The
presence of new media in everyday life is the result of the rapid technology
that now then brings the distribution of information through digital form. New
media can be characterized by the variety of uses of images, video and sound to
distribute information. Flew (2014) states that all new media have the same two
characteristics, namely digitalization and convergence. Digitalization is how
information is translated through binary code so that information can be
transmitted electronically, while convergence is the merging of the use of
information and media with technology. New media enables interactive
interactions and the presence of virtual communities in new media. Some
examples of the presence of new media today are the existence of electronic
mail, online shopping platforms, social news sites, and also social networking.
One
of the new popular media today is the YouTube social networking site. Chau
(2010) is a site that allows users to upload, watch and share videos or can be
said to be video-sharing websites. Youtube is a subsidiary of internet search
giant Google, which was founded in 2005. Before Youtube came, television was a
media that could be enjoyed in the form of audio-visual. Television is able to
distribute information from one source to many recipients, which functions as a
mass media. However, Youtube is able to beat television with its advantages
that offer various types of information sources, easy access, and also easy to
do interactive communication on the Youtube site. Based on statistics shown by
the We Are Social page (2019), Youtube is the second most visited site in the
world, just below the Google search site. Of the total time surfing the
internet, internet users in the world spend 6 hours 42 minutes online each day
and almost 92 percent of internet users now watch online videos every month.
This is a great opportunity for Youtube users to take advantage of the site.
The
big opportunity that is obtained through Yotube is not only as a media that
displays the work of creators, but also an opportunity to earn income. Many
people create a personal Youtube channel to create content and earn money from
the Youtube site, which is the result of advertising payments or commonly
called Yotube Ad-Sense. This opportunity then became the basis of the birth of
a variety of existing content on Youtube today. Various types of content such
as traveling, cooking, culinary, gaming, beauty product reviews, etc. However,
the amount of competition on the YouTube site makes content creators compete to
display different content, which sometimes does not choose the benefits and
overrides the Quality Control of the video content, such as prank content or Talking
content which sometimes turns into hate-speech content. Not only that, the
potential for the birth of inappropriate content such as racist content, fake
news, or even adult or vulgar content that is not suitable for consumption by
children. This is a disturbing issue given that the use of new media is
actually consumed by children, adolescents, and the generation above it. For
example, The Verge (2018) discovered one of YouTube content that is not polite
or even said to be unethical is a video from Logan Paul in his video laughing
awkwardly laughing at the body of a suicide victim in one of the forests in
Japan. Another video is a video of one of the well-known accounts namely
PewDiePie which makes videos that corner about certain races and religions on
the grounds of just joking. Other video content is online gaming video content
conducted by a female YouTuber, Kimi Hime, whose videos are then considered to
be overly dressed and too vulgar. Cash content is only three of the many
content that does not have the Quality Control and gatekeeper that should be
owned by the information media.
For
conventional media, the government in a country even has its own institutions
as gatekeepers for the distribution of information through its media. In
contrast to new media such as Youtube that does not have a gatekeeper, Youtube
only has rules and regulations for existing videos. This is ineffective because
Youtube will only take down videos if other users report it. Another bad thing
is, even though Youtube has taken down videos or banned accounts on Youtube,
videos that have been there will be very easy to re-upload by other users.
Seeing the characteristics of Youtube that allows users to save, download, and
upload various videos. An obvious example is the Logan Paul video previously
discussed, which has been uploaded many times by many users even though the
original video was removed from Youtube.
The
importance of gatekeepers in a media should be a concern for Youtube if Youtube
wants to remain a media that provides information in the form of online video
as it is today. In different contexts, content protection can be done by
parents as a precaution for children not to access videos that are not suitable
for watching on Youtube. Parents are expected to be a companion and be the
first filter on which content is appropriate when children consume media
content on YouTube. It is very important to impose a time limit on children
when accessing Youtube, or even better start implementing the use of Youtube
Kids which has been presented by Youtube. Some parts of the community reject
the interference of other institutions in conducting surveillance of digital
media such as Youtube because it is considered deadly to the creativity of the
content creators. Using the same institutions and rules as conventional media
such as television is also considered unwise by Youtube users. The New York
Times (2008) report in their article that how the Youtube site organizes
various videos that do not meet the guidelines, seeing how the video volume on
Youtube is very large. Youtub users, can report videos that are deemed to have
violated YouTube community guidelines such as videos containing explicit sexual
things, graphic violence, and hate-speech. After being reported to the Youtube
site, YouTube's internal reviewers will decide whether to allow the video,
delete it, or pass it to a more specific level for review. This is considered
very ineffective because the gatekeeping process is done when the video has
spread to the site. As a site holder, Youtube is expected to be more strict
with the standards of rules and regulations that are made or even update the
rules and regulations to be more effective so that rogue users no longer have a
gap to bring Youtube to the negative side in its role as one of new media.
References
Terry, F. (2004). New Media: An Introduction 2nd edition. New
York : Oxfor University Press.
Chau, C. (2010).
Youtube as a participary culture. New
direction of Youth Development, 128, 65-74.
Cross, K. (2018).
It’s not just Logan Paul and youtube-the moral compass of social media is broken. The Verge. Retrievid from
www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/1/4/logan-paul-youtube-social-media-twitch-moderation/
Rosen,J. (2008)
Google’s Gatekeepers. The Newyork Times. Retrievid
from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html
We Are Social.
(2019). Digital 2019: Global Internet Use Accelerates. Retrievid from
https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates
Youtube.com. (n.d). Yotube About: Terms and Policy.
Retrievid from https://www.youtube.com/intl/id/about/policies/
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