A "democratic" YouTube?

TOUR #5: User/Owner Dialectic: Can we trust the user now that she has more power to speak and be heard: her intentions, knowledge, designs, and her ability to think outside the corporate paradigms that keep her in place? 2 videos follow on the tour that explain the user's place in self-policing the site (shackled to the status-quo standards of the society), and the ultimate reach of the user's power given YouTube's corporate ownership, and that most of what she makes in owned by corps.

The fact that anybody can post a video of (almost) anything is what makes YouTube "democratic." While it would be false to say that YouTube is completely democratic, I feel that it has a good base to one day truly become a democratic source of media, or at least lay the groundwork for another site that may end up being more democratic.

Digital narcissism is definitely a very real issue on YouTube. While its existence is undeniable, it is arguable whether this is a problem. For the most part, I feel that this narcissism is what drives YouTube, as people want to get something out there to the masses. While it can certainly be annoying to watch a talentless teenager post videos of themselves trying to dance, nobody forces us to watch these videos.

I would disagree that all material produced by "unprofessionals" is not credible. One of the points of YouTube is that it is a democratic forum where one can find a variety of thoughts and opinions, not just those from the "experts." Above everything, all media should be considered with a critical eye.

Excellent! This is why I use UTube as a local promotional tool for my local rock band, and a way to find video clips of actual interviews, musical footage. I post some videos to UTube because the links are easy to put into an email.