This presentation is from a student in the online class, "Acting Up - Using Theater & Social Change," Spring 2012, from DePaul's School for New Learning. Tom Tresser, instructor, tom@tresser.com.

1. YouTube: a tool for Social Activism

2. How effective is YouTube as it
relates to social activism and
furthering social change?

3. Social Media
• A glut of information
at our fingertips
• The world is moving
fast

4. Statistics
• 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one
hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second
• Over 4 billion videos are viewed day
• Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
• Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on
YouTube
• More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month than
the three major US networks created in 60 years
• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
• YouTube is localized in 39 countries and across 54
languages
• In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or
almost 140 views for every person on Earth

5. Social Statistics
• 500 years of YouTube video are watched every
day on Facebook, and over 700 YouTube videos
are shared on Twitter each minute
• 100 million people take a social action on
YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every
week
• An auto-shared tweet results in 6 new
youtube.com sessions on average, and we see
more than 500 tweets per minute containing a
YouTube link

6. What does this mean?

7. For the Social Activist:
You can reach a wide
audience in a short
period of time

8. Remember: YouTube is a tool
“Single most
important thing to
know about using
email, Facebook,
YouTube, and other
electronic tools; they
are exactly that, tools,
and you use them to
organize people.”[i]
[i] Bobo, Kim, Jackie Kendall, and Steve
Max. Organizing for Social Change. 4th ed.
Santa Ana: Forum, 2010. p. 175

9. How is YouTube used?
• Training and Education
– New Organizing Institute
• History
– Bull Connor and the Civil Rights Movement
• Inspiration
– Saul Alinsky
• Promotion
– Kony2012
• Documentation and Event Recording
– Arab Spring

10. Example: Arab Spring
“Using digital
technologies, democracy
advocates created a
freedom meme that took
on a life of its own and
spread ideas about liberty
and revolution to a
surprisingly large number
of people.”[i]
[i] Howard, Philip N., Aiden Duffy, Deen Freelon, Muzammil
Hussain, Will Mari, and Marwa Mazaid. Opening Closed
Regimes: What Was the Role of Social Media During the Arab
Spring?. Project on Information Technology and Political
Islam. Research Memo 2011.1 Seattle. University of
Washington. p. 3

11. Example: Arab Spring (cont’d)
• 1.5 million views in first week
• Emotional, inspiring
• “As street protests arose in Tunisia and Egypt, then
Yemen and Bahrain, and eventually Algeria and
Morocco, people across the region tweeted in real time
about big events. This is significant because it reveals
how the success of demands for political change in
Tunisia and Egypt led individuals in other countries to
pick up the conversation and talk about how it was
relevant to their own lives. In other words, it helped
cascade conversation about freedom across the region.”
[i]
[i] Howard, Philip N., Aiden Duffy, Deen Freelon, Muzammil Hussain, Will Mari, and Marwa Mazaid. Opening
Closed Regimes: What Was the Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring?. Project on Information
Technology and Political Islam. Research Memo 2011.1 Seattle. University of Washington. p. 15

12. The downside…
While YouTube can carry positive
messages of change across the globe, it
can send negative messages as well

13. The lesson to be learned:
Perception is everything and YouTube
provides an unmanaged forum for any
kind of content. Activists need to
“manage the message”

14. The future
• Continue to use social media sites such as
YouTube
• Manage the message: create channels
dedicated to your movement. Load only
applicable and positive video to this
channel
• More training/education video is needed

15. Summary
• YouTube, when used
properly, can speed
the process of
recruitment,
messaging,
coordinating, and
training
• Remember to
“manage the
message”

16. Photo Sources
• All accessed May 13, 2012
• Twitter, Facebook, YouTube logos courtesy of:
– www.twitter.com
– www.facebook.com
– www.youtube.com
• Slide 2: http://www.johnbendever.com/family/question/
• Slide 3: http://www.angelo.edu/services/technology/mobile/
• Slide 6: source unknown. Photo used from Tyson Kindstrom’s archives
• Slide 7, Image 1: http://occupywallst.org/
• Slide 7, Image 2:
http://gigaom.com/2011/02/03/gladwell-still-missing-the-point-about-social-media-and-activis
• Slide 8:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/plumbing/pipe-wrench.htm
• Slide 10:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/14/tahrir-square-tweet-egyptian-uprising
• Slide 12, Image 1: http://
www.theblaze.com/stories/im-a-freedom-fighter-sfs-accused-may-day-occupy-brick-thrower-
• Slide 12, Image 2: http://www.almostzara.com/2011/08/london-riots-2011-websites/
• Slide 15: http://www.bollyn.com/chicagos-elders-of-zion-and-obamas-war-for-profit/