Video Reciprocity

Reciprocity is defined as a sense of mutual obligation people may feel toward each other. One way that anthropologists try to understand different social relationships is to examine the kinds of reciprocity that individuals or members of social groups have toward one another.

Reciprocity can appear in different forms. On YouTube it can mean feeling a need to return a comment, subscription, or friend request in kind. Can you think of other forms of reciprocity that exist on YouTube? Do you yourself feel a sense of reciprocity when it comes to things like comments and subscriptions? Feel free to post a text comment or video response (if you are over 18) if you have an opinion on this subject.

The issue of reciprocity also surfaced in discussions about concerns over "cheating" on YouTube. I can well appreciate these concerns. I do find it interesting that subscribing to others often helps boost one's own subscription list. This strategy arguably works because many people do feel a sense of video reciprocity to other YouTubers. What does this tell us, if anything, about YouTube participation in general, and about video sharing practices?

Does video reciprocity exist among different networks of YouTube participants? What do you think?

Special Thanks to:

kaauknow
mollyz2000
thetalesend
NutCheese
NorCalCorsello
robtran
danceanywhere

For other meet-up footage and open fieldnotes I have taken see:

777 New York City Meet-Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcvQrmNbO50

SouthTube Meet-Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJbgEiQ4Cg

Hollywood Meet-Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xJzSzhJVDM

Please note that this is a research site and that comments posted to the site may be used in research. For more information about the study and how posted comments are used in research please see:

http://www.youtube.com/user/AnthroVlog

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• video
• blog
• meet
• up
• San
• Francisco
• comments
• subscriptions
• thetalesend
• nutcheese
• danceanywhere
• kaauknow

[MediaPraxisme]

Your research is really interesting. Hope you'll check out the work we did at Pitzer College in our class, Learning from YouTube, I'll be watching more of your stuff!

youtube/groups/learningfromyou­tube dot com

[AnthroVlog]

Thanks! I certainly will!

[thetalesend]

btw I put you on my front page.

[AnthroVlog]

Wow! That's very sweet. Thank you!

[thetalesend]

wow i didn't see that you were filming trying to get warm. Wow nice footage. I need to get a video camera (woo hoo tax money)

[AnthroVlog]

Yeah, I was pretty glad to get that footage! It is so cute!

[888torontomeetup]

cool! : )

[AnthroVlog]

Bulletin hog. *grin* I hadn't heard that term. Thanks for alerting me.

[ShortbusMooner]

Some people think that you have to sub back to them, if they sub to you, but I don't play like that. You have to earn my interest.

But I do always return the comment favor. I also don't friend just anyone- there's so many that are just bulletin hogs! LOL!

[renetto]

Very interesting... I want to see more...