Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
The most viewed news event on YouTube between January 2011 and March 2012 was the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011. For three weeks, the disaster accounted for at least one of the five most watched news videos, although the video at the top of the list shifted each week. The first week, the most watched video was what appeared to be surveillance footage of the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSSssHxm4Y“>tsunami wave hitting Sendai airport. The second week, the top video came from Britain’s Channel 4 News and showed two minutes of the waves rushing into Miyako City. The third week, the top video was footage taken from a Japanese Coast Guard vessel heading straight into a wave to avoid damage.
After falling out of the top news videos for a week, the tsunami returned to the list for two more weeks in April. The video that attracted most attention those two weeks was footage from Russia Today showing a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG8wZjKEnNQ” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>dog reunited with its owner three weeks after the disaster.
The video that attracted the most attention of the disaster on YouTube during these five weeks came from various sources. Some of the footage came from eyewitnesses who happened to have a camera on-hand when the disaster struck (many of these were then broadcast by Russia Today without either narration or editing).
Another form of popular video was surveillance footage from closed -circuit cameras that happened to be recording at the moment the tsunami struck as well as footage shot by official photographers in helicopters recording the waves as they crashed the coastline and destroyed buildings.
Still a fourth popular source of video were news stories broadcast by news organizations such as Al Jazeera English that summarized the events and included narration from reporters. Such videos were sometimes posted on YouTube by the news organizations and sometimes by audiences who wanted to share them. Even with some editing to provide context, what stood out in these stories, too, was the power of the raw pictures and images. The essence of these videos was their visual character rather than interpretive or explanatory components.
Russian Elections
The second biggest news storyline on YouTube during the 15 months studied was the Russian parliamentary and presidential elections. This event was drawn out over a longer period of time than the tsunami videos and was made up of two parts. The election for 450 seats in the State Duma took place on December 4, 2011. Related videos began showing up in September, four months before. Then, in the month leading up to the March 4, 2012, presidential election, there were seven videos that ranked highly on YouTube’s lists.
Overall, 12 different election-related videos that varied in content and focus made the list. Only one of the videos was a traditional broadcast news report-a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYDFyb2V8hw“>September 2011 story showing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attending the International Exhibition of Arms. Two of the videos consisted of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jOidrxqHo“> presidential debates posted in their entirety, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of people watched the debates on YouTube rather than on traditional television.
Some of the footage came from surprising moments of the campaign. One was a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlkv020CHxE“>six minute clip from a February debate in which Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the candidate of the right-wing nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, insulted singer Alla Pugacheva, a supporter of independent candidate Mikhail Prokhorov. Zhirinovsky, who is known for strong rhetoric, responded to a comment from Pugacheva by saying, "You artists, like prostitutes, lie underneath any leader for money. You all lay under Brezhnev, under Gorbachev, under Yeltsin, under Putin. Tomorrow, I will enter the Kremlin, you will all lie under me and I will spit on you and wipe my feet on you." Even though Zhirinovsky was never considered a strong candidate (he received only 6% of the final vote), his fiery pronouncement drew 1.5 million views the week of the debate.
YouTube also served as a platform for users to give voice to their views about the election, either in a serious or satirical manner. Many of these also contained complex digital altering, such as a
