YouTube, Critical Pedagogy, and Media Activism

YouTube, Critical Pedagogy, andMedia Activism

Douglas Kellner and Gooyong Kim

A major goal of critical pedagogy is to facilitate simultaneouslyindividual development and social transformation for a moreegalitarian and just society. As opposed to the reproductive roleof education, critical pedagogy strives for the ‘‘action of dialogicalSubjects upon reality in order to transform it . . . . [by] posing realityas a problem’’ (Freire 1970, 168). In other words, critical pedagogybelieves education to be a form of cultural politics that is funda-mental to social transformation aiming to cultivate human agencyand transformative activity. With the firm belief in the ‘‘potentialityof the people,’’ critical pedagogy equips individuals with opportu-nities to expose, develop, and realize their human capacitiesthrough ‘‘participating in the pursuit of liberation’’ of themselvesand society at the same time (Freire 1970, 169). Therefore, due toindividual differences in development and abilities, genuine edu-cation is never just a matter of a homogenized schooling during acertain time period. Rather, education is a lifelong process andsearch for self-fulfillment. As Dewey and Freire note, with criticalperspectives on education’s role in societal as well as individualdevelopments, it can also be a democratizing force and promotecultural revolution and social transformation.

However, education today tends to be confined to schooling, thatis, getting instruction as job training, or indoctrination into estab-lished value systems and practices. Education in a capitalist societyis a kind of voucher for politicoeconomic success or, at least, sub-sistence. Furthermore, the hidden curriculum of mass media’spopular pedagogy, such as advertising, media socialization, and

The Review of Education, Pedagogy,

and Cultural Studies, 32:3–36, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1071-4413 print=1556-3022 online

DOI: 10.1080/10714410903482658

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political propaganda, means that education in the United States, asa lifetime process, tends to be controlled by dominant economicand political institutions. In this situation, education is no longerprimarily a matter of self-development, critical thought, and socialprogress but is a mere matter of financial investment or ideologicalinculcation. Tragically, school is often no longer a live forum for lib-erating dialogue but tends to be a warehouse for knowledge andskills as a matter of transmission in which ‘‘teaching for testing’’becomes the norm under the banner of No Child Left Behind.1 Interms of the Enlightenment project of Western civilization, whichpromised individual freedom, social prosperity, and universal pro-gress, an enlightened modernity has not been achieved because ofeducation’s failure to cultivate critical human agency with ration-ality and autonomy. Rather, schooling has promoted social con-formity and striving for success in the competitive rat race.

As a chief reason for the failure of the Enlightenment project, themonopoly of knowledge and the institutionalization of educationhave played a major role in strengthening conservative hegemonyby eradicating critical consciousness, as well as by making schoola crucial field for social, political, and ideological reproduction.With regard to the interconnection of power and knowledge(Foucault 1980), schooling has become a quasi-monopoly control,and dissemination of knowledge by established powers as a formof cultural and ideological domination, which controls knowledgeto strengthen the interests of the dominant class. Consequently,Althusser (1971) correctly identifies education as a part of the Ideo-logical State Apparatus to produce=reproduce ruling ideologiesand social control in capitalist societies.

However, the explosion of information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs) has provided ordinary people with unpre-cedented opportunities to take on the ruling educational powerstructure and pedagogy. The uncontested monopoly of knowledgeand the institutionalization of education can now be challenged bynew media technologies, which make possible decentralized andinteractive communication and a participatory model of cultureand democracy, with multiple voices and an expanded flow ofinformation, thus creating a new field for the conjuncture of edu-cation and democracy. In particular, dialogical two-way communi-cation and collective ‘‘many-to-many’’ communication have beenwidely implemented with the emergence of the Internet and socialnetworking sites. This technological development has amplified

4 D. Kellner and G. Kim

individual, voluntary participation in mutual education throughproliferating new voices and visions, making possible the democra-tization of knowledge. In these ways, conventional relationshipsbetween the producers and the consumers of knowledge have beenproductively challenged. Thus, the Internet has opened a space forindividuals to realize Benjamin’s (1934=1978) belief that a ‘‘reader isat all times ready to become a writer’’ (225), suggesting a new spaceto realize the civic engagement of modern citizens. Consequently,individuals can become more deeply involved in the democratiza-tion of knowledge and mutual pedagogy as autonomous rationalbeings, thus helping to realize the dreams of the Enlightenment.

With regard to the potential of ICTs for reviving a more pedago-gically participatory democracy, Habermas’s (1989) notion of the‘‘public sphere’’ is an important resource to examine the significanceof voluntary individuals’ active engagement with the dominantreproductive model of education. Grounded in an ideal of ‘‘com-municative rationality,’’ which is based on mutual understandingand persuasion,2 Habermas (1989) believes that individuals shouldstrive for personal autonomy and to exchange their ideas openlyand reach consensus in the ‘‘universal speech situation’’ of the pub-lic sphere, in which there is minimum domination or manipulationand the force of the better argument prevails. Individuals canexercise mutual pedagogical practices when the ideal notion of thepublic sphere is embodied in their autonomous participation in dis-cussions of their own interests, as well as by undistorted communi-cation among themselves.

In this ideal space of pedagogical interaction, any attempt todominate or regulate a free flow of knowledge and information isdifficult, if not impossible, thus helping to realize Enlightenmentgoals.3 From this idealized and normative perspective, interactiveand decentralized communication on the Internet can invigoratethe potential of pedagogic democratization in the public sphere.However, leaving aside problems of the ‘‘digital divide’’ amongclass, gender, and race, Habermas’s (1989) notion of the publicsphere is strictly confined to the bourgeois model of liberal capital-ism, which does not explain social problems caused by class con-flicts, the fragmented public by competing interests, and themassive intervention of governments and corporations into socialformation of public opinion (Fraser 1992; Kellner 2000). Neverthe-less, Habermas’s ideal of the public sphere is still a powerful conceptto examine the Internet’s potential for democratization. For, in

YouTube, Critical Pedagogy, and Media Activism 5

contrast to rigid notions of schooling, the Internet can provideindividuals with the occasion to reclaim education as a space forself-fulfillment and personal autonomy without any restrictions ofinstitutional control and standardized curricula.

Yet we must conceptualize the Internet and new media in termsof the ‘‘embededness in the political economy, social relations, andpolitical environment within which they are produced, circulated,and received’’ for a more correct understanding about its sociopo-litical potential as well as its limitations (Kellner 1995, 2). Althoughemergent technologies provide the potential that individuals can‘‘empower themselves in relation to dominant media and culture’’(Kellner 1995, 2) and can provide the oppressed with ever more lib-erating forum for the counter-hegemonic politics of culture, thereare also limitations that must be confronted concerning the politicaleconomy of the media and technology, their imbrications in thedominant social and political system, and the ways that mediaand technology generate social reproduction and can be part ofan apparatus of social domination. In this article, we argue thatnew media like YouTube (UT), combined with a transformativecritical pedagogy, can help realize the Internet’s potential for demo-cratization and transformative pedagogy, while also noting itslimitations.

To be sure, while new media technologies allow individuals tosecure unprecedented space for an alternative=counter-hegemonicpolitics, they also face the risks of ensnaring established social con-stituencies in the tentacles of the dominant culture and ideology.Emancipatory, politically progressive, and socially transformativeuses of the media and technology should thus be informed by acritical pedagogy to produce a viable counter-hegemonic culturalpolitics and pedagogy of the Internet. This requires insight intothe important role of narrative in pedagogy. Critical pedagogyoffers a ‘‘discourse of plurality, difference, and multinarrati-ves . . . in order to explain either the mechanics of domination orthe dynamic of emancipation’’ (Giroux 1992, 51). Giroux calls uponcritical pedagogy to help traditionally oppressed people to acquiretheir voices in culture and politics as the prerequisite of developingcritical human agency and a more democratic society. Therefore, byacknowledging a cultural politics of critical media pedagogy, indi-viduals can critically confront the hegemonic power of dominationand pursue counter-hegemonic politics of alternative pedagogy andculture (Kim, forthcoming). By taking over opportunities offered


by novel Internet media such as UT, individuals can organize anddeploy novel strategies of self-education and social transformation.

More importantly, with pervasive distribution of Internet com-munication infrastructures throughout the globe providing univer-sal access, new media can help the oppressed to exercise ‘‘praxis[with] reflection and action which [can] truly transform reality’’in their everyday lives (Freire 1970, 100). When they have anoccasion and competence to raise their authentic voices based ontheir own lived experiences of social oppression, marginalizedpeople are likely to augment their counter-hegemonic struggle byconsolidating solidarity with other critical social constituencies.4

Equipped with crucial sociopolitical consciousness and competencyto make uses of the Internet, individuals can realize what Giroux(2001) calls the ‘‘reconstruction of democratic public life.’’ In otherwords, critical media pedagogy can provide the oppressed withthe revolutionary power of ‘‘praxis’’ (13) by providing virtuallyuniversal points of intervention into the cultural politics of thenew media. In this regard, believing that ‘‘public pedagogy repre-sents a moral and political practice rather than merely a technicalprocedure’’ (9), Giroux (2001) affirms the progressive, transforma-tive potential of critical new media pedagogy by stressing

[T]he performative as a transitive act, a work in progress informed by a cul-tural politics that translates knowledge back into practice, places theory inthe political space of the performative, and invigorates the pedagogical as apractice through which collective struggles can be waged to revive andmaintain the fabric of democratic institutions (14).

From this point of view, to examine the pedagogic implicationsand power of UT is important because successful implementationof critical media pedagogy for social transformation requires thatindividuals make use of the potentially democratizing and trans-formative opportunities made available by emergent technologieslike UT. Stated differently, it is important to examine how individ-ual UTers make use of opportunities to implement a ‘‘performativepedagogy’’ (Giroux 2001, 7) of the new media by infusing theoryand practice. On the other hand, so far, there is little academicresearch to investigate the transformative roles of UT in terms ofits pedagogical as well as political potentials. Even though thereis some research, it is essentially confined in the functionalist=instrumental paradigm to review UT’s usability.5 Consequently,this study contributes to developing a critical and transformative


pedagogy of new media technologies, as it examines the dialecticalrelationship between UT and individuals’ employment of it aspotential forms of critical pedagogy and democratic social trans-formation that highlights both its potential contributions andlimitations.

YOUTUBE AS A CUTTING EDGE OF ICTs

UT has been immensely popular and influential since its inceptionin February 2005. Time magazine awarded UT the Best Invention of2006, and Grossman (2006) describes UT’s enormous impact oncontemporary society:

One year ago, this would not have been possible, but the world has chan-ged. In the past 12 months, thousands of ordinary people have becomefamous. Famous people have been embarrassed . . .The rules are differentnow, and one website changed them: YouTube.

Nielson=Net Ratings reported that users of UT grew from 7.3million to 12.8 million by the end of July 2006. Since January2006, traffic to UT almost tripled, 297% (O’Malley 2006). Accordingto USA Today, UT comprises 60% of online-served videos and 29%of market share in multimedia entertainment in the United States.As of March 2008, there were more than 78.3 million videouploaded, constituting over 200,000 videos uploads and 100 millionvideos watched daily on UT.6

UT has already had significant cultural, social, and politicalimpact, beginning with producing a new form of Internet celebrity.Ordinary people can get significant attention from others in theworld of the Internet and UT. For example, Geriatric 1927, in hiseighties, enjoyed late-life fame as number 6 in the ‘‘Most SubscribedDirectors of All Time’’ list on UT. Achieving UT fandom, Brookersultimately signed with a conventional mainstream medium, CarsonDaly Productions, that ‘‘calls for her to help create and act inprograms for television, the Internet, and portable devices’’ (Hardy2006). UT has further circulated the media contents from suchconventional broadcasting companies as NBC, CBS, and Fox toincrease their viewership and, recently, the BBC announced a dealto post its video clips on UT. Even an elite orchestra utilizes UT asan auditioning means.7 Based on a four-minute piece by the compo-ser of YouTube Symphony Orchestra summit, Tan Dum, UT usersrecord their performances and upload them on UT, and, then,


judges will decide finalists, who played at Carnegie Hall inApril 2009.

In terms of UT’s social influences, several police departmentshave taken advantage of UT as a kind of press release while inves-tigating crimes. In Massachusetts, Patrolman Brian Johnson wasable to pinpoint criminal suspects through circulating a surveil-lance video clip on UT (Tucker 2007). Other police departmentshave used UT in criminal investigations in Florida, Rhode Island,and California. For more efficient religious information sharing,Jewish Rabbi Shalom Adler started to post video clips on UT. By2007, there were 7,280 Jewish-related videos, 53,000 Christianvideos, and 15,700 Muslim-related videos on UT (Schulte 2007).Universities have provided virtually any audiences at any timewith their lectures by posting online versions of lectures on UT.8

Students increasingly depend on UT as a reference tool for theirassignment research as well. People made 2.8 billion searches onUT, that is, about 200 million more than on Yahoo, which is thesecond most popular search engine (Helft 2009).

UT’s impressive popularity has created a new space for laymento participate in traditionally restricted areas of politics. Forexample, Senator George Allen (R-Va) was heavily favored to winreelection to the Senate and was being touted as a 2008 Republicanpresidential candidate when he fell afoul of the ubiquity of digitalmedia on the campaign trail. Baiting a young man of color doingoppositional video who Allen called ‘‘macaca,’’ the event was cap-tured on video, put on UT, and then sent through the Internet,eventually emerging on network television. The UT footage becamepart of a spectacle that coded Allen as a racist and he eventually losthis reelection bid.

Furthermore, politicians have started to employ UT as a strategyto approach undecided and disinterested U.S. voters. Since the 2004election, there have been studies which explore the practicalviability of the Internet as a novel method of political campaigning.9

Several studies show that more than half of UTers are between 35and 64 years old and consist of a more active voting populationthan other voting groups (Gueorguieva 2008). Since Obama got66% of votes from the 18 to 29 age group and 52% from the 30 to44 age group in the 2008 election (Pew Research Center for thePeople & the Press 2008b) and younger adults are more active onthese Web sites, grassroots campaign materials’ impact on the2008 election is obvious.


A significant increase of Internet uses indicates the acceleratingrole of UT videos as a venue of campaign advertisements for thecampaigns. While 10% of Americans consulted the Internet forpolitical news during the entire 2004 campaign season, 33% of themdepended on the Internet for campaign-related information for the2008 election as of October 2008 (Pew Research Center for thePeople & the Press, 2008a). What is more, 35% of adult Web usershave watched some form of political online videos as of June 15,2008 (Pew Internet & American Life Project 2008). Specifically,‘‘more than 146 million people watched an average of 86 videos’’during September 2008 (Eisenberg 2008, n.p.). With this pervasiveInternet presence and an uprising of UT’s share of political=cam-paign communication, seven of sixteen potential presidential candi-dates announced their races for parties’ nomination on UT. Most ofthem created their accounts on the site You Choose ‘08 on UT. As ameans of grassroots participation by producing UT videos, ordi-nary UT users had the opportunity to address their politicalconcerns to parties’ nomination candidates. Eight Democraticnomination candidates and eight Republican candidates answeredvoters’ questions in UT video clips hosted by CNN=UT on July 23,2007 and November 28, 2007, respectively.10

There was also an impressive Internet spectacle in support ofObama’s presidency. Obama raised an unprecedented amount ofmoney on the Internet, generated more than two million friends onFacebook and 866,887 friends on MySpace, and reportedly had acampaign listserv of over 10 million e-mail addresses, enabling hiscampaign to mobilize youth and others, through text messages ande-mails. Videos compiled on Obama’s official campaign YouTubesite were accessed over 11.5 million times (Gulati 2010, 195), whilethe YouTube music video ‘‘Obama Girl,’’ which features a youngwoman singing about why she supports Obama with images of hisspeeches interspersed, has received thirteen million hits and is oneof the most seen and discussed YouTube videos in history.

Hence, the Obama phenomenon is a major indicator of thecomplex interconnections between UT, mutual pedagogy, andgrassroots political participation. Arguably, a key dynamic forObama’s election as the Democratic Party’s candidate and theforty-fourth president of the United States came from varieties ofonline multimedia materials produced by ordinary people, whichboosted the number of small donations and the amount of grass-roots participation.11


In addition, grassroots campaigns for Obama illustrate the vastpotential impact of UT. On behalf of Senator Obama, traditionallyunderrepresented youth and people of color have vigorouslyutilized UT and UT-style self-made videos as an innovative plat-form for grassroots political mobilization, which contain their per-sonal narratives and reasons they support Obama for president inorder to inspire and consolidate potential Obama supporters onand offline. Among the enormous numbers of alternative mediaartifacts for the Obama campaign, will.i.am’s Yes, We Can musicvideo manifests how grassroots-initiated alternative media artifactsmobilized individuals to support Obama as the next president.12

This MTV-style UT music video breaks with conventional waysof producing music video, as will.i.am assembled a variety ofartists’ grassroots participation in its production. In his words

I wasn’t afraid to stand for ‘‘change’’ . . . it was pure inspiration . . . so Icalled my friends . . . and they called their friends. . . . We made the songand video. . . . Usually this process would take months . . . but we did ittogether in 48 hours . . . and instead of putting it in the hands of profit weput it in the hands of inspiration . . .13

In addition to the avant-garde alternative media artifact madeby professional musicians, there are the grassroots-based videosmade by ordinary people who have produced their own videosand narratives to support Obama, collected on the UT Web site.14

Several themes emerge among twenty-nine self-made videos onthe UT site in which young people manifest their resolution to sup-port Senator Obama for president. As a grassroots political activity,the main purpose of their production and posting is to consolidatebroader popular support for Obama and to recruit undecidedvoters. The videos for Obama exhibit hopes and dreams for a betterfuture as the most favored reason to support Obama by eightpeople (27.5%). Six of the videos (20.6%) affirm that Obama is theright candidate for this time of sociopolitical turmoil; five (17.2%)trust Obama as the candidate who can unite people in the UnitedStates to realize the American dream. Because Senator Obamavoted against the United States invasion of Iraq and helped manysocially and economically marginalized people by serving com-munity organizations, supporters expressed their own desire forObama to carry on these agendas when he assumes office.

Obama is believed by his UT supporters to provide ordinarypeople with critical vision through which they can reflect upon


their own politicoeconomic situation in society and realize theimportance of civic=political participation. Others were movedby Obama for his ability to inspire, his possibility for being atransformative president, and his promise for carrying through sig-nificant change. The campaign validates the importance of examin-ing how traditionally marginalized people deploy new mediatechnologies to construct and publish their political agendas andcan thus involve themselves in grassroots, participatory democracyby political agenda-setting, mobilization of supporters, and fightingfor transformation of social conditions in their everyday lives. Inthis regard, grassroots videos and campaign organizations forObama provide highly important political as well as pedagogicalimplications for the future.

However, although there are compelling examples of UT videosin the 2008 election, one cannot claim UT’s remarkable perfor-mances as a true ‘‘story of the business of the future [because] it’stoo strange a place and too uncertain a profit model to inspire copy-cats’’ (Heffernan 2008, n.p.). Yet there are important issues concern-ing what sort of critical pedagogy should be employed for futureinterventions to maximize UT’s contribution to the democratizationof media spectacles through grassroots political participation.

YOUTUBE AS A DIALOGICAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

As well as practical political interventions, there have also beenpedagogical discussions about UT itself via the means ofself-produced videos. During a relatively early stage of UT’s devel-opment, Zakgeorge21, posted his video clip to initiate athought-provoking discussion about the future of UT.15 His discur-sive question, ‘‘Why do you tube? Why do you make a video forUT?’’ makes fellow UTers reconsider their motives and purposesin UTing. Further, he asked about the UT’s possible effect: ‘‘Whatis the future of UT and how is it going to impact the world glo-bally?’’ Basically, Zakgeorge21 believes that UT provides us withunique opportunities for a better future. Believing that ‘‘UT is areally cool place for serious changes to happen throughout theworld,’’ he asked UTers to discuss the desirable uses of UT forthe future: ‘‘What do you think the implications of UT and whatcan be beneficial about it?’’

It is important to examine the pedagogical merits ofZakgeorge21’s discursive question. First of all, the initial question


substantiates the key values of critical pedagogy, that is, educationas the process of problem posing and problem solving (Rousseau1764=1979; Wollstonecraft 1792=1998; Dewey 1916; Marcuse 1968,1975; Freire 1970=2006; Giroux 1992, 2001). For Freire (1970),problem-posing pedagogy is a liberating alternative to the dehuma-nizing banking education in socially affirmative conventionalschooling that only engages in social reproduction. Freire (1970=2006) maintains that banking education is a hidden curriculum ofdominant ideology, ‘‘for the more the oppressed can be led to adaptto that situation, the more easily they can be dominated’’ (60). Asnoted, Zakgeorge21 initiated the process of UT learning by posingquestions and inviting others to engage in the mutual learningprocess. By posting video clips, Zakgeorge21 not only initiateddialogical learning himself by posing a discursive question aboutthe technology which he uses but also induced other UTers toparticipate in the communicative learning process by posting theirvideos. Therefore, dialogues and discussion among UTers are vividmoments of learning by doing, learning as process, and learning ascommunication within the public sphere of Internet media.

Furthermore, while considering learning by doing presupposesan individual’s own narrative as a learning process, producingvideo clips as a moment of realizing human agency by constructingnarrative furthers the transformative potential of the new mediapedagogy. The narrative of an individual video posting on UTelaborates the viability of the cultural politics of critical mediapedagogy of learning by doing and establishing dialogical andpedagogical relations with others. Because it is based on the ‘‘dis-course of plurality, difference, and multinarratives . . . in order toexplain either the mechanics of domination or the dynamic ofemancipation’’ (Giroux 1992, 51), the traditionally unrepresentedpeople can acquire their own voices in the politics of representa-tions as the prerequisite of critical human agency for further socialemancipation. While individuals are producing and posting videoclips on UT, as a kind of ‘‘public pedagogy,’’ they participatein mutually transformative pedagogy through dialogue and canexercise the power of ‘‘performative pedagogy’’ for social trans-formation (Giroux 2001, 7).

By March 5, 2007, there were 700,183 UT users who had watchedZakgeorge21’s video posting and there were 4,062 text commentsand eighty video responses after his initial video post on January9, 2007. In this study, we analyze a total of the eighty video


responses, although only twenty of the videos are engaged becausenot all video responses are discursively deliberate and on thetopic.16 Because video-posting and video-response are unique fea-tures of UT unlike other Internet discussion forums, conductingtextual analysis of these UT videos is particularly meaningful as away of investigating media artifacts, which enable a unique exam-ination of media production and pedagogy on the Internet. Thus,doing textual analysis of UT videos enables researchers to investi-gate media artifacts, which constitute a mode of social communi-cation within specific cultural and political contexts (McKee2001). In this way, we also take advantage of what Thomas (1994)calls an ‘‘indirect’’ examination of human behavior on the Internetwhich ‘‘may be interpreted as reflecting [meaning-making-and-subsequent-application] processes’’ (685, emphasis original).

Pedagogically, it is significant to analyze video responses ofUTers because it is a dialectical learning process achieved throughtheir active participatory communication. In other words, their owndiscussion of UT has provided UTers with critical moments tomake sense of their participation and to reflect on their partici-pation in UT, providing moments of learning as self-reflection(Rousseau 1764=1979). By posting opinions on the future of UT,UTers actively involve themselves in pedagogic democratizationthrough a problem-posing and problem-solving process, becominglearners as doers. Hence, this discursive practice of discussing theirown UT productions, which was created by ordinary users to dis-cuss the future of UT, hints at the potential of reviving Habermas’spublic sphere where ordinary people realize autonomous humanagency by participating in free, autonomous discussions.

Therefore, this article focuses on what are the UT’s potentialmodes of transformative pedagogy and how these are practicallyemployed by UTers. Based on the arguments of classical philoso-phers of education,17 this article critically evaluates both the peda-gogical possibilities and limitations of UT as a form of culturalpolitics and its pedagogic potential for grassroots democracy andsocial transformation.

YOUTUBE FOR LEARNING BY DOING ANDLIFELONG LEARNING

In terms of everyday life education, by both reviewingZakgeorge21’s video posting and responding to it, a UTer could


experience the pedagogy of learning by doing motored by volun-tary human agency (Rousseau, 1764=1979; Dewey 1916; Freire1970=2006). Compared to the total number of 700, 183 hits to thevideo, UTers who responded to it either through text comments(4,062) or video responses (80) showed higher motivation in the dis-cussion. More specifically, compared to 4,062 text commentators,eighty video responders have taken time to think over the question,review other UTers’ comments, and organize their opinions on theirvideo postings, to produce video clips to articulate their own ideas.Through this process of video postings as self-education, UTersthus practice the pedagogy of learning by doing as ‘‘performativepedagogy’’ that they effectively engage in their everyday lives asa fundamental process of meaning making.

Traditionally, ‘‘those under instruction are too customarilylooked upon as acquiring knowledge as theoretical spectators’’ insocially reproductive schools, although Dewey (1916) encouragesindividuals to actively engage subject matters in which they areinterested in everyday life for their own interests (140). However,the Internet provides individuals today with a whole new peda-gogical setting: decentralized and interactive communication, aparticipatory model of pedagogy, and an expanded flow ofinformation, thus comprising a new field for the conjuncture ofeducation and democracy. This technological development hasamplified individuals’ voluntary participation in mutual educationthrough proliferating new voices and visions, making possible thedemocratization of knowledge and learning in their daily lives.From this point of view, as opposed to rigid subject boundariesin formal education, Superangrymonkey evaluates UT’s everydaylife curriculum that ‘‘people can do whatever they want in UT. Itis freedom; it is the closest thing to the freedom that we’vegot.’’18 Whether they are good or bad, positive or negative, forRousseau (1764=1979), experiences are crucial for one to generatehis or her own human potentials and life knowledge because‘‘the Well-being of freedom makes up for many wounds’’ (78).Therefore, LeonWestbrook appreciates UT’s pedagogy of hands-onexperience and freedom for providing him with the opportunities‘‘to express myself or trash [something that] I could not do before’’for the more learner-centered pedagogy of UT.19

Concerning the topic of discussion, UTers are well aware that thefuture of UT is totally dependent upon their concrete uses of it.Stipulating individuals’ active engagements, the learner-centered


pedagogic value of UT, that is, learning by doing pedagogy, con-ditions the genuine potential of UT’s future. A ‘‘progressive societycounts individual variations as precious since it finds in them themeans of its own growth’’ (Dewey 1916, 305). Hence, as a peda-gogic tool, UTers’ varied opinions and modes of expression contrib-ute to reviving the democratic public sphere on the Internet. Owingto their active involvement in posting and responding to videos,PublicAutopsy believes that UTers are ‘‘creating a boundless com-munity where everyone can share what they feel with video andnot just text.’’20 Since, as Badkid3 puts it, ‘‘we are the ones whomake UT’s future,‘‘21 it seems that the pedagogical value of learn-ing by doing is producing a democratic public sphere in whichUTers are posting and responding to videos discussing the futureof UT, and are thus creating its future as they debate and learn whatis desirable or not.

The notion of learning as a lifetime process is interconnectedwith the pedagogic value of learning by doing. The real value ofeducation as self-realization can never be confined to a classroom(Rousseau 1764=1979; Dewey 1916). As long as individuals haveaccess to the Internet and are willing to do so, the opportunitiesto post and watch videos are virtually unlimited. Furthermore,age does not restrict participation in pedagogical practices on UT.As noted, Geriatric1927, in his eighties, enjoyed his late-life famewith number 6 in the ‘‘Most Subscribed Directors of All Time’’ onUT. With learning by doing, Geriatric1927 engages in the lifelongprocess of self-cultivation and social engagement. Thus, Dewey(1916) emphasizes the pedagogic value of learning as lifetimeprocess, arguing

Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment. . . . With therenewal of physical existence goes, in the case of human beings,the re-creation of beliefs, ideals, hopes, happiness, misery and practices.The continuity of any experience, through renewing of the social group,is a literal fact. Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this socialcontinuity of life (2, emphasis added).

YOUTUBE AND LEARNING THROUGH COMMUNICATION

Insofar as it is part of a lifetime process of self-renewal and realiza-tion, education is a continuous communication among members


of society through participatory dialogue, as well as throughself-reflection. This is why education, as communication, cansimultaneously promote individual development and a democraticsociety (Dewey 1916; Freire 1970=2006). For the essentially com-municative nature of education, Dewey (1916) believes that ‘‘societynot only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, butit may fairly to be said to exist in transmission, in communication’’(4). Likewise, learning as communication is a quintessential compo-nent of problem-posing pedagogy that requires dialogical commu-nications between students and teachers where both are learningand teaching each other. In this regard, Freire (1970=2006) furtheremphasizes the importance of dialogic communication amongmutual-learning constituencies: ‘‘one must seek to live with othersin solidarity. One cannot impose oneself, nor even merely co-existwith one’s students. Solidarity [for self-learning and self-emancipation] requires true communication’’ (63). While UT com-munication is virtual, it allows a form of dialogical communicativeinteraction.

Through dialogical communication with others, by discussingtheir everyday lives and uses of technologies, individuals canbecome active subjects of learning and their own future. Realizingthe ‘‘issues of liberation and empowerment . . . in a mobile field ofideological and material relations’’ deeply embedded in our every-day environments (Giroux 1992, 99), individuals are able to exercisecritical human agency through communicating with others on UT byposing social reality as a problem and seeking solutions throughtheir discursive interaction. In this regard, Xanthius asserts thatUTers have many opportunities to learn about different cultures bycommunicating with people around the world: ‘‘UT has created amilestone for so many possibilities for the Internet; in particular, con-text and visual abilities through [communicating with] other peoplethroughout the world.’’22 More substantially, UT’s technologicalinnovation and convergence of multimodal communications furtherpromote UTers’ involvement and interaction with other people for acollective process of self-learning (Ramirez and Burgoon 2004). Fromthis point of view, NenoBrasil highlights UT’s pedagogical contri-bution to real-life learning through interacting with other peopleon the Internet, writing: ‘‘I think the relationship will not ever bethe same after UT; it is a tool that allows us to meet people all aroundthe world to share our thought, problems, happiness, beliefs andeverything.’’23


In terms of learning as communication, Habermas’ notion of thepublic sphere envisions the potential of UT’s connection betweenlearning and democracy. Just as Dewey (1916) believes in democ-racy as a ‘‘mode of associated living, of conjoint communicatedexperience’’ (87), Habermas (1989) stresses the importance of com-municative action to reach consensus among discussion parti-cipants as a means of unbound, free association in the publicsphere. In other words, individuals can achieve personal autonomyand reach consensus, exchanging their ideas openly based on a‘‘universal speech situation,’’ that is, a condition of combiningmutual pedagogy and participatory democracy in their daily lives.From this point of view, through posting video clips and exchang-ing their opinions, UTers practice the essential components ofunrestricted communication, personal autonomy, and participatorydemocracy. Thus, UT can implement the interconnection amonglearning, communication, and democracy. However, a simplyincreased quantity of free, unrestricted communication andinformation does not automatically guarantee any revolution ofparticipatory democracy (Bimber 2003). Hence, we argue that atransformative use of UT for the goals of a strong participatorydemocracy, education, and social justice requires informing UTpractice with the values and practices of a critical pedagogy.

YOUTUBE FOR LEARNING THROUGH REFLECTION ON THESOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

As long as human beings live in a society, they are products of itsinfluences. Marx (1845=1970) critically assesses the dialectical rela-tionships between human beings and their social environments.As much as one’s environment confines the individual, Marx states‘‘circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential toeducate the educator himself’’ (121). Marx further demands indivi-duals’ radical intervention for learning as transformation: ‘‘thecoincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activityor self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only asrevolutionary practice’’ (121, emphasis added). Therefore, as much asone should recognize the defining influence of everyday environ-ments, he or she has to acknowledge that human agency is thefundamental force that constructs social circumstances and cantransform them, just as critical pedagogy calls for simultaneoustransformation of self and society.


Among philosophers of education drawn on in the study, ToniMorrison (1970=1993) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1792=1998) clearlyexplicate the immense influences of environments on individuals’learning and lives. Just as Althusser (1971) dissects the ubiquityof the dominant ideology’s pedagogical apparatuses that interp-olate individuals as ideological subjects in their everyday lives,Morrison (1970=1993) explores how the oppressed in society areperpetually indoctrinated by structures of everyday life such asthe media:

Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window sign—all theworld had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll waswhat every girl child treasured. ‘‘Here,’’ they said, ‘‘this is beautiful, andif you are on this day ‘worthy’ you may have it’’ (20–21).

Morrison (1970=1993) further asserts that the oppressed are per-petually dehumanized and exploited by a mere biological markerof their body ‘‘in equating physical beauty with virtue, she strippedher mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap’’ (122).Given the fact that pervasive messages of mass media, especially incommercial advertisements, are highly sensational and exert cogni-tive influences on the subconscious level, everyday lives that aresaturated with the media and commercial goods are another peda-gogical field molded by the established society. Claiming thatcircumstances play a prescriptive power to form human develop-ment in a given society, Dewey (1916) maintains the importanceof the environment, which ‘‘consists of those conditions that pro-mote or hinder, stimulate or inhibit the characteristic activities ofa living being’’ (11). Thus, the hidden curriculum of both the mediaand banking education reproduces the dominant ideology anddehumanizes individuals to become docile objects, controlled bythe established power structure.

For Wollstonecraft (1792=1998), education for the oppressed isthe prerequisite for the rehumanization of both oppressors and theoppressed alike: ‘‘to free them from all restraint by allowing themto participate in the inherent rights of mankind . . . the improvementand emancipation of the whole sex’’ (307). Emphasizing rationalityas a condition for human agency, Wollstonecraft (1792=1998) main-tains that ‘‘it is the right use of reason alone which makes us inde-pendent of everything—excepting the unclouded Reason—‘Whoseservice is perfect freedom’’’ (235). In this regard, she advocates that‘‘public education, of every denomination, should be directed to form


citizens’’ (289, emphasis added). Only through public educationcan all citizens participate in reciprocal dialogue as a basic compo-nent of constructing voluntary human agency in order to realize thetrue value of education as the transformation of individuals andsocial environment at the same time—a possibility also offeredby UT.

Since reason is a precondition for human agency (Rousseau1764=1979; Wollstonecraft 1792=1998) and a good environment isan essential condition for better education, the emancipatory projectof critical pedagogy lies in its dialogical transformation of both atthe same time. As Marx (1845=1970) states, although the environ-ment exerts huge influences on individuals, it is individuals whomade and can transform it (Marcuse 1968, 1975; Freire 1970=2006). Further Feenberg (2002) argues that deploying technologyfor social transformation unleashes the collective power of indivi-duals in a decentralized and interactive mode of communication,which, if informed by a participatory model of pedagogy, canexpand the flow of information and transform the social environ-ment in terms of Freire’s concept of rehumanization.

Along this vein of argument, Zakgeorge21 focuses much atten-tion on a new learning and agency-building environment of theInternet: ‘‘Technology is the closest thing to magic so that’s whywe as human beings are so fascinated by it. The Internet and UTin general are going to make a Renaissance.’’ Some of UTers highlyappreciate the potential of the Internet for its emancipatory charac-teristics. Stating that ‘‘this is the place to be and a birthplace forsomething new,’’ Superangrymonkey agrees with Zakgeorge21concerning the transformative potential of UT’s technological inno-vation. However, what matters most is the way individuals usetechnology within specific contexts because different uses of itrender totally different effects of the technology (Salter 2004). Thus,there needs to be concrete pedagogical interventions to provideordinary people with tools to deploy the vast potential of Internetmedia for their cultural=social=political empowerment.

In terms of the forms of UT use, UTers utilize communicationtechnology to make use of its pedagogical potential for discussionand debate. UTers can raise generative questions about the valuesand potential of UT as a problem-posing pedagogy and facilitateinteractive communications to share their ideas as learning as com-munication.24 From this point of view, PublicAutopsy clearly expli-cates the pedagogic value of UT as a learning community: UT has


‘‘already revolutionalized the Internet by breaking down any bor-der of race or religion we would have between each other. UT iscreating a borderless community where everyone can share whatthey feel with video, not just text.’’25

YOUTUBE FOR LEARNING AS SELF-FULFILLMENTAND EMPOWERMENT

As long as the aim of education is to bring forth individuals’many-sided potential, self-directed human agency can become akey goal for education. Further, human agency is a requirementfor realizing education as a self-renewing and self-realizing processover time through continual communication with others and demo-cratic transformation of one’s environment. For Dewey, Freire, andprogressive educators, education aims to achieve self-fulfillmentand empowerment, as well as democratic social transformation.In this respect, for Dewey (1916), the main goal of public educationis to achieve human agency for individuals to pursue their owninterests and to create a better society:

The desired transformation is not difficult to define in a formal way. Itsignifies a society in which every person shall be occupied in somethingwhich makes the lives of others better worth living, and which accordinglymakes the ties which bind persons together more perceptible—whichbreaks down the barriers of distance between them (316).

Therefore, truly critical human agency can be obtained whenindividuals revolutionize their sociopolitical conditions by breakingthrough the relations of oppression (Freire 1970=2006). The criticalprocess of becoming a subject within public education requires thatindividuals recognize and transform oppressive conditions dialecti-cally. Freire believes, as the oppressed become fully humansubjects, they begin to realize their human and social potential:

as he [sic!] breaks his ‘‘adhesion’’ and objectifies the reality from which hestarts to emerge, he begins to integrate himself as a Subject (an I) confront-ing an object (reality). At this moment, sundering the false unity of hisdivided self, he becomes a true individual (174).

If a society hinders individuals from obtaining voluntary andcritical human agency, it dehumanizes individuals by perpetuatinga dehumanizing environment. Thus, becoming a true subject


requires and coincides with the radical transformation of society tobreak through the vicious circle of dehumanization and socialoppression.

Considering the relationships between individuals and theirlearning environments, UT provides individuals with vast opportu-nities to form a transformative and creative learning community. Interms of Giroux’s (2001) emphasis on ‘‘performative pedagogy’’ (7),as with Dewey’s pragmatic approach to combine theory and prac-tice, UTers can become not only theoreticians but also practitionersof transformative pedagogy. Superangrymonkey confirms theperformative=pragmatic pedagogy of UT to realize human agency:‘‘I YouTube because I want to see some proactive change and Iwant to be a part of it.’’ UTers are able to achieve agency in formingUT as their learning community by questioning and answeringeach other. Sabrnig confirms this point: ‘‘I want to be around peoplewho think and share ideas while we talk. I want to be a part ofusing technology to make a better world.’’26

As for its accessibility and impact, the Internet=UT can becomebeneficial for the oppressed in society. Compared to the establishedrestrictions on public self-expression in society, the oppressed cangain access to unprecedented opportunities of media access withthe Internet and new forms like UT. With the universal access tothe Internet as an emerging form of cultural politics, the oppressedcan employ UT as a tool for proactive social changes. Therefore,focusing on ‘‘the question of social change and how people onthe margins take up and use the Internet,’’ Mehra, Merkel, andBishop (2004) substantiate how the Internet empowers theoppressed in society (782). For example, gays and lesbians canuse the Internet for constructing ‘‘positive development in their‘queer’ identities’’ and ‘‘political empowerment via the establish-ment of a political agenda’’ (789).

Consequently, the Internet has opened a space for individuals torealize Benjamin’s (1934=1978) belief that readers can be writers andactive producers of their culture. Individuals can obtain the agencyto become involved in the democratization of knowledge and topursue a transformative pedagogy of everyday lives on the Inter-net. Ultimately, through implementing the emancipatory potentialof critical human agency, individuals become more able to securereliable resources to revolutionize the oppressive power structureof society. Nevertheless, there is ambivalence of UT’s concreteimpact on society depending on each user’s specific motivations


and objectives of using it, as seen in many cases of destructive, anti-social deployment of the Internet throughout the globe.27 Therefore,it is a crucial issue for critical pedagogy practitioners to implementFeenberg’s (2002) ‘‘radical philosophy of technology,’’ whichdemands ordinary people’s active intervention in shaping technol-ogies’ social applications, as well as its redesign for a more egali-tarian purposes.

YOUTUBE AS LEARNING FOR AGENCY AND SOCIAL CHANGE

With the decentralized technological structure of the Internet, indi-viduals have obtained a much broader space to participate in thepublic sphere. UTers have exhibited the pedagogical power oflearning by doing, learning as communication, learning forself-fulfillment, and learning through reflection. Hence, UTers cancultivate agency and actively participate in a ‘‘space of interaction’’for ‘‘actual issues in actual places’’ and ‘‘alternative views of thelived environment’’ (Ridell 2002, 162).

In view of the huge influences of education on individuals andits role of reinforcing the dominant ideology in society (Althusser1971), in order to achieve a real condition for emancipatory anddemocratic education means to transform everyday life and strug-gle against oppression (Marcuse 1968; 1975; Freire 1970=2006). ForDewey (1916), the essence of education is positive transformation:

Knowledge is humanistic in quality not because it is about human products inthe past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and humansympathy. Any subject matter which accomplishes this result is humane,and any subject matter which does not accomplish it is not even edu-cational (230, emphasis added).

Criticizing the reproductive role of education in an inegalitariancapitalist society, Marcuse (1968) stresses the importance of edu-cation for human emancipation from exploitative social relations.28

Such transformative education means that educational practice isnot value-neutral or merely technical, but rather is a highly ethicalengagement for political justice and transformation. In the Marcu-sean vision, individuals have to implement the ‘‘application ofknowledge to the improvement of the human condition’’ and the‘‘liberation of the mind, and of the body, from aggressive andrepressive needs.’’


Therefore, individuals’ concrete forms of UT use are importantbecause the actual effects of it depend on their specific practicesand goals. Thus, UT’s practical application with specific sociopoli-tical intents helps to realize the pedagogical potential of UT. Callingfor emancipatory uses of media technology, Freire (1970=2006) alsoproblematizes the effects of its concrete uses: ‘‘It is not the mediathemselves which I criticize, but the way they are used’’ (136).Therefore, it is highly significant to argue for more emancipatoryuses of the new Internet media for the sake of social transformation.In this regard, as a classical model, the Zapatista National Liber-ation Army (EZLN) shows how the emancipatory uses of the Inter-net technology are critically important for the success ofrevolutionary movements (Knudson 1998; Best and Kellner 2001).

The global demonstration in February 2003 against the U.S.invasion of Iraq clearly exemplifies the revolutionary power of indi-viduals’ transformative uses of the Internet (Hands 2006; Kahn andKellner 2005a). Strategic employments of the Internet to organizethe global-scale antiwar protests catalyze ‘‘double democratiza-tion,’’ that is, ‘‘the democratization and restructuring of both civilsociety and the state in order to ensure active citizens and a contain-ment of the power of global capital’’ (Hand 2006, 236). In otherwords, individuals’ emancipatory uses of technology can result inachieving critical agency and the transformation of a society as alearning environment. Kahn and Kellner (2005a) summarize thevast potential of the liberating uses of the Internet: ‘‘The new ICTsare revolutionary and constitute a dramatic transformation ofeveryday life in the direction of more participatory and democraticpotentials’’ (94).

However, unfortunately, the majority of discussion participantsin UT forums are not aware of UT’s liberating potential for socialchange. Though Zakgeorge21 and Superangrymonkey anticipate‘‘serious changes’’ and ‘‘some proactive change’’ through uses ofUT, respectively, many other UTers seem to be satisfied to useUT as a pedagogical form of learning by doing, learning ascommunication, or personal entertainment. As Jessebearweararticulates

UT is going to change, but it is not going to change the world. UT is anexcellent and great place to watch videos, but it is not a place to try tochange the world. UT is not going to change the political aspect or socialaspect of the world.29


Even though UT could make some proactive changes,Retardedfolks does not believe that ‘‘it is going to change reallyanything, anytime soon, anything drastically.’’30 In fact, UT seemsto serve the liberal individualist’s perspective on self-expressionand education as pursuing personal needs. Based on the notion ofan individual as ‘‘rational, autonomous subject who knows andcan express their own best interests,’’ Dahlberg (2001) describesthe pedagogic characteristics of the prevalent uses of the Internetas ‘‘maximum information is available for private individuals tomake their best possible strategic choices between competingpositions’’ (160). In other words, the pedagogic value of the Internet‘‘means that consumers are at liberty to freely move aroundcyberspace and make the choices they desire without restrictionfound in ‘real’ space’’ (163). It seems that the pedagogic uses ofUT are confined within the paradigm of individual functionalist=instrumental rationality as the dominant ideology of a liberal=individualist society. For instance, NenoBrasil notes that being inUT means enjoying freedom: ‘‘in here we are free to watchwhatever we want because there are millions of videos to watch.’’Sometimes, UTers enjoy other free benefits: ‘‘It is a good fun topromote my web-site for free advertising’’ (Nickypoo31).31 Indeed,a causal perusal of UT reveals that much of its content expressesnarcissism, rampant materialism and consumerism, and othervalues of the dominant capitalist society. Specifically, together withcommonly used tags such as ‘‘sexy, sex, music, rock, rap, funny,news, pop, [and] dance,’’ the majority of UT videos are based onthe dominant categories of corporate media productions;music (19.8%), entertainment (19.0%), comedy (13.4%), and sports(6.9%) comprise the majority of UT contents (Digital Ethnography2008, n.p.).

As an indicator of the annual UT video trends, Time magazine’s‘‘Top 10 Viral Videos’’ also reveal that the most of videos in thelist involve comedy, parody, spoof, music video, celebrity, or sen-sational materials that mostly recirculate the dominant corporatemedia spectacles. For example, Chris Crocker’s UT video, LeaveBritney Alone! was ranked the number one in the 2007 list, inwhich he hysterically defends pop-star Britney Spear, and heeventually ‘‘nabbed a reality show off the buzz from the video’’(Keegan 2007, n.p.). In other words, many people use UT as aform of self-promotion, which aims to grasp attention from thepublic or the established entertainment industry. Eight videos in


the list are similar kinds to Crocker’s hyper self-expressive video.Likewise, as the number one in the 2008 list, Matt Harding’svideo, Where the Hell is Matt? was selected. In the clip, Hardingrecorded footages of his comic dance with local people in thefun during his fourteen-month trip to forty-two different countriesfunded partially by Stride Gum Company. Hamilton (2008) evalu-ates the video as ‘‘The sheer silliness and joy of Harding’s adven-tures will keep you smiling long after you’ve watched them’’(n.p.). Seven videos in the list are this sort. In other words, themain trend of UT uses is not oriented to public issues of sociopo-litical matters, but a different version of corporate media specta-cles, which eventually (re)produce the cultural hegemony of thestatus quo.

Yet, as we have argued, there have been many positive peda-gogical instances of the use of UT, as well as concrete politicaleffects. A telling example of how new digital technologies ofeveryday life are transforming contemporary U.S. politics comesfrom the role of UT in the debates on the U.S. invasion of Iraq.On September 1, 2007, CBS News had a report on vigorous debateover Iraq with postings getting as many as 350,000 hits. Focusingon a 16-year-old anti-Bush and anti-Iraq protester from a smalltown in New Jersey and a pro-war solider,32 the segment demon-strated how ordinary people could participate in contemporarypolitical dialogue via UT and its potential for democratization,as did the role of UT in the 2008 election of Barack Obama, aswe stressed earlier.

The future of UT is open to a variety of uses and is a contestedterrain like other forms of media and culture in the establishedsociety. It is up to educators and individuals to establish pedago-gically and politically responsible and progressive uses of UT. Inthis study, we have revealed the ways that certain practices ofUT overlap with critical pedagogy, but we fear, without specificpedagogical or political goals, UT could end up a mere part ofthe fun house of consumer capitalism. Therefore, it is an impor-tant practical question how critical pedagogy practitionersshould take advantage of UT in order to construct an alternativeInternet culture and, in turn, to promote values of humanagency, grassroots democracy, and sociopolitical reconstruction.In conclusion, we sum up the potential and limitations of UT,suggesting positive pedagogical and political uses but alsodangers.


YOUTUBE’S PEDAGOGICAL PERSPECTIVES: POTENTIALAND LIMITATIONS

Ultimately, UT requires individuals’ critical consciousness andactive engagement to use it pedagogically and politically. As muchas the technological innovation of UT provides potentially pro-gressive pedagogical opportunities, individual UTers’ actual usesof the technology will eventually determine its practical possibili-ties for transformative pedagogy and social transformation. Wehave argued that UTers’ progressive uses of the Internet technologysubstantiate the essential values of critical pedagogy, includinglearning as doing, learning as communication, learning for agency,and learning for social transformation. Yet, without a clear criticalpedagogical vision, UT could easily become a mere toy of the privi-leged and instrument of individual pleasure and expression.

As a communicative medium, UT is a potential exemplar of theDeweyan pedagogy of learning as communication. For Freire,the revolutionary potential of liberating communications of theoppressed can be facilitated by the ubiquitous presence of the Inter-net. UT could be a cradle to a critical communicative pedagogy in amultimediated society. For Rousseau and Wollstonecraft, educationis to raise individuals’ rationality to realize autonomous humanagency. Posting and responding to videos in UT are fundamentallyself-realizing activities of UTers because they invest their time andenergy in thinking over topics, organizing ideas, and producingvideos. Through the video production process, UTers practice acrucial pedagogy of critical human agency, becoming a subject inFreire’s sense. The oppressed traditionally are deprived of themeans of expressing themselves, and self-expression on UT is con-sistent with the emphasis in Wollstonecraft, Toni Morrison, andFreire for self-empowerment of the oppressed.

Hence, in the society of multimediated and media culture, UTcan provide individuals with significant opportunities to intervenein media cultural politics. However, some of the defining problemsand limitations of the Internet extend to UT. While the presence ofthe Internet is getting more ubiquitous and it utilization alsobecomes pervasive in society,33 the problem of the digital divideis still a lingering obstacle to realizing a truly transformative peda-gogy of the new media.34 Of the UT eighty-one video postingsexamined in the previous study that analyzed how UTers presentand understand their work, seventy-seven were created and posted


by whites, with only four were by nonwhites. Sixty-five postingswere produced by men while sixteen were by women. All the post-ings were in English. In short, the UT discussion forum is domi-nated by white male English-speaking users. Of course,concerning the matter of access to the Internet, it is disproportio-nately occupied by the dominant class in society. From this pointof view, Cammaerts and Audenhove (2005) stress that ‘‘onlineengagement in forums is cyclical, tends to be dominated by thosealready politically active in the offline world and functions withina homogeneous ideological framework’’ (193). Therefore, ‘‘theInternet reflects rather than circumvents offline power structuresand relations’’ (Russell 2005, 515).

Considering that a democratic and pedagogical public spherecan only exist without any forms of outside control, a UT takeoverby major corporations is one of the most serious challenges to thepotential of UT for democracy. Robins and Webster (1999) stressthat a corporation’s takeover of Internet sites entails ‘‘the intrusionof market and commodity relations into the pubic sphere, and thisresults in the transformation of reasoning into consumption’’ (104).In other words, the corporate takeover of UT by Google mightundermine the potential to use it as an example of Giroux’s ‘‘perfor-mative pedagogy’’ for social transformation if its ‘‘political debatehas come to be regulated by large corporate bodies’’ (Robins andWebster 1999, 104). In this regard, Retardedfolks warns againstencroachments such as censorship by Google.com as the owner ofUT. Since a majority of videos on UT are ‘‘replications of video foot-age commonly available elsewhere’’ in the traditional commercialmedia (Rajan 2007), Google’s control over UT videos will furtheraccelerate based on copyright infringement restrictions and courtbattles over fair use. Unfortunately, following the copyright disputebetween Warner Music and UT, thousands of self-made videos byordinary UTers have already been taken away.35

Moreover, there may still be explicit censorship when UT videoshave caused cultural and ideological clashes with many forms ofsovereign state and corporate power. For example, Thailandblocked access to UT via Thai IP addresses since it found insultingmaterials on the Thai monarchy in 2006.36 Recently, the Chinesegovernment blocked UT because there were videos that documen-ted Chinese police officers brutally beating Tibetans in Lhasa,Tibet.37 Likewise, when there is a conflict between Google’s corpor-ate interests and UT videos’ contents, it is obvious that the company


is threatening ‘‘the ideal speech situation’’ and unrestrictedcommunication as the core asset of the public sphere.

Advertising has been appearing on UT,38 and there are dangersof increasing commercialization and the expansion of a consumerand business culture, as well as possibilities of censorship and con-trol. Google made an announcement that it would sell UT spaces toadvertisers as a means of its financial revenue makeover on top ofshowing advertisements within UT videos in November 2008(Clifford 2008). With the announcement, there are direct or indirectskews toward commercial materials with sensational content. Inthis respect, to keep the Internet as a public sphere, Blumler andGurevitch (2001) propose ‘‘creating an authority with responsibil-ities for arranging, publicizing, moderating and reporting on theoutcomes of a wide range of [corporate advertisers’] exercises’’which distort individuals’ content production and consumption(9). To protect individuals’ open access to the Internet and potentialfor transformative pedagogy, Blumler and Gurevitch (2001) alsoassert that ‘‘firm anti-discriminatory access policies are needed,perhaps requiring the segregation of the provision of content fromthe distribution channel’’ (8). Furthermore, Blumler and Gurevitch(2001) propose ‘‘creating an authority with responsibilities forarranging, publicizing, moderating and reporting on the outcomesof a wide range of exercises in electronic democracy’’ (9).

During the neo-liberal and corporatized Bush-Cheney era, therewas no significant regulation of the Internet and serious political dis-cussion concerning Internet governance, or how it can contributee toparticipatory democracy. In this regard, the Obama administration’sinitiative on producing a broad-band Internet infrastructure as apart of the economic stimulus package demands critical pedagogypractitioners’ active engagement in designing and implementingthe Internet for more egalitarian purposes.

Significantly, for practical intervention in the political recon-struction of the Internet communication infrastructure and people’scollective actions, YouTube provides an important, forum forcitizen participation and potential for sociopolitical change. In thisrespect, considering that ‘‘few effects of the Internet can be isolatedfrom the ways in which it is used and the structures that aredeveloped around theses uses’’ (Salter 2004, 201), individuals haveto take active sociopolitical actions to keep UT and the Internet aliveas a renewal of a democratic public sphere ‘‘by influencing govern-ment and international policy . . . by creating applications that


enable social movements and civil society groups to use the Interneteffectively’’ (202).

However, it is also up to individuals and groups committed tothe use of emergent technologies for critical pedagogy and socialtransformation to develop new strategies of education and com-munication. Much UT production does not meet Habermas’s strictcriteria for rational communicative action in the public sphere dueto deficits in rationality, reasoned debate, and unforced consensus.Many UT products, by contrast, exhibit silliness, self-indulgence, orworse. This is why critical pedagogy has to intervene to encourageindividuals to make active use of UT as a means of sociopoliticalchange since transformative uses of technologies require a cleareducational and progressive vision.

Consequently, it is highly important and timely to examine boththe potentials and the limitations of the new forms of Internet peda-gogical practices. There should be extensive pedagogical endeavorsto examine critically as well as incorporate the new media technol-ogies in general education settings.39 The new media have openedunprecedented space for individuals to exercise a performative=critical media pedagogy for self-realization and social transform-ation. In terms of education as a bringing forth of individuals’many-sided potential, UT gives individuals moments of self-expression, personal empowerment, and transformative agency. Interms of education as an enlightenment project, UT provides anopportunity to exhibit the values of personal autonomy, virtuouscitizenship, political participation, and social justice in our everydaylives. Depending upon the form of its use and how a performative=critical pedagogy of the newmedia is implemented, UT can be eithera reservoir of genuine enlightenment, or another playpen in thecapitalist fun house. Ultimately, for public educators and intellec-tuals it is highly important to develop new critical media pedagogiesthat will help enable students to become active subjects of emergingmedia technology and for students and citizens to use new mediafor progressive pedagogical and political goals, as well as forself-expression and entertainment.

NOTES

1. For critical analyses of the No Child Left Behind program, see Meier, D. and Wood,G. (Eds.). (2004). Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act IsDamaging Our Children and Our Schools. Boston: Beacon Press.


2. See Habermas, J. (1981=1984). The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1: Reasonand the Rationalization of Society. T. McCarthy, trans. Boston: Beacon Press.

3. See Blake, N. (1995). Ideal Speech Conditions, Modern Discourse and Education.Journal of Philosophy of Education, 29(3), 355–367.

4. For the Internet’s potential as a social movement mobilizer, see Bennett, W. L.(2003). Communicating Global Activism: Strengths and Vulnerabilities ofNetworked Politics. Information, Communication & Society, 6, 143–168 and Carroll,W. and Ratner, R. (1999). Media Strategies and Political Projects: A ComparativeStudy of Social Movements. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 24(1), 1–34.

5. For political uses of UT in 2006 election, see Gueorguieva, V. (2007). Voters,MySpace, and YouTube: The Impact of Alternative Communication Chan-nels on the 2006 Election Cycle and Beyond. Social Science Computer Review,1–13. For its pedagogical implications, see Trier, J. (2007). ‘‘Cool’’ Engage-ments with YouTube: Part 2. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(7),598–603.

6. http://ksudigg.wetpaint.com/page/YouTube+Statistis?t=anon (accessed onApril 1, 2009). We recognize that our study faces a significant methodologicalchallenge to referencing Internet-based materials. Several studies show that usesof online citations in academic journal articles raise serious issues of data stab-ility, and in turn, entail attrition in reliability and validity. For example, Germain(2000) investigates that the availability of online data cited in academic journals isdecreasing over time: 27% of URLs were invalid in 1997, 38% in 1998, and 48% in1999. Based on the four-year period content analysis of 1,126 URL referencesfrom articles published in five top journals of communication between 2000and 2003, Dimitrova and Bugeja (2007) recently maintained that ‘‘it will takeabout three years for half of the internet citations to vanish’’ (p. 820). As an indi-cation of the ‘‘ephemeral nature of online citations’’ in our paper Dimitrova andBugeja (2007 818), we have noticed that 10 videos are not available since weGooyong Kim engaged in textual analysis in March, 2007. Because UT videosbelong to individual producers and there is not a comprehensive archive systemfor them yet, their referential availability for future academic works solelydepends on how long the producers keep on UT. Specifically, six videos nolonger exist since they were removed by producers, three because users refusedto share with others, and one because the user entirely closed the UT account.

7. www.youtube.com/symphony (accessed April 14, 2009).8. http://www.youtube.com/user/ucberkeley (accessed March 15, 2007).9. See Trippi, J. (2004). The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet,

and the Overthrow of Everything. New York: Regan Books and Gillmor, D.(2006). We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Sebastopol,CA: O’Reilly Media.

10. For more detailed transcript of the CNN=UT democratic presidential debate, seehttp://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html(accessed July 25, 2007), and http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/28/debate.transcript/ (accessed November 29, 2007).

11. See Kim, G. (forthcoming). Alternative Online Videos in the 2008 U.S. Presiden-tial Election: Multiple Mix of Media Attributes Approaches to GrassrootsMobilization. In M. Eastin and T. Daugherty (Eds.), The Handbook of Research onDigital Media and Advertising. IGI Global.

12. http://www.dipdive.com/archives/212 (accessed March 18, 2008).


13. http://www.hopeactchange.com/creators/song (accessed March 18, 2008).14. http://www.dipdive.com/dip-politics/ywc/ (videos 2 to 30). The following

analysis was done by Gooyong Kim in summer 2008.15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7JgtjeIsuY (accessed January 9, 2007).16. This research was undertaken by Gooyong Kim in 2007.17. The classical philosophers of education drawn on in this study were the topic

of Douglas Kellner’s Philosophy of Education seminar at UCLA; see the Web siteat http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed206a/edphil.htm (accessed January 5,2007).

18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrH5VqOYsM8&mode=related&search(accessed January 11, 2007).

19. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRVbcf4CDI (accessed March 5, 2007).20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC2A1HqPjZU (accessed March 5, 2007).21. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3flFRNGqY28 (accessed March 5, 2007).22. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15053Q1L4dQ&mode=related&search

(accessed March 5, 2007).23. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1YHCDnuiG8 (accessed March 5, 2007).24. For Freire (1970=2006), education should pose what he calls ‘‘generative ques-

tions,’’ which ‘‘is to investigate people’s thinking about reality and people’saction upon reality, which is their praxis . . . . The more active an attitude menand women take in regard to the exploration of their thematics, the more theydeepen their critical awareness of reality and, in spelling out these thematics,take possession of that reality’’ (106). Furthermore, Freire believes that ‘‘generat-ive questions’’ and liberating education are the different sides of the same coinbecause ‘‘every thematic investigation which deepens historical awareness isthus really educational, while all authentic educational investigates thinking . . . .. Education and thematic investigation, in the problem-posing concept ofeducation, are simply different moments of the same process’’ (109).

25. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRVbcf4CDI (accessed March 5, 2007).26. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fljRPrCYf0 (accessed March 5, 2007).27. See Rayner, G. (2008, September 23). Finnish School Shooting: Police ‘‘Investigate

YouTube link.’’ Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/finland/3066526/Finnish-school-shooting-Police-investigate-YouTube-link.html (accessed October 10, 2008) and Kahn, J. (2008, December 9). Mumbai Terror-ists Relied on New Technology for Attacks. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/world/asia/09mumbai.html (accessed December 9,2008).

28. On Marcuse’s contributions to education, see Kellner, D., Lewis, T., and Pierce,C. (2009). On Marcuse: Critique, Liberation, and Reschooling in the Radical Pedagogyof Herbert Marcuse. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

29. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddmieEpwDqU (accessed March 5, 2007).30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zWtSVQct9k&mode=related&search

(accessed March 5, 2007).31. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV2e9u-an2o (accessed March 5, 2007).32. See Doane, S. (2007, September 1). Iraq War Debated On YouTube. CBS News.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/01/eveningnews/main3227641.shtml(accessed September 3, 2007).

33. See Jones, S. and Fox, S. (2009, January 28). Generations Online in 2009.Washington, DC: The Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.


pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Generations_2009.pdf.(accessed January 30, 2009).

34. See Lenhart, A., Horrigan, J., Rainie, L., Allen, K., Boyce, A., Madden, M., andO’Grady, E. (2003, April 16). The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look atAccess and the Digital Divide. Washington, DC: The Pew Internet & AmericanLife Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2003/PIP_Shifting_Net_Pop_Report.pdf.pdf. (accessed April 15, 2005).

35. See Arango, T. (2009, March 23). As Rights Clash on YouTube, SomeMusic Vanishes. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/business/media/23warner.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th (accessed March23, 2009).

36. For a more detail account, see Rosen, J. (2008, November 30). Google’sGatekeepers. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y (accessed December 1, 2008).

37. Helft, M. (2009, March 25). YouTube Blocked in China, Google Says. TheNew York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/technology/internet/25youtube.html?_r=1&th&emc=th (accessed March 26, 2009).

38. See Chmielewski, D. C. and Guynn, J. (2007). Google Tests Ads in YouTubeVideos. Los Angeles Times, (24 August), C1, C8.

39. On the importance of critical technoliteracies, see Kahn, R. and Kellner, D.(2005b). On the need to incorporate critical media literacy curricular in K to 12school, see Kellner, D. and Share, J. (2007). Critical Media Literacy: Crucial PolicyChoices for a Twenty-First-Century Democracy. Policy Futures in Education, 5(1),59–69.

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