SEMINAR PROFILE

H08 -
You Tube Nation

YouTube Nation exceeds 4 billion viewings per day. It uploads 100 hours of videos every minute. Millions and millions of people around the globe, from ordinary folks to the Queen of England, constitute YouTube Nation. The most popular video (as of July, 2014) -played some 2,034,542,675 times-- is Psy, "Gangnam Style." From the commercial point of view, advertising dollars on YouTube tripled in just the first 3 months of 2014. A powerful tool to communicate around the globe, a stunning technological invention, and a highly profitable commercial enterprise. Welcome to YouTube Nation! By now, there is rarely a person who isn't connected through the digital world. But what does it mean? How did we get here? And where are we heading? How is the tool shaping individuals, groups, and society and our cultural concerns? What (if any) are the ground rules on the Net? What should the ethics be in the digital world? Is it merely a venue for entertainment and profits? Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will explore the literature and history of technology, analyze the power and ethics of communications in the 21st century, and discover and debate the ways in which youth culture is shaping and being shaped by social media (namely Facebook --with over 1.4 billion users as of Spring 2014, Facebook is the second largest "nation" in the world - and Twitter, whose deluge of millions and millions of messages being tweeted by Americans are now being archived by the Library of Congress). We'll explore the power and problematics of Google and its dominance across a range of online services (from searching to cloud computing to videos [it owns YouTube] to music, and more). We will debate the power and promise of our wired world as well as its dystopic and destructive forces.

Scholar:

Maura A. Henry

Location:

Harvard Hillel

Dates:

10/23/2014, 11/13/2014, 12/4/2014

H08 -	You Tube Nation

	YouTube Nation exceeds 4 billion viewings per day. It uploads 100 hours of videos every minute. Millions and millions of people around the globe, from ordinary folks to the Queen of England, constitute YouTube Nation. The most popular video (as of July, 2014) -played some 2,034,542,675 times-- is Psy, "Gangnam Style." From the commercial point of view, advertising dollars on YouTube tripled in just the first 3 months of 2014. A powerful tool to communicate around the globe, a stunning technological invention, and a highly profitable commercial enterprise. Welcome to YouTube Nation! By now, there is rarely a person who isn't connected through the digital world. But what does it mean? How did we get here? And where are we heading? How is the tool shaping individuals, groups, and society and our cultural concerns? What (if any) are the ground rules on the Net? What should the ethics be in the digital world? Is it merely a venue for entertainment and profits? Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will explore the literature and history of technology, analyze the power and ethics of communications in the 21st century, and discover and debate the ways in which youth culture is shaping and being shaped by social media (namely Facebook --with over 1.4 billion users as of Spring 2014, Facebook is the second largest "nation" in the world - and Twitter, whose deluge of millions and millions of messages being tweeted by Americans are now being archived by the Library of Congress). We'll explore the power and problematics of Google and its dominance across a range of online services (from searching to cloud computing to videos [it owns YouTube] to music, and more). We will debate the power and promise of our wired world as well as its dystopic and destructive forces.

		Scholar:	Maura A. Henry
		Location:	Harvard Hillel
		Dates:	10/23/2014, 11/13/2014, 12/4/2014