YouTube: The Way to Popularity and Politics?

Social media network YouTube and the advent of video-logging or vlogging are a match made in heaven. According to The Guardian’s Gerard Seenan, vlogging are leading the trend in the Internet instead of traditional blogging (The Guardian, 7 August 2004). Equipped with a video camera, broadband connection and a site to post up your video, you are set to start video-logging. Unlike videos in a website, Dedman et al. (2006) said that videos in blogs are more interactive and possible to be linked and downloaded. The existence of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) enables interested viewers to subscribe to your videos, whereby whatever videos that you upload will be automatically in their viewing list.

This method of blogging has made a film graduate in her 20s famous through her series of video-logs on YouTube. Jessica Rose, or popularly known as LonelyGirl15 in YouTube had been acting as Bree, a home-schooled teenager with strict religious parents who expresses herself through vlogging, Heffernan reported (The New York Times, 13 September 2006).

Jessica Rose, or popularly known as LonelyGirl15 on YouTube.

Politicians have also recognised the potential of YouTube, and the social media network has become an advertising tool to win supporters especially during pre-election periods. Due to the free access to upload and share videos for free, dissemination of an ideology through videos is broad and fast (Gueorguieva 2008). A good example would be Malaysian opposition party Democratic Action Party (DAP)’s YouTube video named The Voice of Democracy, Conscience of Parliament (dapvideo 2008). The video shows that DAP carries the hope and voices of Malaysians.

References

1. Dedman, J, Kinberg, J & Paul, J 2006, Videoblogging, viewed 12 November 2008, http://books.google.com.my/books?id=2kMMrzbkTmMC.

2. Gueorguieva, V 2007, ‘Voters, MySpace, and YouTube: The Impact of Alternative Communication Channels on the 2006 Election Cycle and Beyond’, Social Science Computer Review, vol. 26, no. 3, viewed 23 October 2008, http://ssc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/288.

3. Heffernan, V & Zeller, T 2006, The Lonelygirl That Really Wasn’t, 13 September 2006, The New York Times, viewed 12 November 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/technology/13lonely.html.

4. Seenan, G 2004, Forget the bloggers, it's the vloggers showing the way on the internet, 7 August 2004, Guardian, viewed 12 November 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/aug/07/travelnews.travel.

5. The Voice of Democracy, Conscience of Parliament- DAP 2008, YouTube video, dapvideo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vEBfbEIxtM.