The People’s Republic of Youtube? Interrogating Rhetorics of Internet Democracy

Abstract:     
The mass media often frames YouTube as intrinsically democratic, allowing ordinary citizens to act as journalists or media watchdogs, participate directly in mainstream media, and become celebrities themselves. While characterizing the internet as “democratic” is nothing new, what are the implications when the site of democracy is not national, but commercial? This paper explores the interplay between community-based or democratic interests and YouTube’s profit-driven nature. I maintain YouTube is subject not only to the same social forces that limit discursive egalitarianism in the “real world,” but to economic forces that act upon users in more complicated ways. It is therefore problematic to look to YouTube, or any other internet site, to compensate for shortcomings in the democratic process.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 37

Keywords: YouTube, social media, digital democracy

Accepted Paper Series