by Ally Chua
Student, Curtin University
Abstract
This paper will discuss YouTube as a Web2.0 application that allows communities to form through communication and motivates the community members to stay in the space to enrich the online contents. The elements of the Web 2.0 like user-generated-content, collective consumption, accessibility, free culture make the user to consume it that benefits themselves, others and the media industries. The feeling that provides by the community cause the members (user) make the contribution to maintain the relationship by interacting.
Keywords: Web 2.0, community, user-generated-content, YouTube, Social Network Site, relationship
YouTube, YouConnect, YouStay.
The Motivation of User to Contribute to the Online Content
Web 2.0, as a relatively new technology, gives the online user a new way of consuming information and experiencing communities. Consuming information not only by receiving passively but actively which a two-way communication is formed. “Web 2.0 is a technology shifting the Web to turn it into a participatory platform, in which people not only consume content (via downloading) but also contribute and produce new content (via uploading)” (Darwish & Lakhtaria 2011, p.204). Web 2.0 tools, such as social networking and social media sites, folksonomies, video sharing sites and mashup application that facilitate community by letting them express their feeling and using the subject to get responses from people. Thus, more online contents are generated and enriched by community members. The use of peer-to-peer file sharing lets the users access the file easily. Web 2.0 allows the user to add value to online content or product by enabling the user to make creative media products using existing products, provide feedback and share with other. Through the value-adding process, users are coming together and forming communities. The contents they contribute online seem to benefit the industries company by providing free labour. What makes them willing to do that are that they seek to be recognized, want to be known or understood by other and the feeling of belonging to a group. YouTube as a Web 2.0 application site lets the virtual or social network community members find supportiveness and belonging feeling from other members with no physical interaction is needed. “Community describes relations that provide a sense of belonging, not a group in physical proximity” (Katz et al., 2004). The new technologies motivate and encourage the practicing community in online space by offers convenient. Without the limitations of space and time, users can access music anytime and anywhere they want. This elasticity of content consuming and interacting with one another to maintain the relationship in online space lead to globalization. The more people or member of that community to support, agree or providing feedback from anywhere, the stronger the sense of belonging occurs in a person and that weak cooperation between one another create a bond between the members. This paper argues that social media software like YouTube, use the effective strategy tools that facilitate communities to attract and keep the community members to stay in that space.
What is community ?
Community can be defined as when communication occurs among a group of people that share a common interest. Public is a collection of people that shared a common interest but without knowing each other (Boyd, 2007). Cooperation and communication between users and consumers formed the online communities. Community is a social system which interaction and involvement socially determine the type of the community (Katz, Rice, Acord, Dasgupta, & David, 2004). We place people or ourselves into groups according to the person’s characteristic. The identity of a person can be shown through the shaping and showing of what their interest is. “Knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction” (Donath 1999, p.29). Online Community formed when similar identity people come together form a discussion about a common interest topic. For example, YouTube Users use searching tool to search a topic or issue to get information, and they express their opinion through like, comment or share. They are showing or shaping their identity by putting a certain word in the search box so that they will meet the content and people that related to them and being connected and become the member of the community. Community members’ way of accessing information influenced by environment, media products and ‘mental construct’ (Katz et al., 2004). “People gain a sense of who they are in part imaging by how others, both live and mediated, view them” (Katz et al. 2004, 317).
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is a platform that provides conveniences, opportunities by allowing participation of the user in content production. “The roles of producer and consumer are being blurred further within the new media landscape” (Jenkins, 2008). Creative products like music or video mashup, remix, comments and reaction video being made by the consumer based on existing products which create a new and different product that enrich the original products. Hence, consumer becomes the producer who produces a new product yet it is not really ‘new’ show the blurring line between producer and consumer. Web 2.0 enables users to provide their opinions about other users’ work and offer the user an interactive experience that formed the feeling of “that’s part of their work” and their thinking is being cared. “They welcomed a wide variety of browsing technologies and imagined users not only as readers but also as writers” (Darwish & Lakhtaria 2011, p. 204). Web 2.0 as a product of the participatory culture that encourages “emphasize users’ story preference to share knowledge and culture in communities” (van Dijck 2009, p. 45). The opportunity that web 2.0 provides the user to become producer make them more likely to consume the products. In sum, Web 2.0 facilitate online communities and enhance active social interaction by letting users easy to access the information and letting community members meet others who shared interests connect one another.
YouTube
Youtube is a social network site which using the technology of Web 2.0. Creative work like remix also being encouraged by YouTube with its easy operating system. “This phenomenon has gained strong momentum together with YouTube’s positioning as the leading website for all kinds of user-generated videos” (Wikstrom, 2010). Their consuming become contributing. By just streaming the video, user helps the producer to increase the “views”. Their comment allows the producer to know what their audience’s’ opinion and he can choose to make changes to improve their following products. These are how prosumer or co-creator happen to be. Since the network public is formed on YouTube, mainstream media company use YouTube as an advertising tool since it can reach to the broad public. “The users who google data, upload or watch videos on YouTube, upload or browse personal images on Flickr, or accumulate friends with whom they exchange content or communicate online on social networking platforms like MySpace or Facebook, constitute an audience commodity that is sold to advertisers” (Fuchs 2010, p.768). When a user sees the others’ comment on a video, they either agree or disagree with it, and the user might reply the user. This is when the communication form between users that have a common interest (the video) and form community. “Many began participating because of the available social voyeurism and the opportunity to craft a personal representation in an increasingly popular online community” (Boyd, 2007). Besides, the more the comment is the video, the more the popular it is. People will curious about what make the comments and they will go and watch. YouTube also allows community members to access the content they want at any place and anytime. Web 2.0 tools change this dynamic, making interaction on the web possible, collaboration easier, information sharing the norm, and the creation of web content by groups of people a reality (Darwish & Lakhtaria, 2011). There are different communities form on YouTube, some of the communities are more active and some have less connection which based on how active the members are. Some members engage passively and some passively involve themselves in enriching online content. This also affected by the type of information, issue or topic are the communities discuss. Communities forming can cause the long-term connection between community members and make the members keep coming back so they are up to date with the latest information. In order to make the community active and lively, members need to put effort to create new or improving products to make discussion opportunity, provide feedbacks of the group activity and support one another to create a link between one another.
Self-organization that form collective consumption.
In Web 2.0, users can create their own rules to consume online content and set rules for others to consume their products. What they want from or restrict their audiences. Audiences can likewise choose if they want to consume after knowing the rules of consuming certain products. “The essence of the community is one of networked individualism, in which we all choose our own communities, rather than be fitted with others into them involuntarily” (Katz et al. 2004, 332). They will see if the group or the product is ‘them’. Once they become part of the group, they will start to contribute by communicating with one another. “By belonging to these groups, consumers seek to be recognized (Chaney, 2012 p.44)”. ‘Competition’ happening when communication occurs, among the peoples, everyone seeks to be unique and agreeing with and when they received a certain amount of responses, they are being known. This causes them to make effort to contribute to the online content. YouTuber always seek for more ‘view’, more ‘like’ and more ‘subscribers’. This not only financially benefits them but also make them satisfied that their works are being appreciated. The tagging function which is one of the Web 2.0 features. This function allows distributors to set who they want their audiences or public to be. A very large number of potential consumer can be attracted to enrich the video with granularity effect by tagging their video with related words and upload it on YouTube since it increases the exposure of the video to more audiences. By allowing us to have a collective experience with people who are both like and unlike us, public life validates the reality that we are experiencing (Boyd, 2007). The ‘network public’ environment created by the Web 2.0 make people concerned about how others might think how they are. This makes them spend more time or effort to shape the style they want other people to know about them. The reaction video to other video products especially singers’ music videos. The sense of belonging to a group drag people to continue to contribute to the online content.
Communication as an opportunity of publication (co-operation, making friend, knowledge-exchange).
New technologies are tools that allow people to use a new way to perform familiar activities possibly with more effectively (Bakardjieva, 2011). Publishing becomes easier with the easy operating tools. What makes people to publish or distribute content online is that the desire they want to be known and look for the bosom friend who has “same taste”. They want to feel they are being connected. Instead of selling the products itself, the producer is selling the feeling or meaning of the product. What they will be paid for their work is the feeling such as appreciation and recognition. They earn from people’s like (support), comment (feedback and inspiration) and share (promote). What the consumer seek is also the feeling, the feeling of being agreed with, being listened to, connected with, feeling good for helping people and seek to be understood. When a people share a video from YouTube, their intention of doing that will be want to let the network public know their opinion of that video or let people know more about who they are by instead of really want to help to “promote” the video itself. The ‘network public’ environment created by the Web 2.0 make people concerned about how others might think how they are. This makes them spend more time or effort to shape the style they want other people to know about them. However, the distributors do not really care what’s the consumer intention is as long as the consumer’s action can add value to their products. Creative work like the remix, reaction video to the video are also encouraged by the distributor. This is because the original product itself might not be that attractive to some people, reproducing it to a different style increase the possibility of more people to like the song. “Configurability presents people with the tools to turn their interest into expression” (Sinnreich, 2010). Through the video publishing and communication occurring, the sense of belonging appears to both consumer and producer. This communication also is to maintain relationships among the community.
Enjoying entertainment conveniently (accessibility).
Consumer and producer (the community members) can access to, publish or contribute to the content easily with no time and space limit. Mediated technology brings and bridges communities practice to another space which free from people, locations and times boundaries and enables the members to promote the connection in the new space (Katz et al., 2004). YouTube as the third place for the user to communicate whenever they want. Users can come to and leave YouTube whenever they want. “Because virtual worlds are perpetually accessible and played in real time, participants are free to log on and off as they see fit” (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006). The accessibility also lead to Globalization, a Malaysian consumer can access and watch an Australian YouTuber by access to the internet and search it on YouTube. Web 2.0 publishing becomes easier cause more and more producers from different countries publish their work to let people around them to consume and understand each other that create the links between them without physical interaction. “With the decline of the nation-state in global importance, due to the general cultural globalization supported by the Internet and communication technologies, the citizen of the nation-state has furthered this individuation and become a person, who joins with others in virtual communities” (Katz et al. 2004, 335).
Free culture.
Everyone likes free things. YouTube allows users to watch for free, publish for free, support for free and advertise or promote one’s products for free. YouTube as a Music or Video Streaming Site cause the decrease in CD sales. However, it increases the recognition of the music and artist that increase the revenue of the artist and media industry. “Our results indicate that new music consumption channels such as online streaming positively affect copyrights owners” (Aguiar and Martens 2013, p. 17). Distributor especially mainstream music industry should not see this free culture as a threat but an opportunity to make their products to be well known by increasing the exposure of the product. The emergence of the Web 2.0 shows that the need to change the way people consume products.
Marketing and self-promoting tool.
The use of web 2.0 in YouTube provides a platform that links the users together to form a strong bond between people and new ways of practicing communities that benefit both the producer and consumer. First, the effectiveness benefits the producer as it reaches very broad audiences that without the structural boundaries. Furthermore, it allows the producer to know audience’s thought and analyze their needs through feedback or comment so they can modify or make a different version to fulfil consumer’s need. “Therefore, it is likely that Web 2.0 was created to function as marketing strategy” (Fuchs 2010, p.767). The ability to share to other social network site benefits both producer and consumer. YouTube also allows mainstream media industries to look for the potential artist. At the same time, the user by uploading their work on to YouTube it might lead to a chance to be employed by a company. This shows that the virtual online space as the “third place” that might bring user to have real-world job opportunity (second place). “Second place is marked by financial obligation and rules that structure who is expected to be where and for how long; third place is marked by relative freedom of movement” (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006).
Conclusion
Web 2.0 helps create a different way of communication in online communities like YouTube. Online communities formed through communication and the way of practicing communities have been differing from how it happens in real life. Online community members meet and interact with each other online without space and time limit. The topics and activities that connect the communities decide how interesting or active the communities are. The communities that create the sense of belonging, relativeness and supportive cause the members to come back for it. Furthermore, community members’ opinion is important to enrich the online contents and this Satisfied both the users’ and industries’ need. The emergence of user-generated-content is that a new public sphere emerges, in which all citizens can freely express their opinion (Fuchs, 2010). In Web 2.0 Users seem to have more control on distribution than before but the software industries still having the main control. People’s contribution is being sold to the advertising company and even they know that being is being targeted at, they will continue to do it because the sense of belonging with the convenience that internet especially social media sites provide seems more attractive and important to them. On the other hand, by being targeted at, they found they are being understood more and more services and products that can fulfil their need are being produced. Besides, the convenience and easy operating system of Web 2.0 social network application like YouTube encourage the user to keep contributing and communicating in the space. YouTube as the third place allows users to come and connect with their network public and leave when they want. All these characteristics of Web 2.0 or YouTube motivate the user to contribute to the online contents so that they can be benefited from it.
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