YouTube & News: A New Kind of Visual News

"YouTube & News: A New Kind of Visual News." The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Journalism.org, July 16, 2012.

From the report: "On March 11, 2011, an earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale struck the coast of northeastern Japan, triggering a tsunami that would kill more than 18,000 people and leave an estimated $180 billion in damage. The news media worldwide provided extensive coverage of the disaster and its aftermath, but millions of people also turned to the web to learn about the event on the video sharing website YouTube.

In the seven days following the disaster (March 11-18), the 20 most viewed news-related videos on YouTube all focused on the tragedy-and were viewed more than 96 million times. … What is the nature of news on YouTube? What types of events "go viral" and attract the most viewers? How does this agenda differ from that of the traditional news media? Do the most popular videos on YouTube tend to be videos produced by professional news organizations, by citizens or by political interest groups or governments? How long does people's attention seem to last?" Read more