Education Law

The Anthropology of YouTube

As a fan of Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, BoardBuzz has been meaning to share his recent talk at the Library of Congress:

This is the third lecture in a series titled "Digital Natives," referring to the generation that has been raised with the computer as a natural part of their lives, especially the young people who are currently in schools and colleges today. The series seeks to understand the practices and culture of the digital natives, the cultural implications of their phenomenon and the implications for education to schools, universities and libraries.

In this presentation Wesch explains that YouTube has become a new form of empowerment, community, and global connections. BoardBuzz agrees, but not everyone gets it. As the Chronicle of Higher Education details,

one audience member essentially asked: So what? Why should anyone care about a subculture of homemade video makers, or the fact that some people watch amusing clips on the Internet instead of looking at TV? ?I don?t understand how this is going to impact my life,? said the questioner, who said she?s only ever watched one YouTube video.

?It will impact politics ? it will impact who gets elected this year,? said Mr. Wesch. ?And I think it can be argued that Obama would not have taken the election without social media. Clinton with her machine would have just ran right over him.?

The crux here is not the content on YouTube but rather the people that create it. Wesch, as an anthropologist, does not see media as content. Media are more than tools of communication. Media mediate human relationships. So when media change, human relationships change.

One interesting insight from Wesch is the concept of context collapse. He recently defined it in a blog posting as "an infinite number of contexts collapsing upon one another into that single moment of recording." This creates a hyper self-awareness as people cannot evaluate their audience as they do in face-to-face communication.

Wesch's presentation itself is available on you YouTube, and it's both entertaining and informative. Expect to find key insights about the power of social media as a revolution in communication and sharing.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on September 08, 2008 (boomark / email).