Pressing Play on Politics: Quantitative Description of YouTube
We present a large-scale quantitative analysis of anglophone politics channels on YouTube, with three distinct units of analysis: channels, comments, and videos. We demonstrate that although channels have been entering the YouTube system at a roughly constant rate since 2008, there is serious inequ...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
HOPE
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journalqd.org/article/view/8674 |
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| Summary: | We present a large-scale quantitative analysis of anglophone politics channels on YouTube, with three distinct units of analysis: channels, comments, and videos. We demonstrate that although channels have been entering the YouTube system at a roughly constant rate since 2008, there is serious inequality in the attention received by different channels and videos. Furthermore, prolific commenters are responsible for an astonishing amount of activity: 50% of total comments are written by just over 2% of all commenters. The toxicity for which YouTube comments are famous tends to be more pronounced among these super-users than among infrequent commenters. Our findings have important implications for the way in which YouTube viewers interpret what they see as representative of public opinion.
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| ISSN: | 2673-8813 |