Digital Ethnography

The YouTube project is a collaborative effort to gain some ethnographic insight into the YouTube community. The research team is made up of myself and nine undergraduate students at Kansas State University. Though we work very closely together, each student is ultimately responsible for their own short (3-5 minute) video ethnography of some aspect of the YouTube community. The students are designing these mini-projects themselves and each one maintains a page on this blog describing their research.

~ Professor Michael Wesch (YouTube: mwesch)

The World Wide Web as a ‘cold’ medium and the ‘practice’ of YouTube by Adam (YouTube: abo46n2)
” … I want to extend this investigation into the realm of YouTube and begin to think about the interaction of the different forms of media present there … “

The History and Future of YouTube by Robert (YouTube: hinderliter84)
” … having a firm grasp of the origins and evolution of YouTube will be crucial to our understanding of how it functions today …”

A Global Community by dippyhude (YouTube: dippyhude)
“It is amazing to me how the internet and youtube has made geographical barriers obsolete. youtube is an amazing public forum where people can see the world through other inhabiters eyes, and communicate through a new medium. I plan on presenting this communication through interesting case studies.”

The Face of the YouTuber by Seiji Ikeda (YouTube: seiji306)
“What is the ‘face’ of a ‘YouTuber’? With so many people making video blogs (aka-vlogs) from all around the world, what would happen if you gave them a ‘face’?”… more

Outrageous Behavior, YouTube, and Communication by Mel (YouTube: MaKMelman)
“YouTube is often talked about as a community. It certainly is an amazing social space. … Every social space has unwritten rules of behavior, that most people know and generally follow. … So in this new social space, how is appropriate behavior decided, and by whom?”

Organized Thought: Spread of Ideologies/Beliefs on YouTube by Curtis (YouTube: cschwiet)
“… investigating the attempts to spread ideologies and beliefs through the use of YouTube.”

The Underlying Motivation? by Lindsay (YouTube: sabriel7)
” … What continues to motivate those who post videos? Maybe they are lonely. Maybe they are bored. Perhaps they simply want to share their art, their work, themselves. Regardless, I think all of these reasons could fall in one or both of two categories: asserting identity or creating connections/community … “

Reality and Virtuality by Becky (YouTube: thepoasm)
” … Is Youtube, with its user generated content, characters, and communication, reality? People grapple with this, from the controversy over scripting, to characters of imagination, from planned and practiced vlog to those done spontaneously, reality is high in question. There is discussion on identity and activities on youtube as opposed to “in real life”, what does that mean for YouTube’s relation to reality? …”

Economic Foundations of YouTube by LeeRed (YouTube: LeeRedman)
research into various aspects related to economics on YouTube

This page has the following sub pages.

• The History of YouTube
• outrageous behavior, youtube, and communication norms–Melissa
• Organized Thought: Spread of Ideologies/Beliefs on YouTube
• The World Wide Web as a ‘cold’ medium and the ‘practice’ of YouTube.
• The Underlying Motivation?