News > December 6, 2007

By Liza Greenspun | News editor

Most university students have probably seen the infamous “Shoes” video on YouTube, or have used the site to learn the latest dance craze, such as the Soulja Boy.

Clearly, YouTube has a premise for entertainment, but are there any other benefits to the popular Web site?

Can it be used for educational purposes in addition to being an entertaining procrastination tool?

According to freshman David Tokarz, the answer is yes.

While Tokarz said that he personally uses YouTube to watch music videos and for entertainment, he also said that the Web site provides informative clips from the presidential debates.

“It’s an easy way for people to turn it on in the background,” Tokarz said of people listening to the debate clips on their own time instead of having to tune in to view them when they are broadcasted on television.

In this and other ways, YouTube can be considered a forum for journalistic enterprises with footage that will not necessarily be included in the nightly news.

A new means of journalism

Although anyone can post videos on YouTube and not only professional journalists, the benefit of the Web site is that these informative videos can be posted without the image censorship that regular news is subject to.

Many videos of tragic events that occur around the world, however, will be removed from YouTube if people complain that they are too graphic or disturbing in some way.

For example, a Nov. 27 Reuters article titled “YouTube stops account of Egypt anti-torture activist” tells the story of Wael Abbas, a prominent Egyptian activist.

Abbas had posted about 100 videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations that are a common occurrence in Egypt on his YouTube account.

His account has been subsequently suspended due to the nature of the images. This year, Abbas won an award in international journalism for his activism work.

According to the article, human rights activists have protested that YouTube shut down Abbas’s videos because it had been serving as one of the few forums in existence where the police brutality is open to mass public viewing.

The protesters have claimed that this could potentially lead to a change in the practices in Egypt.

“It does allow access that people normally don’t have,” Tokarz said of YouTube.

Similarly, Brian Kell, lecturer of computer science, described YouTube as a means of information sharing about brutal events that have occurred in Myanmar, as the government has shut down most media coverage in the country.

However, once the government found out how YouTube was being used, videos began to be removed from the Web site as much as possible, as in Abbas’s case.

At the university, Delta Sigma Theta and Phi Mu sororities sponsored a “Deep Talk for Darfur” Nov. 14.

At the event, which featured a discussion about how the genocide taking place in Darfur affects Americans and what types of actions university students can take to make a change, a YouTube video depicting images of the struggles people are undergoing in Darfur was shown. The video intended to inform the audience of the event as well as to elicit emotions about the intensity of the genocide occurring in the region.

A new way to debate

Informing the public on another front, YouTube is the new host of questions for this election’s presidential debates.

The Democratic debate was held over the summer and the Republican debate was held Nov. 28, featuring questions that people submitted in video form through YouTube.

“YouTube certainly has brought a lot of voices into these things,” said Allan Louden, associate professor of communication who specializes in elections media.

“The problem with YouTube debates is that it’s a cool idea if you get things out of it that you wouldn’t otherwise.”

However, Louden said CNN still selects which questions to use in the debates, so that the questions may not actually be any different in ways other than the video presentation.

“Political scientists are always interested in what might boost young people’s interest and turnout (in elections),” said John Dinan, associate professor of political science, because young people have historically been the least likely to vote.

Dinan said that political scientists wonder whether the YouTube debates will spark an interest in young people in politics since it will be more accessible to them. Whether or not this interest would convert to voting is unknown at this point, he said.

In addition to the debates, Louden said that YouTube has been impacting the 2008 presidential campaigns because the candidates do not have to pay to put ads on YouTube.

“They probably speak a lot more carefully,” Dinan said of the candidates. Now, he said, any time the candidates make a mistake in a speech, it will surely appear on YouTube no more than moments later.

“YouTube is made for ‘gotcha’ type moments.”

Also, American citizens can upload videos about the candidates to YouTube as they please.

For example, the “Obama girl” video, Louden said, has led to a whole series of political music videos on YouTube.

“That’s a big phenomenon,” Louden said.

“YouTube is just amazing,” Louden said, adding that there are not too many places for political videos, and YouTube is a forum for just that.