Why Has YouTube Become So Popular?

Estimated Read Time: 3 Minutes 44 Seconds

YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon with millions of hours of videos watched and uploaded on a weekly basis. Many YouTube creators have made a career out of producing content for this massive website.

This article will use sociological theories to explain the popularity of this video-sharing website.

Encoding A YouTube Video For Different Audience Types

Hall, claims that “using recognized codes and conventions and by drawing on audience expectations, the producer can position the audience and create a certain amount of agreement on what the code (YouTube video in this case) means” (Hall: 1980: 128). This entails that a producer of a YouTube video can “position” the YouTube videos are open to different interpretations depending on cultural background, preferred reading of the medium and the reader’s individual circumstances. An example of interpreting videos on YouTube would be if a YouTube user were to post a video of himself/herself imitating a celebrity. This video could possibly garner several interpretations such as; a YouTube user thinking it was a good video based purely on the imitation or a YouTube user could also think it was a critiquing social commentary on celebrity culture. Using Hall’s theory, YouTube videos can be seen as a “text” or “code” and by applying this theory to YouTube, it is evident that the popularity of the website has come about because of the ability to interpret videos in different ways and this allows a multi-cultural video sharing resource that is not bound by cultural differences.
audience and by “encoding” the video then the reader (a person who watches the video) can “decode” the video according to his/her cultural resources. Hall’s encoding/decoding theory can be applied to YouTube because

Presenting A Front, Or Wearing A 'Mask'

Goffman (1995 [1973]) claims that humans within social interactions present a “front” and this front has been prepared “backstage” in order to give off information to observers. The front incorporates the social setting and how one plays the role within the situation. This can be applied to YouTube because the “front stage” performance (the YouTube video) is what people look at to define the person within the social context of the internet. The backstage preparation is key to understanding YouTube because people who post videos of themselves talking to the camera (Vlogs etc) would have some sort of preparation and may have even had several takes at the video to present the ‘front’ that they want to be presented within the social scene that is YouTube. Goffman’s theory of presentation of self can be used to explain the popularity of YouTube because people who post videos can fine-tune their “front” because videos can be edited to provide the front they want to be projected. This grants the user with the ability to ‘edit’ his or herself within a social situation which is not possible in the real world and this also benefits people who may not be comfortable within social situations outside of the internet.

YouTube And Social Capital

Bordieu’s social capital theory can also be applied to YouTube because posting videos on this website can help establish social ties and can define a user in a hierarchical way according to the social ties that they have. Bordieu claims that social capital is measured by the size of one’s relationship network, the sum of the relationship’s cumulated resources and how quickly the individual can set them in motion (1983). Another definition of social capital from Bordieu that applies to YouTube is “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (1983: 184). Social capital within YouTube would mean the number of subscribers that a user has, the number of comments that they have on their videos, as well as other various community measurements. Gaining social capital through YouTube is a reason for its popularity because YouTube is a social network that only exists within the internet sphere and gaining social capital through the internet is easier than non-internet social networks. Another reason for YouTube’s popularity is that it is a lot less time consuming to gain social capital on YouTube than in the non-internet world. An example of this is if someone was to post a video on YouTube, he or she would theoretically gain more viewers than if the person were to show the video or re-enact the ‘front’ to each person individually in a different social situation.