YouTube, social media, and digital culture

NOTE: Now updated to reflect new dates.

In lieu of class Thursday (11/12), I’m going to ask you to watch the series of videos below (it’ll take you just more than an hour) and write a roughly 300-word response in which you connect Michael Wesch’s ideas with journalism and its emerging forms online. Please post your response in the comments section before Tuesday’s class (11/17).

• An anthropological introduction to YouTube, 55 min. 33 sec.
• The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version), 4 min. 33 sec. (you might recognize this one!)
• A Vision of Students Today, 4 min. 44 sec.

These clips will serve as a good entree into our discussion next Thursday of online video and how it can be incorporated into your group blogs.

The question is, as the production and global dissemination of video has become ridiculously cheap and easy, what kind of implications does that have for visuals in (professional and amateur) journalism? How about for democracy in general and the press’ traditional role in mediating political messages?