Diversity and Cultural Citizenship
YouTube is a platform that is known for being open to a wide variety of audiences. No matter your religion, race, or ethnicity, YouTube allows people from all cultural backgrounds to upload content to their domain. Because of YouTube’s allowance of diversity, a lot of questions rise towards people who have experienced different things due to their different beliefs or culture. These questions have then led to debates about how people can pick up on things from the internet. However, the biggest factor in YouTube’s, or just the internet in general, is the power struggle between social groups that have existed for a long time and new social groups that are slowly rising to fruition. Many argue that the differences between social groups are pointless because they’re not creating better messages to their audience. Whether the social groups are individual or communal, they’re causing a divide in their viewers as opposed to bringing awareness to how communities should be working together and not against each other. People would rather see genuine conversations between two people with differing beliefs than see those same two people at each other’s throats. YouTube is also mainly used to spread activism to the viewers. One of the forms of activism that can be seen a lot on this platform is videos of people discussing how they struggled with their sexuality and came to terms with it with themselves, their friends, and their family. Some see YouTube allowing people to post videos on that topic as propaganda. People would believe this because if you have someone young and someone that could be easily influenced watching content of that sort, then it could spiral into that young and very easily influenced person following those footsteps. However, YouTube is just trying to give people a space to express themselves and share their personal stories because those stories may inspire others around them to come to terms with things that have happened in their own lives that may be similar. While YouTube is open to activists and what they’re standing up for, the platform also leaves room for people that want to criticize those activists and pick apart what they’re saying. People have analyzed this relationship between activists and critics and find that it draws more peoples’ attention if the two parties have conversations with one another. It brings both viewers from each side to one space and they can all pick each other's brains to try to understand where each person is coming from. Globalization and Localization YouTube is in the middle of showing people the ideas they like and are used to and exposing people to new ideas that are evolving in the world. These differentiating ideas are known as globalization and localization and they’re an important part of YouTube’s platform. There are both aspects on the site. When it comes to being global, YouTube falls under that category because YouTube is a part of the internet, which is accessible by any and everyone. However, when it comes to being local, YouTube isn’t so well known in that category. It’s hard to find videos on topics that aren’t largely discussed in the media. This is because some countries aren’t included in what is allowed to be posted on YouTube, which can restrict what a lot of people are able to see about what’s happening in that country. These countries and their citizens want YouTube to be localized to them, so they don’t feel pushed aside by the global aspect of the platform. YouTube is banned in some countries, like Turkey, for political reasons. It’s also banned in China for China’s governmental reasons. However, these countries are different from America in that they’re not overly interested in YouTube anyways, so they’re better off either way. However, YouTube still tries hard to get the attention of these countries to broaden the platform’s reach. YouTube’s main appeal is free speech, which isn’t something that is achievable by people in different countries. YouTube tries to regulate things that are politically offensive to these countries through advanced technology. Us, as viewers, don’t typically notice this until we want to look up a video and we can’ because it’s been removed. No matter what the platform’s control is, some governments have more control, and they’ll usually prevail in the end. YouTube as Cultural Archive A lot of people utilize YouTube to watch things from their past. This includes music videos, television shows, and commercials. People saying, they use YouTube for this reason shows that YouTube is a main form of a cultural archive. Cultural archives preserve things from generations so that they can be viewed later and bring back memories from one’s past. Therefore, a lot of people are going to YouTube to see things they already know, not things they’re trying to discover for the first time. People would rather go through all stages of nostalgia than experience something new. This is because people are comfortable with what they already know, and they don’t want to take a chance on something new. Companies within YouTube take advantage of this. Although it’s good for people to relive their past, YouTube also has limitations on that. Memory is a subjective idea to a lot of people. Many argue that memory is often not actually remembered correctly. Instead, it’s reshaped and molded into what people want it to be. Some things that have historical significance are abusive. There are things on the internet that are harsh, but they’re remembered differently than what they really are. Because of this, YouTube does remove some older content for other peoples’ protection. YouTube does its best with this, but it’s still a work in progress
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AuthorKayla Hall Archives
April 2021
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