My intended area of research has now been fairly well established.
After initially researching a wealth of different types and genres of YouTube videos, i have decided on to research participatory culture, as both a competetive culture, and a teaching and learning tool available to all on the internet/YouTube.
To do this, i aim to ask a varitey of different questions.
I intend to research, and find out why this competetive culture has come about. Why people feel the need to be so competetive on the internet – is it because they don’t have to put a name to a face? Users can be, or pretend to be, whoever they want. Does this make it easier to perhaps “better” yourself on the internet?
In some instances people pretend to be other YouTube stars. One example would be the video “guitar”, where a person pretended to be the canon rock guitarist, only to be found out and exposed by the press.
Other reasons for this competetive culture could be the ideology that being the “best” makes a person feel better about themselves. This is the fame factor, or the feeling of admiration by fellow peers.
With this, i intend to link into the teaching aspect.
In order to become more talented, people willl inevitably need to learn in some form/way, therefore if vidoes are available for free via YouTube, it would seem obvious that people will use them.
Again, this could also link into the competetiveness of YouTube. Uploaders of these “teaching” videos, are often attempts to better another similair video. To use the same video example again, the guitar video has several different video responses showing other users how to play canon rock.
Essentially, people upload videos of themsevles doing something talented. This can be a simple video, or it can be an attempt at teaching others how to do something. Either way, this has some element of competition.
So, surely this competetive element is there within this learning sub-genre?
I also intend to go into more detail about the teaching and learning aspect of YouTube, rather than simply the competetive culture contained therein.
