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YOUTUBE AND PROPOSITION 8Kjerstin Thorson a; Brian Ekdale a; Porismita Borah a; Kang Namkoong a;Chirag Shah b

a School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA b

School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill,USA

Online publication date: 24 April 2010

To cite this Article Thorson, Kjerstin , Ekdale, Brian , Borah, Porismita , Namkoong, Kang andShah, Chirag(2010)'YOUTUBE AND PROPOSITION 8', Information, Communication & Society, 13: 3, 325 — 349To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13691180903497060URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691180903497060

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Kjerstin Thorson, Brian Ekdale,

Porismita Borah, Kang Namkoong

& Chirag Shah

YOUTUBE AND PROPOSITION 8

A case study in video activism

The present study uses California’s Proposition 8 campaign as a case study for anexploratory investigation of video activism online. We conducted a content analysisof a sample of Proposition 8 videos drawn at random from the results of a keywordsearch of YouTube. Main findings from the analysis (N ¼ 801) show that a majorityof the videos were made up of original content and took a position against Proposition8. The results also show that video posters on different sides of the debate drew ondifferent mixes of video forms as the election debate progressed. A greater proportionof ‘Yes on 8’ videos were scripted and professionally produced while ‘No on 8’ videoswere more often amateur creations and served to witness the widespread protests in theaftermath of the election.

Keywords politics; video; YouTube

(Received 1 September 2009; final version received 16 November 2009)

Widely available, easy-to-use video capturing and editing technologies along withvideo sharing websites such as YouTube have made the creation and disseminationof all sorts of homegrown videos – from the simple to the elaborate – feasiblefor just about anyone with access to a computer and the Internet. While YouTubeis home to countless music videos, home movies, and pirated clips from televi-sion shows, over the past two election cycles YouTube has also begun to attractattention as an arena for political discourse. Political activism on YouTube takesmany forms, including official campaign advertisements and talking head videosas well as citizen-generated content such as humorous clips repurposed fromthe mass media, shaky video of mass protests shot on cell phones, and elaboratecreative productions like ‘Obama Girl’ and ‘Proposition 8: The Musical’.

Information, Communication & Society Vol. 13, No. 3, April 2010, pp. 325–349

ISSN 1369-118X print/ISSN 1468-4462 online # 2010 Taylor & Francis

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/13691180903497060

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Given access and technological know-how, anyone can post content onYouTube. This openness combined with its social network-like functionalityseems to offer real potential as a free space for public political discourse (Millikenet al. 2008), giving new citizens opportunities for creative self-expression andexchange (Milliken & O’Donnell 2008). New social media, such as YouTube,allow for what Atton (2003) calls a ‘hybrid form of media practice’, wherein pol-itical activism is situated within a confluence of traditional journalism and amateur,activist-journalism. Yet our current knowledge of these processes is limited asstudies considering the content, uses, and effects of YouTube are only just emergingin the literature (e.g., Lange 2007; Elmer et al. 2008; Gueorguiva 2008).

The present research explores YouTube activism around a single electoralcase: the 2008 passage of California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure to bansame-sex marriage. Our focus is on investigating how citizens and organizationsmade use of YouTube over the course of the election and the California SupremeCourt case that followed. To this end, we conducted a content analysis ofProposition 8 videos with an eye to discovering the array of voices speaking onthe topic and the form their voices are taking. We systematically classifiedvideos in order to explore how advocates on both sides of the issue were usingYouTube to disseminate original content as well as videos ‘borrowed’ and re-created from the building blocks of mainstream mass media content. We investi-gate differences between the use of YouTube by partisans on each side of theProposition 8 debate, and, using viewer statistics collected by YouTube, weexamine how audiences responded to pro- vs. anti-Proposition 8 content.

Literature review

In only a few short months from its founding in April 2005, the video sharingwebsite YouTube became one of the fastest growing websites in the world(Christensen 2007). Over 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube everyminute and in July 2009, 120 million viewers accessed 8.9 billion videos onthe site (Junee 2009; Lipsman 2009). Over time, YouTube has become morethan a simple repository for video content. Using what would have seemedremarkable technology even ten years ago, any YouTube user can easily createa profile and upload his or her own videos on any topic. Users can alsosearch, watch and leave comments on videos posted by others. They can evenpost videos in direct response to other people’s videos, creating at least the possi-bility for video-based interactive dialogue. Such dialogue may take the form offilmed verbal responses or may take the more subtle form of adopting andadapting imagery and memes found in other videos (Kendall 2007).

YouTube has been embraced by professional political organizations, activistsand social justice movements. Although political advocates use a variety of media,McHale (2004) argues that video is particularly useful as a social change medium

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because the combination of audio and visual elements can humanize the messagethrough multiple cues, thereby generating greater impact on audiences. Butwhile activists and organizations have been producing videos for decades, theyeither faced the challenge and expense of self-distribution or had to rely on main-stream media in order to disseminate their messages to a wider audience(Downing 2001). Yet these groups have often found mainstream media resistantto their message or unwilling to provide media access (Timms 2005). YouTubeprovides an easy alternative. It has become an outlet for activists to easily andfreely distribute their videos to a global audience without having to negotiatethe mainstream media filter.

While we expect that YouTube will serve as an extension of the field of battlefor formal activist organizations and lobbyist groups on both sides of Proposition8, perhaps the most interesting potential for YouTube is its ability to serve as anarena for the ‘average citizen’ to make his or her voice heard on political topics.Several scholars have noted the possibility of a ‘global public sphere [that] is builtaround the media communication system and Internet networks, particularlyin the social spaces of the Web 2.0, as exemplified by YouTube, MySpace, Face-book, and the growing blogosphere’ (Castells 2008, p. 90). Advocates of delib-erative democracy have similarly called for online spaces where dialogue aroundpolitical issues could take place (Dahlgren 2005; Janssen & Kies 2005). For thesedeliberation scholars, various places on the Internet hold out potential as newtown squares, allowing innovative forms of discursive engagement. YouTubetechnology allows for relatively unconstrained access compared with themainstream mass media (with the important exception of those unable toafford Internet access or the technologies required to create content) as wellas the ability to respond directly to others through the video response functionor in the video comment spaces.

Alongside research on deliberative citizen communication, there has beenheightened academic attention to previously disregarded creative activity ofmedia audiences (van Zoonen 2004). This attention has been fueled by specu-lation about the possibilities of new technologies to further empower the crea-tivity of active audiences in the service of democracy (e.g., Jenkins & Thorburn2003; Jenkins 2006). In a recent book and essay, van Zoonen (2004, 2005) drewanalogies between media fans (such as those who vote on American Idol-stylereality programs) and politically active citizens. van Zoonen argues that mediafans and engaged citizens are skilled, playful readers of their preferred texts,drawing rich and complex parallels between the objects of their fandom andtheir own lives (Jenkins 1992; Kozinets 2001). Easy-to-use video creation anddissemination technologies make possible creative, playful, self-expressiveforms of political action on the part of engaged citizens. Skills that individualslearn in the arenas of everyday life – creating and sharing videos of a child’sfirst words, for example – can be applied within the political realm (Jenkins2006).

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‘Broadcasting yourself’ politically

In Citizen Speak, Perrin (2006) argues that political action is both constrained andenabled by the democratic imagination. He suggests that ‘what you decide to do(or not do) is based largely on what you can imagine doing: what is possible,important, right, and feasible’ (p. 2). In other words, acts of citizenship areoften continuous with the past but may also be creative innovations on formsof political activism that have come before. Therefore, we expect that existingoffline forms of political action and techniques for using video for activistpurposes will provide the cultural resources for political action on YouTube.In what follows, we draw out three forms of discursive political engagementthat we expect to see translated into political repertoires in the YouTube arena.

Video as advertising. The language of political advertising is a familiar one tomost American citizens. In the 2008 election, candidates and interest groupsspent at least $2.6 billion on these scripted messages (Seelye 2008), designedto persuade the undecided and/or mobilize the faithful. Academic research onadvertising effects suggests that such messages, even those that take a negativetone, can mobilize by spurring a sense of civic duty, creating concerns about‘threats’ from opposing candidates, and heightening awareness of the potentialcloseness of a particular race (Martin 2004). As the technology for video creationhas become more accessible, creation of scripted political messages is no longerthe sole domain of paid political operatives. In 2004, the liberal political organ-ization MoveOn, held a contest asking people to submit original commercialscriticizing the Bush administration. They received 1,500 entries. The contestreceived media attention when CBS refused to air the winning advertisementduring the Superbowl.

Political advertising both by established political institutions (major politicalparties and interest groups) and less formalized citizen groups (grassroots move-ments and individual advocates) has become an important genre on YouTube. Inaddition to airing commercials on television in geographically targeted areas,each of the 2008 presidential candidates posted their ads on YouTube in anattempt to reach an interested national audience. These ads were written aboutand linked to by news organizations and blogs, which generated a free audiencefor their political message. But scripted videos created by citizens who were nota part of the political establishment sometimes drew just as much attention as can-didate videos. One example is The Obamacles, a series of clips posted during the2008 primary season that took the major political players and edited them togetherwith clips from popular movies. The second installment, The Empire Strikes Barack,in which Obama was cast as Luke Skywalker and Hillary Clinton became DarthVader, has generated almost 2 million views (Humanitainment 2008).

We expect to see advertising and advertising-like (scripted forms intendedfor persuasion) videos to be common in our analysis of Proposition 8 content.

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Partisans on both sides of the Proposition 8 campaign advertised heavily inmainstream media sources over the course of the campaign and it has becomestandard procedure to also post these professional advertisements online. Inaddition, we expect to see additional scripted videos created by amateurs (ordesigned to appear amateurish) that are also deliberately designed to makepersuasive arguments on one side of the debate or the other.

Videos as witnessing. In comparison to radio and print, McHale (2004) argues,‘when people watch videos, viewers feel as if they are witnesses, rather thanjust consumers of someone else’s account’ (p. 156). In fact, activists and organiz-ations have long used video in less scripted ways to record important events and tocreate records of injustices (Gregory et al. 2005). These videos serve as a form ofwitnessing that groups can use to build community among like-minded others,reveal suffering to those geographically distant and, in some instances, serve aslegal evidence of human rights abuses (Gregory 2006). Witnessing as a politicalstrategy gained new meaning following World War II, when the term came torepresent both the person and the action: a witness is someone who has witnessedsuffering (Rentschler 2004). Therefore witnessing involves more than seeing. Towitness an event is to be responsible in some way to it (Peters 2001). Witnessingvideos then serve the purpose of turning viewers into witnesses, thereby morallyimplicating them in what is seen. Witnessing is traditionally a strategy of theoppressed or powerless, as they are the ones most likely to fear being forgottenby the dominant population. The production quality of these videos variesconsiderably as what is captured is more significant than how it is captured.

Video-enabled mobile phones and other small, portable video capturingdevices have brought strategies of witnessing to the mainstream, and the Internetprovides new opportunities for distributing these videos (Gregory et al. 2005).One of the earliest uses of the Internet for witnessing came during the 1999Battle in Seattle, when anti-globalization activists came together to protest theWorld Trade Organization’s biannual meeting. Protestors used the Internet topass around text, photos, and videos about their experiences, including their sub-sequent clashes with the police (Kahn & Kellner 2004; Jørgensen 2006). Witnes-sing can also occur on a much smaller scale. During the 2006 campaign for theUS Senate, incumbent Senator George Allen was giving a campaign speech whenhe made an offhand remark about a college student who was sent by his opponentto videotape the event. Allen referred to the man of Indian descent as ‘macaca’,an uncommon term that has historically been used as a racial slur (Gueorguieva2008). While it is difficult to calculate the impact of this moment, the video ofAllen’s gaffe spread quickly via blogs and was covered widely by the mainstreammedia. Allen eventually lost the election by less than half a percent.

Following these examples, we expect to see videos around the Proposition 8debate that capture live events – events such as protests, rallies, and speeches –from the perspective of the witness.

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Video as self-expression. Political communication research has demonstrated againand again the value of political talk for democratic outcomes. People who talkabout politics and discuss events in the news are more likely to engage with thenews media, to gain political knowledge, to think about politics and to participate(Scheufele 2000, 2002). Recent theorizing around the value of political talk hassuggested that the act of political expression itself (regardless of the presence ofinteraction with others) can have important effects on learning and understandingthe reasoning behind one’s own views (Pingree 2007). In this vein, work in clinicalpsychology has demonstrated that writing about traumatic events can have signifi-cant therapeutic effects (Pennebaker 1997, cited in Pingree 2007).

The Internet not only provides a new platform to obtain information, moreimportantly it presents many opportunities for self-expression, and to make self-expression public (Price & Cappella 2002). Features of the Internet have made iteasier for individuals to express their political views. Individuals are now able to‘post, at the minimal cost, messages and images that can be viewed instantly byglobal audiences’ (Lupia & Sin 2003 p. 316). Video blogs have emerged as one inno-vative form of personal expression online. One popular format uses a webcam tocapture the face of an individual speaker (or, in some casesmultiple speakers), creatinga sense of intimacy between the viewer and the speaker. As such, the video bloggingformat offers an interesting hybrid between mass and interpersonal communication.

Recent research has also demonstrated that political self-expression is oftenmotivated by emotions such as moral indignation, a ‘righteous anger’ thatemerges in response to feeling that one’s own viewpoint has been treated unfairlyor unjustly (Hwang et al. 2008). We therefore also expect to see widespread useof videos characterized by an off-the-cuff, monologue style of self-expression.

Research setting: the California Proposition 8 campaign

The Proposition 8 campaign provides an excellent case study for an exploratoryinvestigation of video activism on YouTube. Proposition 8 was a 2008 Californiaballot initiative that called for a change to the state constitution by defining mar-riage as consisting of opposite-sex couples only. Record-breaking fundraising –more than $80 million was spent by both sides of the Proposition 8 debate, priorto the election – made Proposition 8 the most expensive social issue campaign inUS history (Dolan 2009a). The cause produced a wealth of YouTube-basedcontent on both sides of the debate, with videos related to the campaign num-bering in the thousands. The professionally produced, humorous production‘Proposition 8: The Musical’, with star-studded participants Jack Black, NeilPatrick Harris, Margaret Cho, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, and manyothers, attracted millions of viewers (Itzkoff 2008).

While the election was limited to California, the debate concerning Prop 8received nationwide attention. Its passage in November 2008 spurred protests inhundreds of cities across the country (Kornblum 2008). Following the election,

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the California Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the Prop 8 ballotmeasure was constitutional. On May 26, 2009, the California Supreme Courtupheld Proposition 8 in a 6-1 ruling, spurring additional protests on the partof gay rights organizations (Dolan 2009b).

We expect that the particular course of events taken by the Proposition 8debate – the passage of the amendment followed by widespread protests anda failed appeal to the Supreme Court – will affect the mix of forms of videoactivism on YouTube. These expectations are detailed in a series of researchquestions and hypotheses below.

Research questions and hypotheses

Previous research on use of video by activists and political organizations, asoutlined above, leads us to believe that advocates on both sides of the debatewill use YouTube to distribute original content in various forms. We alsoexpect to see citizen-generated content that edits pre-existing materials tocreate new content out of borrowed media.

Elmer et al. (2008) recently proposed a typology for political online videocontent. They divided content into four categories: (1) borrowed/poachedmass media content, (2) user-edited media content, (3) user-modifiedcontent, in which images or sounds are repurposed for purposes beyond theiroriginal intent, and (4) original user-generated content. We draw on their typol-ogy as a starting point for our analyses, distinguishing original from borrowedcontent and posing the following research questions:

RQ1: What is the proportion of original user-generated content comparedwith borrowed and edited mass media content in Proposition 8 videos?RQ2: What is the breakdown of borrowed content that is unedited, slightlyedited, and highly edited?

Drawing upon the literature presented above concerning the political uses ofvideo for advertising, witnessing and expression, we expect to see these formsemerge in YouTube content related to the Proposition 8 debate. Our nextresearch question considers in what proportion these forms of video activismwill be found.

RQ3: For the original content, what is the proportion of scripted videos,filmed live events, and monologues/extemporaneous speech?

As with media production around any political campaign or social move-ment, we expect that political uses of YouTube by partisans on either side ofthe Proposition 8 debate will shift over the life cycle of the campaign and itsaftermath. We expect that the circumstances of the campaign will affect themix of video forms posted to YouTube.

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Recent research has demonstrated that those who perceive mainstreammedia as hostile to their political position are often spurred by emotions ofmoral indignation to engage in discursive political activities such as voicingtheir opinions in online spaces (Hwang et al. 2008). Extrapolating from thisfinding, and given the outcome of the Proposition 8 campaign, we hypothesizethat the No on 8 supporters would have had more motivation to use YouTubeas a space for political engagement. In addition, younger Americans are bothmore likely to support gay marriage as well as post (and watch) videos onYouTube. This suggests that YouTube demographics will lead to a greateroverall total of videos opposing Proposition 8 than those in support of it.Further, we expect that the motivation to use spaces like YouTube for expressionwould be even greater for No on 8 partisans after the measure passed.

H1: There will be more ‘No on 8’ videos than ‘Yes on 8’ videos overall.H2: After the election, there will be a greater proportion of videos posted byProp 8 opponents than supporters.

In the run-up to the election, we expect that both sides of the debate willdraw heavily on scripted advertisement and advertisement-like videos. Thisfirst phase of the Proposition 8 debate is likely to be dominated by this moretraditional form of political persuasion. As funding for political campaigns his-torically drops off following election days, we anticipate the number of scriptedvideos and professionally produced videos will decrease after the election ends.However, given that both sides of the debate were heavily funded andrepresented by established political organizations, we are uncertain which sidewill draw more heavily on scripted political content.

H3: There will be more scripted videos before the election than after.H4: There will be more professionally produced videos before the electionthan after.

RQ4: How did the use of scripted and professionally produced content differbetween those on both sides of the Prop 8 debate?

We expect to see more witnessing videos posted by No on 8 partisans in theaftermath of the election. Following the election, opponents of Proposition 8held a number of protest events across the country. For example, protestorsdemonstrated in 300 cities on 15 November carrying signs with phrases like‘Don’t Spread the H8’ (Lindsay 2008). As protests commonly receive little orpoor coverage in the mainstream news media (McLeod & Hertog 1999), itseems likely that No on 8 supporters will have both greater opportunity andmotivation to bring footage of these actions to hypothetical YouTube audiencesthan would Yes on 8 partisans. Further, we expect that moral indignation

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aroused by the passage of Proposition 8 may spur outpourings of political self-expression in the form of video monologues from those opposed to the amend-ment. We therefore propose the following hypotheses:

H5: After the election, there will be a greater proportion of filmed liveevent videos among the ‘No on 8’ videos than among the ‘Yes on 8’ videos.H6: After the election, there will be a greater proportion of extempora-neous monologue videos among the ‘No on 8’ videos, than among the‘Yes on 8’ videos.

Finally, the metrics collected by YouTube concerning audience responses tovideos allow us to explore some initial questions concerning the viewership ofYouTube content around Proposition 8.

RQ5: How does the kind of video content affect audience response?RQ6: How did audiences respond differently to ‘Yes on 8’ content comparedwith’No on 8’ content?

Method

We conducted a content analysis of a sample of Proposition 8 videos drawn atrandom from the results of a keyword search of YouTube. For this preliminaryinvestigation, we coded approximately 30 percent of the 2,852 videos returnedby the YouTube search engine in response to the search queries ‘prop 8’ and‘proposition 8’. The sample includes videos posted as early as the summerbefore the Proposition 8 election through the two weeks in August 2009when the sample was collected. A total of 830 videos were analyzed. Afterremoving from the sample 14 videos that were not related to Prop 8, 14 thatwere removed by YouTube or by the user prior to analysis, and one videocoded twice, we retained a final sample of 801 videos.

It is worth noting that our sample is affected by the limitations of YouTube’ssearch tools. As with other search utilities (such as those created by YouTube’sparent company, Google), YouTube returns only a limited amount of the totalvideos available, no more than 1,000 videos per query. To combat this, we exe-cuted multiple searches with our search terms, using the following organizingcriteria: most relevant (YouTube’s default), view count, and ratings. Thesample of 2,852 was achieved by combining the results of these six searchesand removing duplicates. We acknowledge, therefore, our sample is not com-prised of a full set of videos that might be returned to a query on Prop 8 –that complete set remains unknown.

Despite this limitation, we feel our sample accurately reflects the videosmost accessible to and accessed by YouTube users. That being said, our videosample was quite diverse, with the number of views ranging from 0 to

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247,678 and the duration of each video ranging from 11 seconds to over 45minutes long. Our sample represents the best possible survey of Proposition8-related videos currently available. Key descriptive statistics are posted inTable 1.

The content analysis of our sample was conducted by eight coders. Eachvideo was coded for its position on the Proposition 8 debate (pro, against orneutral/unclear) based on a holistic impression of the video’s support or opposi-tion for Prop 8 specifically or the same-sex marriage issue generally. News cover-age was coded as neutral unless a clear position was taken by a journalist or guestwithout supplying opposition. The production quality of the video was also codedas appearing either amateur, skilled amateur or professional. Amateur videoswere those that had little to no editing and shaky camerawork, skilledamateur was defined as those with steady camera work and some editing; andfinally professional videos were those that incorporated multiple camera anglesor studio production and demonstrated clean editing. However, it proved toodifficult to distinguish between the amateur and skilled amateur categories,therefore those two categories collapsed. The video’s origin was also coded aseither original or borrowed. A ‘borrowed’ coding meant that all or part ofthe video content was clearly identified as belonging to another source (i.e., anews logo is present), while ‘original’ signified that all of the content could beattributed to the user.

Each video was further coded as to its form: original videos were brokendown into three categories (scripted, filmed live event, or monologue), whileborrowed videos were split into not edited, low-level editing and high-levelediting. In determining whether a video was ‘scripted’, coders assessedwhether the verbal content appeared to have been rehearsed and action in thevideo was deliberately planned. Scripted videos often incorporated actors or

TABLE 1 Descriptive statistics.

items mean SD min max

Duration (seconds) 245.2 212.8 11 2,809

Number of views 5,316.4 19,781.3 0 247,678

Number of ratingsa 110.2 506.6 0 8,681

Rating averageb 3.9 1.4 0 5

Number of comments 93.9 344.8 0 6,045

Number of favorite countsc 27.2 102.7 0 1,425

aNumber of times the video is rated by viewers.

bRatings on YouTube are given as numbers of stars with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the

highest rating.

cNumber of times the video is chosen as a favorite video by viewers.

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individuals delivering written addresses to the camera. Content coded as scriptedranged from professionally produced TV commercials posted online (Preserving-Marriage 2008) to an amateurish skit put on by a group of teenage girls (Anti-quitydreams 2008).

The main distinction between scripted content and content coded ‘mono-logue’ was that monologue videos contained extemporaneous speech in whichindividuals appeared to address the camera without a script. Videos coded asmonologue included those in which a person spoke directly at their personalwebcam as part of a video blog (nathow 2008), as well as those in which an indi-vidual other than the poster was set up in front of the camera and prompted to talkabout their reasons for supporting or opposing Proposition 8 (MITM4E 2009).

‘Filmed live events’ or witnessing videos were defined as videos that includedfootage from protests, press conferences, speeches or rallies. Filmed live eventsranged from 30 seconds of rally footage shot on a camera phone (Zcar300ZX2009) to demonstration footage recorded and posted by a mainstream newsorganization (cctwebteam 2009) to home surveillance footage of a campaignsign being stolen from someone’s yard (TyrannyOfTolerance 2008). If a videowas recorded at a live event but the person filming the event was given morethan half the screen time in voice or image, it was coded as a monologue.

Borrowed content was first broken down into content that was not editedand two levels of edited content (‘Low-level editing’ and ‘High-levelediting’). ‘Not edited’ content described any video in which the user simplycaptured pre-existing content without doing anything to alter that content.The majority of not-edited videos were borrowed from TV news (ex.micheal90069 2008). ‘Low-level editing’ meant that elements such as abranded introduction, a watermark or a title were added while still maintainingthe flow and integrity of original the clip. ‘High-level editing’described any formof editing that changed the structure of the original clip(s) by editing togetherdisparate pieces or adding new music or audio commentary. For example,high-level edited content included a video that strung together a series ofRachel Maddow clips (Thinkprogress 2008) and a video in which a ‘No on 8’user dissected a ‘Yes on 8’ advertisement in order to provide his opinionatedresponses throughout (SLAPPAYURFACE 2008).

Coders were trained as a group using sample videos. To finalize codinginstructions, we conducted a series of intercoder reliability tests. Based on theresults of each test, the coding scheme was revised to improve the agreementamong coders. The final version of our coding scheme was established usingthree intercoder reliability tests with a sample of 100 videos. Again, all eightcoders coded a sample of 30 videos to calculate intercoder reliability scoresfor each item by using percent agreement and Cohen’s Kappa. The percentagreement was 0.88 and Cohen’s Kappa score of 0.73 on average. Each variable’sscore is shown in Table 2. This paper reports findings on only a subset of thevariables collected in a larger content analysis project.

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A second set of variables about each video was captured through a computer-assisted analysis. TubeKit software was used to collect information about eachvideo’s posting date, ratings, numbers of views and numbers of commentsreceived. The computer-assisted data collection was conducted the same weekas the hand-coded analysis.

Results

Form of Proposition 8 videos

Our first research question explores the proportion of original user-generatedcontent as compared with videos in which the majority of content was borrowedfrom the mass media. The majority of the videos in our sample (86 percent,N ¼ 689) were original content, created by the poster rather than borrowedfrom existing mass media content. Borrowed content comprised only 14percent (N ¼ 112) of the total sample.

Our second research question asked about the proportion of ‘borrowed’content that was user-edited. Somewhat surprisingly, most of the borrowedcontent was not visibly edited by the video poster (83.9 percent, N ¼ 94). Asmall number of videos containing borrowed footage were user-edited (16.1percent,N ¼ 18). Among the user-edited video clips, only four videos were cate-gorized as having a low level of user editing, defined as adding some sort of introor watermark without changing the structure or flow of the borrowed content.The remaining 14 edited videos were classified as having received a high levelof editing such that borrowed video content was moved around or reshaped.

We also coded for the source of the borrowed content. The majority ofborrowed footage came from news television, making up 66.1 percent of thetotal borrowed videos. Two videos (1.8 percent) borrowed from churchfootage, nine videos (8 percent) from advertisements and 27 videos (24.1percent) from entertainment television.

RQ3 asked about the proportion of original, user-generated content thatwas coded as scripted, filmed live event, or monologue/extemporaneous.Scripted videos – those consisting of planned or scripted address, whetherprofessionally made or amateur – comprised just over a third (32.7 percent,

TABLE 2 Percent agreement and Cohen’s Kappa coefficients.

items percent agreement Cohen’s Kappa

Form: original vs. borrowed 0.94 0.80

Political position of video 0.84 0.72

Original: scripted, filmed live event, monologue 0.90 0.74

Polish: amateur vs. professional 0.85 0.66

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N ¼ 225) of the original videos. The filmed live event subcategory – includingfootage from protests, speeches, and rallies – was the most common kind oforiginal content (39.2 percent, N ¼ 270). The last sub-category within originalcontent was the monologue. Monologues or extemporaneous speeches either toa webcam or spontaneous ‘on the street interviews’, made up nearly 30 percentof the original content (28.2 percent, N ¼ 194).

Our first hypothesis proposed that those against Proposition 8 would post moreProposition 8 videos than those in favor of it. This hypothesis received strongsupport. The vast majority of the videos in our sample took a position againstProposition 8 (N ¼ 603, 75.3 percent). Another 10.5 percent of the totalsample (N ¼ 84) were coded as ‘Yes on Prop 8’, while 14.2 percent (N ¼ 114)were identified as neutral. This last category was dominated by news coverage.H2 predicted that there would be a greater proportion of videos posted after theelection by Prop 8 opponents than supporters. This hypothesis received support.Supporters of Prop 8 posted 60 percent of their content prior to the election and40 percent after. In contrast, nearly three-quarters of No on 8 content (73.5percent) was posted after the election (x2 ¼ 37.11, df ¼ 1, p , 0.001).

Table 3 reports findings related to H3 and H4, demonstrating that therewere significant differences in the types of original content posted before theelection vs. after. H3 contends that scripted videos would make up a greater pro-portion of total video content before the election than after. The findings supportH3 as scripted videos comprised 50.8 percent of original videos before the elec-tion and only 25.1 percent after the election (x2 ¼ 43.79, df ¼ 2, p , 0.001).Our analysis also supports H4, which suggested that there would be a greaterproportion of professionally produced videos before the election than after.Although in both time periods there were more amateur than professionalvideos, the proportion of professional videos declined after the election from38.4 to 21.9 percent (x2 ¼ 19.52, df ¼ 2, p , 0.001).

TABLE 3 Video production quality and original content before and after the

election.

before election after election total

Original contents Scripted 95 (50.8%) 104 (25.1%) 199 (33.1%)

Filmed live events 41 (21.9%) 185 (44.7%) 226 (37.6%)

Monologue 51 (27.3%) 125 (30.2%) 176 (29.3%)

Total 185 (100.0%) 414 (100.0%) 601 (100.0%)

Production quality Amateur 125 (61.6%) 360 (78.1%) 485 (73.0%)

Professional 78 (38.4%) 101 (21.9%) 179 (27.0%)

Total 203 (100.0%) 461 (100.0%) 664 (100.0%)

aOriginal content: x2 ¼ 43.79, df ¼ 2, p , 0.001.

bProduction quality: x2 ¼ 19.52, df ¼ 1, p , 0.001.

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RQ4 asked about differences in the use of scripted and professionally producedcontent by partisans on each side of the debate. Table 4 reports these findings. Theresults show that pro-Proposition 8 videos were more likely to be scripted thanwere anti-Prop 8 videos (x2 ¼ 11.80, df ¼ 2, p , 0.01). Scripted videosmade up 48.6 percent of ‘Yes on 8’ content and 30.7 percent of ‘No on 8’videos. There was also a significant difference in the proportion of amateur vs. pro-fessional content between the two groups (x2 ¼ 12.61, df ¼ 1, p , 0.001).While a greater proportion of content from both groups was coded as amateur,the gap between amateur and professional content was much greater for ‘No on8’ videos. Three quarters of ‘No on 8’ content (75.5 percent) was coded asamateur as opposed to 57.1 percent of ‘Yes on 8’ content.

H5 suggested that after the election there would be a greater proportion offilmed live event videos among the ‘No on 8’ videos than among the ‘Yes on 8’videos. Our analysis shows support for H5. The results demonstrate that anti-Proposition 8 videos consisted of a greater proportion of filmed live eventsafter the elections (83.5 percent) as opposed to 57.1 percent of content thatwas judged to be supportive of Prop 8 (x2 ¼ 6.14, df ¼ 1, p , 0.05; seeTable 5). Our findings also support H6, which predicted that after the electionthere would be a greater proportion of extemporaneous monologue videosamong the ‘No on 8’ videos than among the ‘Yes on 8’ videos. In the post-election period, original monologue videos made up 38.1 percent of pro-Prop8 videos while 75.5 percent of anti-Prop 8 videos were monologues.

Effects of video content on audience response

We used ANCOVA procedures to investigate our fourth and fifth research ques-tions. Here, we were interested in whether there were differences in audienceresponses to different types of video content and to pro- vs. anti-Proposition 8videos. The variables collected via computer-assisted analysis provide four key

TABLE 4 Video production quality and original content type by position on Prop 8.

Yes on Prop 8 No on Prop 8 total

Original contents Scripted 34 (48.6%) 169 (30.7%) 203 (32.7%)

Filmed live events 15 (21.4%) 221 (40.1%) 236 (38.0%)

Monologue 21 (30.0%) 161 (29.2%) 182 (29.3%)

Total 70 (100.0%) 551 (100.0%) 621 (100.0%)

Production quality Amateur 48 (57.1%) 455 (75.5%) 503 (73.2%)

Professional 36 (42.9%) 148 (24.5%) 184 (26.8%)

Total 84 (100.0%) 603 (100.0%) 687 (100.0%)

aOriginal content: x2 ¼ 11.80, df ¼ 2, p , 0.01.

bProduction quality: x2 ¼ 12.61, df ¼ 1, p , .001.

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markers of audience response to YouTube videos: the number of views the videoreceived, the number of times the video is rated by viewers, the average rating avideo received, and the number of comments posted in response to the video. Inthese analyses, we controlled for the time since the video was posted as well asthe duration of the video as these variables were likely to affect our variables ofinterest.

RQ5 asks about how viewers responded differently to various kinds ofvideos. The results demonstrate that the type of original content significantlyaffected the number of views [F(2, 594) ¼ 6.09, p , 0.01], the number ofratings [F(2, 594) ¼ 6.28, p , 0.01], and the number of comments [F(2,594) ¼ 4.01, p , 0.05] but not the rating average of videos [F(2, 594) ¼1.65, ns]. Scripted videos received the most views, followed by monologueand then filmed live event content. This pattern of means is repeated for thenumber of ratings, however, only the difference between scripted and filmedlive event videos is significant. For the comment count, the pattern meanchanges. Monologue videos received the highest number of comments, followedby scripted videos and then filmed live events. However, only the differencebetween monologue and live events is significant.

There were also significant differences in audience response to ‘Yes on 8’ vs.‘No on 8’ videos for number of views, average ratings, and the number of ratingsreceived. As shown in Table 6, pro-Proposition 8 videos received more views(M ¼ 12,959.7) than did anti-Prop 8 videos (M ¼ 4,692.1). ‘Yes on 8’ videos(M ¼ 460.12) were also rated more frequently than ‘No on 8’ videos (M ¼

77.13). However, pro-Prop 8 videos received, on average, lower ratings thandid the anti-Prop 8 videos (M: pro-Prop 8 ¼ 3.56 vs. M: anti-Prop 8 ¼ 4.00).Taken together, these analyses suggest that ‘Yes on 8’ videos were attractingmore attention from viewers than were ‘No on 8’ videos, although that attentionwas not always favorable.

A second series of 2�2 ANCOVA analyses were run to investigate whetheraudience metrics were affected by the combination of position on Prop 8

TABLE 5 Original content type and position on Prop 8 before and after the election.

Yes on Prop 8 No on Prop 8 total

Filmed live events Before election 6 (42.9%) 35 (16.5%) 41 (18.1%)

After election 8 (57.1%) 177 (83.5%) 185 (81.9%)

Total 14 (100.0%) 212 (100.0%) 226 (100.0%)

Monologue Before election 13 (61.9%) 38 (24.5%) 51 (29.0%)

After election 8 (38.1%) 117 (75.5%) 125 (71.0%)

Total 21 (100.0%) 155 (100.0%) 176 (100.0%)

aFilmed live events: x2 ¼ 6.14, df ¼ 1, p , 0.05.

bMonologue: x2 ¼ 12.56, df ¼ 1, p , 0.01.

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(Pro vs. anti Proposition 8) and whether or not the video appeared professional inquality. The political position of the video and its production quality jointlyaffected view counts but not the other three audience metrics. For viewcounts, there was a significant interaction effect of position and video quality[F(1,656) ¼ 12.72, p , 0.001]. The interaction is displayed in Figure 1.While professional videos consistently received more views than amateurcontent, this effect was particularly pronounced for ‘Yes on 8’ videos. Pro-fessional videos in support of Proposition 8 received more views and ratingsthan did amateur ‘Yes on 8’ videos or any type of ‘No on 8’ videos.

Discussion

The findings from this study begin to paint an intriguing picture of the politicaluses of YouTube by video posters on both sides of the Proposition 8 campaign.We began our investigation by exploring whether YouTube posters were borrow-ing from mass media materials or creating original video. Recent work by Jenkins

FIGURE 1 Interaction of Prop 8 position and production quality on view counts.

TABLE 6 Effects of video position on number of views, number of ratings, and

average rating.

Yes on Prop 8 No on Prop 8 difference SE F

Number of views 12,959.70 4,692.10 8,267.60 2,500.09 10.94���

Number of ratings 460.12 77.13 382.99 63.15 36.79���

Rating average 3.46 4.00 20.54 0.17 9.96��

Note: Estimated marginal means were used after controlling duration of the video and time

since the video posted.

��p , 0.01.

���p , 0.001.

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(2006) and others on the use of mass media content as a resource for visual dis-plays of video activism led us to believe we would find many videos ‘borrowing’and editing mass media content to express a point of view, but this was not thecase. Instead, we found that Proposition 8 generated significantly more originalthan borrowed content (86 percent vs. 14 percent). The focus of video creationaround this particular set of political events was on the original material.

There are several possible explanations for the overwhelming presence oforiginal videos related to Proposition 8. For one, this may result from the factthat Proposition 8 has became a highly charged political issue that touches onother contentious topics, such as sexuality, human rights, morality, and religion.Supporters and opponents of Proposition 8 may have found it easier or more pre-ferable to voice their opinions and rationales through original content than to doso by repurposing borrowed material. Another possibility is that ‘borrowing’content requires a greater or at least different degree of technological sophisti-cation than does the creation of simple original content. Most users who postedborrowed content used software that allows them to capture video directly fromtheir television or convert videos that are available online. The average YouTubeuser may not have the access or ability to borrow material without simply using avideo camera to record the television screen.

The topline breakdown of original content across the sample showed fewdifferences between the amounts of scripted, live event and monologue-stylevideos. Each of these forms of discursive engagement is present in theYouTube space concerned with the Proposition 8 campaign. Videos opposingProposition 8 outnumbered the videos supporting Proposition 8 by a marginof 75.3–10.5 percent, with the remaining 14.2 percent coded as taking noposition on the issue. If we think of the YouTube space as one way to identifypublic sentiment, this array of voices looks quite different than public opinionas measured by the outcome of the actual election in which Proposition 8passed by a small margin (52.2–47.8 percent). Responses to the Proposition8 debate on YouTube came from people across the country, not just from Cali-fornia voters. The YouTube viewing audience also skews younger, a demographicthat is more supportive of gay marriage. These factors, along with the possibilitythat as the losing side in the election, those against Proposition 8 had moremotivation to continue speak out on the topic after the polls had closed,converged to create a YouTube environment dominated by voices opposed tothe marriage amendment.

The more interesting findings in this study come when we set these descrip-tive statistics in motion, analyzing how different forms and styles of videocontent were used by proponents and opponents of Prop 8 over the course ofthe campaign and its aftermath. Our findings allow us to characterize the politicaluses of YouTube by those on either side of the debate in somewhat different ways.The ‘Yes on 8’ group as seen from YouTube looked much more like atraditional campaign than did video posters who took the ‘No on 8’ position.

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The greatest proportion of ‘Yes on 8’ videos were posted in the run-up to theelection, and were more likely to be scripted and professionally produced thanwere ‘No on 8’ videos. When we put this finding together with data showingthat pro-Prop 8 videos received more views and more ratings than anti-Prop8 videos, several stories begin to emerge.

First, it is possible that because there were fewer pro-Prop 8 videos overallfor each video received more views on average. The viewership for ‘No on 8’videos was diluted by sheer numbers. On the other hand, the high percentageof professional, scripted videos in favor of Proposition 8 suggests that the ‘Yeson 8’ YouTube presence may have been relatively more dominated by powerful,well-funded organizations. These groups may have been able to mobilize view-ership using offline resources such as church networks and mailing lists.

The finding that ‘Yes on 8’ videos were on average rated lower than ‘No on 8’videos sharpens this picture somewhat. Given the dominance of ‘No on 8’ contentand the overall younger-skewing demographics of YouTube in general, it seemslikely that audiences for Prop 8 videos were also against Prop 8 in higherproportions than, say, the voters of California. ‘No on 8’ partisans watching‘Yes on 8’ videos increased the viewership while decreasing the overall ratingsfor these videos.

In contrast, ‘No on 8’ uses of video content were more closely analogous toa protest movement. A larger proportion of this group’s videos were posted afterthe election was lost and they were characterized by more amateur and witnes-sing-style videos. It seems likely that once Prop 8 supporters became the clear‘winners’ of the debate they were no longer motivated to post. In contrast,events had only just begun for opponents of Proposition 8. With an electionlost and a Supreme Court appeal still ahead, these YouTube users were moremotivated to express their position. As anti-Prop 8 protests spread around thecountry, YouTube posters used video to share their offline experiences of politicalactivism with potential audiences online.

The protests held across the country by anti-Prop 8 groups likely providedboth opportunity and motivation for No on 8 videographers to capture and postvideos in this witnessing form. This explains the greater proportion of filmed liveevent videos within ‘No on 8’ content. These witnessing videos can serve topromote solidarity among like-minded public who are geographically dispersed.Previous research on the use of witnessing, suggests that watching such videoscan morally implicate viewers by having them witness events that argued thepassage of Proposition 8 was a move toward the oppression of equal rights.On the other hand, this genre of video received the fewest viewers. Futureresearch should investigate the distribution of videos within this genre andexplore why they attract less attention.

The monologue form of video-based self-expression seemed to be an impor-tant form of original content for posters on both sides of the issue both beforeand after the election. This may be because the webcam style has become

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such a quintessential form of original digital video. The format allows what hastraditionally been a private form of political expression – political talk amongfriends or even confessions to a diary – to be made public. Video creators arespeaking out on political issues with a potential audience in mind. Althoughthe present study cannot speak to the effects on the creators of making thesekinds of videos, theorizing on political expression (Pingree 2007) leads us tospeculate that this form of discursive engagement is both therapeutic and canincrease cognitive involvement with the issue. Future research should alsoexplore the effects of exposure to this private self-expression made public.

This study suggests that the YouTube space devoted to expression and dis-cussion of Proposition 8 had different contours over the course of events.Without question, YouTube functioned much more as an arena for mobilizingand engaging opponents of Proposition 8 than supporters. Important nextsteps for this project will be to understand the role of YouTube in the overallcontext of Proposition 8 campaigning, both offline and in other online arenas.Was YouTube a key part of strategy for organized interests on either side ofthe issue? In the 2008 presidential election, all of the major candidates hadtheir own channels on YouTube, disseminating campaign ads and other formsof official content. Traditional media outlets like The New York Times and topPR firms like Fleishman-Hillard now have their own YouTube channels. It isreasonable to assume that the established organizations involved in the Prop-osition 8 debate would also use YouTube as a space to distribute professionallycreated video content. Not only do these organizations have greater financialand personnel resources to create professional quality videos, they have moreopportunities to generate an audience for their videos. With highly traffickedwebsites, extensive mailing lists, and connections with prominent opinionleaders, established organizations are better equipped to promote videocontent by directing the traffic of web users. While YouTube provides anequal platform for all individuals and organizations to offer video content,heavily financed and connected organizations have the resources to ensure thattheir voices are being heard.

Our analysis tells us a great deal about what citizens have made available oftheir thoughts and feelings about Proposition 8, but many of these videosreceived relatively few viewers. In order to view YouTube as a key space forpolitical discussion and deliberation videos must be seen as well as posted. Itis important to emphasize that the global network of YouTube provides onlythe potential for the vast distribution of citizen and activist media. Although acountless number of videos can be made available online, there is no guaranteethat any of these videos will be watched by end users. The Internet requires sub-stantially more active selection on the part of the user than do other forms ofmedia that communicate political messages (Bimber & Davis 2003). Websurfers, in their online travels, are less likely to receive serendipitous exposureto political information and persuasive political messages than are television

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viewers or newspaper readers. Exposure to political content online must besought. As a result, people who choose such exposure tend to be people whoare already interested in politics (Agre 2002; Kaye & Johnson 2002). Earlyresearch showed, for example, that people who visit Web sites of political can-didates are usually partisans, and are already knowledgeable about the campaign(Bimber & Davis 2003). We can expect that audiences for political videos onYouTube will be similarly self-selected.

Future investigations should seek to understand both what motivates viewingof political videos as well as the impact of watching those videos on audiences.However, it may be that the posting of cell phone footage from a protest hasmore impact on the poster in terms of maintaining psychological engagementwith a social movement than it does on the limited audience he or she is ableto reach (Pingree 2007). Given the widespread availability of technologiesenabling video creation, it will be important to expand our explorations ofpolitical media effects to those stemming from creating content as well asexposure to content created by others.

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TyrannyOfTolerance (2008) ‘Caught in the act: Proposition 8 yard signs stolen(Sacramento)’, (videorecording), 30 October, [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ IpHefc23Pww (20 August 2009).

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van Zoonen, L. (2005) Entertaining the Citizen: When Politics and Popular CultureConverge, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MA.

Zcar300ZX (2009) ‘DC Prop 8 protest’, (videorecording), 30 March, [Online] Avail-able at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ 3fe7aifeXXY (20 August 2009).

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Kjerstin Thorson is a graduate student at the School of Journalism and Mass

Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Address: School of

Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison,

Madison, USA. [email: ksthorson@wisc.edu]

Brian Ekdale is a graduate student at the School of Journalism and Mass

Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Address: School of Jour-

nalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison,

USA. [email: bekdale@wisc.edu]

Porismita Borah is a graduate student at the School of Journalism and Mass

Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Address: School of

Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison,

Madison, USA. [email: borah@wisc.edu]

Kang Namkoong is a graduate student at the School of Journalism and Mass

Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Address: School of Jour-

nalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison,

USA. [email: namkoong@wisc.edu]

Chirag Shah is a graduate student at the School of Information and Library

Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Address: School of Infor-

mation and Library Science, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel

Hill, USA. [email: chirag@unc.edu]

Appendix 1. Codebook

Each video was uniquely identified by the 11-character string designated in itsYouTube url.

(1) Video removal. Select yes if the video has been removed. Otherwise select no.(2) Identifying Prop 8 videos. Is this a Prop 8 video? If there is any mention of

Proposition 8, including in the video tags, choose yes.Now watch the video and code the remaining questions.

(3) Content origin. Is the content original or borrowed? Borrowed: Content isclearly identifiable as belonging to another source (i.e., a news logo ispresent). Original: Anything else. Be sure to check the user name to see if itmatches the content (CBS content posted by cbsnews is original, not borrowed).(a) For borrowed content:

(i) Is the borrowed content user-edited? (yes/no) If yes, what degreeof user editing is there? Low level: Adding a branded intro, water-mark on the screen, ‘check out this video’ screen. Introducing orending in a way that maintains the flow and integrity of the clip

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itself. High level: Change to the structure of the clip, editingtogether disparate pieces, adding music or other audio content.

(ii) Where did the borrowed content come from?

(1) Rally: Video of a rally or protest(2) Speech: Footage of a speech WITHOUT a rally – press confer-

ences, politician speaking to legislative body(3) Church: Footage of a church service – takes place in a religious

building, presence of a religious figure (pastor, priest, etc),bibles, crosses, worship music, etc.

(4) News TV: Video content is dominated by clips from a news organ-ization or multiple news organizations. Look for identification of anetwork, news set, correspondent commentary

(5) Entertainment TV: Video content is dominated by clips from enter-tainment television, such as a talk show (Oprah, Daily Show, Let-terman), or other dramatic television (West Wing, Seinfeld)

(6) Advertisement: Video content is an ad that clearlywas borrowed – youcan tell it aired on television. (Note: If you cannot determine that the adwas borrowed, then code advertisement as original – scripted.)

(b) For original content:

(i) Where did the original content come from?(1) Scripted: Produced by its creator (not necessarily the poster,

though it could be). May include actors, planned or scriptedaddress to the camera.

(2) Filmed live event: May include footage from press conferences,speeches, rallies (Note: There may be editing or voiceovers, butif footage is of a live event (press conference, hearing, protest,etc.) it belongs in this category.). However, if the personfilming the live event has a substantial amount of face time,code as monologue.

(3) Monologue: Webcam speech, extemporaneous, can includemore than one person. Lacks a script.

(4) Production quality. Assess the production quality. Amateur: Noediting or choppy cuts. Skilled amateur: Steady camera work,some editing. Professional: Multiple camera angles, studio pro-duction, clean editing.

(5) Position on Prop 8.Holistically, what is your impression of the pos-ition of the video? If it appears to be news coverage, default to‘none’ unless a clear position is taken by a newscaster or guestwithout opposition. A position taken in line with a position onProp 8 (for example, ‘I support gaymarriage’) without explicitlymentioning Prop 8 should still be coded as taking a position.

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