YouTube

YouTube is now firmly established as the dominant platform for online video, and it continues to be a site of both experimentation and conflict among media industries, creators and audiences. First published in 2009, this was the first book to take YouTube seriously as a media and cultural phenomenon. This revised and updated second edition explains how the platform is being used, how it is changing, and why it matters. The new edition reflects YouTube's maturity as a platform and includes more detailed coverage of its institutional and economic contexts, while retaining the discussions of YouTube's relation to wider transformations in culture, society and the economy that made the first edition so valuable. The book critically examines the public debates surrounding the site, demonstrating how it is central to struggles for authority and control in the new media environment. Drawing on a range of theoretical sources and empirical research, the authors discuss how YouTube is being used by the media industries, by audiences and amateur producers, and by particular communities of interest, and the ways in which these uses challenge existing ideas about cultural 'production' and 'consumption'. Rich with concrete examples, the second edition will continue to be essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary and future implications of online media.