YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture [Paperback]

Jean Burgess (Author), Joshua Green (Author), Henry Jenkins (Contributor), John Hartley (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0745644791 | ISBN-13: 978-0745644790 | Edition: 1

YouTube is one of the most well-known and widely discussed sites of participatory media in the contemporary online environment, and it is the first genuinely mass-popular platform for user-created video. In this timely and comprehensive introduction to how YouTube is being used and why it matters, Burgess and Green discuss the ways that it relates to wider transformations in culture, society and the economy.
The book critically examines the public debates surrounding the site, demonstrating how it is central to struggles for authority and control in the new media environment. Drawing on a range of theoretical sources and empirical research, the authors discuss how YouTube is being used by the media industries, by audiences and amateur producers, and by particular communities of interest, and the ways in which these uses challenge existing ideas about cultural ‘production’ and ‘consumption’.
Rich with both concrete examples and featuring specially commissioned chapters by Henry Jenkins and John Hartley, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary and future implications of online media. It will be particularly valuable for students and scholars in media, communication and cultural studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jean Burgess and Joshua Green insightfully weave together an engaging and much-needed cultural narrative of the astonishing new phenomenon that is YouTube with an incisive critique of its rapidly-mythologised yet deeply uncertain transformative potential."
Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science

"This book is an important and timely contribution to the literature on participatory culture and media. The analyses provide empirical bases for understanding the diversity of YouTube users' practices and sophisticated theoretical consideration of the social, cultural, political, historical and economic contexts in which these practices are situated and which they so often disrupt."
Nancy Baym, University of Kansas

From the Back Cover

YouTube is one of the most well-known and widely discussed sites of participatory media in the contemporary online environment, and it is the first genuinely mass-popular platform for user-created video. In this timely and comprehensive introduction to how YouTube is being used and why it matters, Burgess and Green discuss the ways that it relates to wider transformations in culture, society and the economy.
The book critically examines the public debates surrounding the site, demonstrating how it is central to struggles for authority and control in the new media environment. Drawing on a range of theoretical sources and empirical research, the authors discuss how YouTube is being used by the media industries, by audiences and amateur producers, and by particular communities of interest, and the ways in which these uses challenge existing ideas about cultural ‘production’ and ‘consumption’.
Rich with both concrete examples and featuring specially commissioned chapters by Henry Jenkins and John Hartley, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary and future implications of online media. It will be particularly valuable for students and scholars in media, communication and cultural studies.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: Polity; 1 edition (August 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745644791
• ISBN-13: 978-0745644790
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,566 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr Jean Burgess is a Senior Research Fellow in the Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and an Associate Researcher with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation. She researches and publishes on issues of cultural participation in new media contexts, focusing particularly on user-created content, online social networks, and co-creative media such as digital storytelling. Her recent work has included a study of YouTube undertaken in collaboration with Joshua Green (Convergence Culture Consortium, MIT), culminating in the book YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture, published by Polity Press in 2009, and subsequently translated into Portuguese (Editora Aleph) and Italian (Editore EGEA).

Burgess has developed several applied research partnerships with cultural institutions and community-based organizations, focusing on the uses of co-creative media such as digital storytelling for cultural participation, advocacy and engagement. She has a background in music performance, cultural studies and Internet studies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YouTube Community Given Its Due, June 13, 2009

By 

Robert S. Robbins (Williamsport, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Paperback)

Finally, a book about YouTube that shows a clear understanding of the web site's potential for social networking. The authors have really done their homework (or research) well and picked up on things that other writers have missed. For example, they noticed that YouTubers often extend their social interaction to other sites like Stickam. And they caught the controversy over the Partner program which served to divide the community.

I'm very invested in the YouTube community so I found it fascinating to read the observations of social scientists on this cultural phenomenon. The authors have done an excellent job of explicating the significance of YouTube as a creative community and cultural force.

In summary, this book is quite impressive. As an active participant on YouTube I can attest to its accuracy. I even found some insight into certain aspects of the online world through phrases like "attention economy". The YouTube community is certainly the biggest group of attention whores you'd ever meet and it is important to realize how much of their creative endeavors and drama is a fight for attention in a media economy driven by attention.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful addition to any internet studies collection, February 11, 2010

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Paperback)

Instant, accessible video has revolutionized the world. "YouTube: Digital Media and Society Series" discusses the impact that the video website has had on society by making a wide variety of videos available for the public's perusal. Advertisers have flocked to the sight, pop culture revolutions have been fueled by it, social crusades have been forwarded using it. The authors, both experts in media studies and creativity and innovation, provide a scholarly look at YouTube and why it has come to dominate the internet as it has today, making "YouTube" a powerful addition to any internet studies collection.

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, vivid, heavy reading., May 2, 2011

By 

Sage Moon - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Paperback)

I purchased this book for assistance with a college paper for YouTube. I found this book to be immensely helpful. It is interesting to note that they did not look so much at social aspects so much as a more hard-science collaborative perspective, however there are endless unique points made with this read that are unbiased, deductive in nature, and involve all elements of YouTube.

The articulation is quite dense and heavy, but uniquely specific. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone that would like a serious take on insight into YouTube and how its structure works together in dualistic natures.