pieces originally produced by a news organization were posted by users. (The rest of the most popular news videos of the last 15 months, 61%, were posted by the same news organizations that produced the reports.) As with other social media, this has multiple implications for news outlets. Audiences on YouTube are reshaping the news agenda, but they are also offering more exposure to the content of traditional news outlets.
The results depicted both reasons for concern and encouragement for traditional news outlets. While citizen journalism accounts for a large slice of viewership on YouTube, its users are also eager distributors of professional news video. The study shows YouTube as a global news arena where professional and amateur video bleed together, and is made consumable in on-demand style.
That kind of atmosphere also makes for issues of authenticity. Though YouTube has guidelines for news video, they aren’t always followed and some videos go viral despite uncertain sources.
“This is a young platform and there are certainly aspects of this interplay and the way information is going to flow that’s still being worked out,” said Mitchell.
A relatively nascent new organization, Russia Today, a network founded in 2005 and backed by the Russian government that often reports rumor, had easily the most videos among the most-viewed. The second most-viewed news organization among the top videos was Fox News, although the study pointed out that more than half of those videos were posted in criticism of the network.
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electroniccomponents
Posted on July 24, 2012 at 1:47pmYou tube is looked at far more for entertainment then a news source in my mind. I find you tube excellent for videos and on occasion good with playing interviews
Report Post »http://www.precisionlogicinc.blogspot.com/2012/07/obsolete-parts-precisionlogic.html
If you tube wanted to I’m sure they would get more involved with news reports they do have the tools for reporting with major newscast world wide though.
morest39
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 7:32pmNo I don’t trust you tube, I’ve seen too many conservative views or anti obama views shut down, while libs can post anything and it stays up
Report Post »morest39
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 7:28pmNo I don’t trust you tube, seen to many conservative views being shut down while libs can say anything and you tube never shuts them down
Report Post »JEANNIEMAC
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 5:00pmYoutube is aligned with Google and Facebook. I don’t sign in to watch any videos, and don’t post anything that would put me on a hit list.
Report Post »heyjim55
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 3:54pmYoutube has it’s value to a point you can learn a great deal from it, many of our internet political and news sites cherry pick what they want to say or show us.
Report Post »Larry E
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 3:06pmIt has to be better than MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, or CNN or at least as honest.
Report Post »jillkennedy
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 1:20pmAnd what also has to be troubling to traditional broadcast and cable networks, YouTube’s original content strategy is actually working…
Report Post »http://mankabros.com/blogs/onmedea/2012/07/06/youtubes-original-content-strategy-is-working/
independentvoteril
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 11:48amU TUBE ?????????? come on.. that is for those to lazy to READ the news on the internet.. the only time I see a video is when they are embedded in an article and MOST times I get pissed when the ONLY thing they have for an article is a U TUBE video.. they are good for a visual WITH an written article but that’s it..
Report Post »happygranny
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 11:28amI certainly do not trust the so called main stream media since they are exceptionally biased, but what people post on some on line blog I treat with a great deal of skepticism. Give me old Fox News!
Report Post »Truthbeliever2
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 9:34amI have a choice between accepting what a LYING media is telling me or what my fellow citizens put on youtube. I’ll trust my fellow citizens.
Most people will blindly accept EVERYTHING their TV box tells them and question everything their fellow citizens put on youtube. Ignorant people are getting their news from agenda driven media outlets. They just don’t know any better.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 9:33amYouTube and other social media sites do provide a simple, common media forum for citizen journalist to post their videos. Yet the caution has to be itterated, anyone who has even simple software can, if they choose, manipulate videos to make them apprear different, selectively editing out one portion or another to support their view of what the truth should be instead of what it is.
This is one more reason that Obama is so desperate to have the media and the internet under his firm grip; for the presenting of their propaganda and “truth” as they see it, and desire for all others to have it understood instead of the literal truth of any situation.
Control informaiton and you gain power; with power and control, you rule all.
Report Post »Constructionist
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 9:28amA growing number of Americans also favor Cheetos as their main source of dietary protein. I’m sure YouTube devotees are the same people who list John Stewart as their most trusted news source. Popularity does not somehow diminish stupidity or enhance legitimacy.
Report Post »CanIjustSay
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 2:59pmRealistically, watching Jon Stewart and TheBlaze are more like eating Cheetos for the dairy. Youtube is the dairy. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/user/SHAYTARDS
Individualism
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 9:08amThe reason that is, is because anyone can post news on it and its more accurate and realistic news than what is on TV Radio and even on the blaze. The common man can put up news because its cheap to do so. You wonder why goverment wants to regulate the internet, basically they want to get rid of opposition and spew their propaganda. Internet is cheaper and can be accessed almost anywhere.
Report Post »menticide
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 8:53amI generally prefer YouTube over television. I like being able to watch what I want, when I want, and not having to worry about some channel’s programming schedule…
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