Wesch believes that YouTube is a perfect example of new forms of media and community. He uses the evolution of the Numa Numa viral video to illustrate this. Numa Numa is just a guy messing around in his bedroom, doing a silly dance that the whole world joined in.
- 'The Web is not Just about information, it's about linking people in new, unpredictable ways'
YouTube is at the centre of a user-based system. User-generated filtering, organisation and distribution are what makes videos popular. An analysis video he himself did whent viral due to the networks in place, reaching number one by noon and staying there through the next day. The Next day, in this case, being Superbowl Sunday, the day that tons of super-popular clips from the event flooded YouTube.
Wesch also says that media is not just context and tools of communication. It mediates human relationships; When media changes, so do human relationships.
Wesch identifies A 'Cultural Inversion' on the web. People express individualism, independence and commercialisation, but value community, relationships and authenticity. This links to a 'Cultural Tension', where the connection of people leads to constraint. On YouTube, he says that this tension is absent.
- The most private place becomes the most public with YouTube+webcams.
-People are producers, producing themselves, re-taking identity (literally, redoing filming), editing our own histories (e.g. deleting past videos), playing with identity.
As things spread about on YoutTube, there can be a collapse of context. some war vets joking around at a party becomes an official endorsement to bomb iran, complete with it's own theme tune.
A really concise summary of Wesch's key ideas. To add a bit more depth, at the end of your post, you could make a glossary of key terms that have been used in the lecture.
ReplyDelete