Acting Up For Social ChangeProfessor Tom Tresser

&Social Change

creators

YouTube was created as a video-sharing website, by three former PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, in February 2005, on which users can upload, share and view videos. YouTube uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos (Wikipedia, 2011).

Pros & Cons

It is user friendlyUser’s can quickly upload

contentEmbedding to e-mail,

Facebook and other social media is available

Potential to reach millions of viewers

PROS

Pros & cons

Edited versions of video may not give you the whole story

According to Alexandra Juarez author of Learning the Five Lessons of YouTube:

Critical and original expression is easily lost by viewers ratings

Advertisements can cloud the content of the video

Videos can be hard to find

CONS

Social Change

Teens use YouTube as an outlet. Ellouise , a sixteen year old girl from Australia created a YouTube video to

bring awareness to bullying. She used creative techniques such as

adding music, and writing notes to be shown on camera instead of using

words to send a message that bullying hurts She wanted to make others feel that they are not alone.

Real people

A creative way two brothers brought attention to several charities using YouTube was by creating a project called, The Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome. In an interview with Hank Green he explains that, "the Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome was an attempt to take over the most discussed page of YouTube with videos that have the same thumbnail image. Each of the videos promotes a different, worthy charity” (Green, 2007). 400 videos were posted some focusing on organizations such as UNICEF, Autism Speaks, The Humane Society and World Wildlife Fund. Their success in raising money for these organizations was not reported but Hank Green reports that the anecdotal evidence is promising (2007). John and Hank Green are the founders of Nerdfighters.com which seems to have turned into a movement that has almost 70,000 thousand followers.

Strategies

The Dragon Fly Effect (2010) explains the model which they use to teach successful campaigns using social media:

Focus: Identify a single concrete and measurable goal.

Grab Attention: Make someone look. Cut through the noise of social media with something personal, unexpected, visceral, and visual.

Engage: Create a personal connection Take Action: Enable and empower

others to take action. (Aaker & Smith,p.9).

Success

The Obama campaign used YouTube to attract voters:Present a focused message and vision. Obama focused on three key words: Hope, Change, and Action.Map out your digital landscape. Know the top bloggers, the top social networks, and the central communications hubs.Build relationships. Listen, be authentic, and ask questions.Have a clear call to action: Every action in the Obama campaign was geared toward getting people to vote. The sole purpose of online activity was to create offline activity.Empower brand ambassadors. Embrace co-creation; let the brand evolve without you directing all of the evolution (dragonflyeffect.com).The mission of the campaign was Involvement through empowerment, it was the first political campaign in history to use the power of social media to gain support and spread the word. The campaign reached 5 million supporters and 50 million YouTube viewers. (dragonfly.com, 2011).

Facts

6.6 The factor by which YouTube’s number of monthly videos streams served(4.67 billion) exceeds that of the second-place site in that category, according to Nielsen.

$1.65 billion in dollars of stock, the amount Google paid to acquire YouTube in 2006

Exceeds 2 billion views a day 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute The average person spends 15 minutes a day

on YouTube 70% of YouTube’s traffic comes from outside

the U.S. Over 3 million people are connected and auto

sharing to at least one social network(Website-monitoring.com, 2011) 

Uniting the world through video is what one person did with a silly dance that has received almost 40 million viewers. It is

a way for us to see ourselves in a more global sense. The video is a creative

expression of people and cultures around the world. It connects those who view it.

The video benefits the organization Play for Change whose mission statement is, “dedicated to creating positive change through music & arts education” (http://playingforchange.org). Matt’s video is

called “Dancing Around the World” and is a true piece of art that represents peace

and unity. 

GLOBILIZATION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

ReferencesAaker, J., & Smith, A. (n.d.). The Book | The Dragonfly Effect. The Dragonfly Effect - Small Acts Create Big Change. Retrieved November 04, 2011, from http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/book/Juhasz, A. (2008). Learning the Five Lessons of YouTube: After Trying to Teach There, I Don't Believe the Hype. Cinema Journal, 48(2), 145-150. doi: 10.1353/cj.0.0098My bullying story - YouTube. (n.d.). YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Retrieved November 04, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04eWltMszDMPlaying for Change Foundation | Home. (n.d.). Retrieved November 01, 2011, from http://playingforchange.org/The Dragonfly Effect - Small Acts Create Big Change. (n.d.). Retrieved November 04, 2011, from http://dragonflyeffect.com/Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) - YouTube. (n.d.). YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Retrieved November 02, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruYYouTube. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 01, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTubeYouTube Facts & Figures (history & statistics) | Website Monitoring Blog. (n.d.). Website Monitoring - Availability Monitoring by SITEIMPULSE. Retrieved November 04, 2011, from http://www.website-monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/17/youtube-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/