Like its fellow mega-platforms Twitter and Facebook, YouTube is an enormous engine of cultural production and a host for wildly diverse communities. But like the much smaller Tumblr (which has long been dominated by lively and combative left-wing politics) or 4chan (which has become a virulent and effective hard-right meme factory) YouTube is host to just one dominant native political community: the YouTube right. This community takes the form of a loosely associated group of channels and personalities, connected mostly by shared political instincts and aesthetic sensibilities. They are monologuists, essayists, performers and vloggers who publish frequent dispatches from their living rooms, their studios or the field, inveighing vigorously against the political left and mocking the mainstream media, against which they are defined and empowered. They deplore social justice warriors, whom they credit with ruining popular culture, conspiring against the populace and helping to undermine the West. They are fixated on the subjects of immigration, Islam and political correctness. They seem at times more animated by President Trumps opponents than by the man himself, with whom they share many priorities, if not a style. Some of their leading figures are associated with larger media companies, like Alex Joness Infowars or Ezra Levants Rebel Media. Others are independent operators who found their voices in the medium.
The radio comparison is a useful one. Talk radios growth followed decades of deregulation and disruptive opportunity: the rise of FM radio during the late 1960s and 70s, the abandonment by music stations of the low-fidelity AM band and the 1987 revocation of the Fairness Doctrine, a rule through which the Federal Communications Commission attempted to regulate a sort of balance into content produced by licensed broadcasters. The subsequent rise of conservative talk radio, typified by superstars like Rush Limbaugh, had enormous influence and continues to attract millions of listeners a day, well into the internet era. Its style, once novel, is now familiar. Theres the casual, knowing rapport with listeners; the baggy, multihour shows, which double as news digests; the moralizing monologues that transition seamlessly into jokey rants and asides. But something about the medium seems to favor the right. Repeated, strenuous attempts by liberal broadcasters to replicate conservative talk radio formats have not fared well. Air America, which was launched in 2004 and shuttered in 2010, helped propel talent into other venues Rachel Maddow to television, Al Franken to the Senate but failed as a sustainable answer to combative conservative talk radio. AM opened a space for reaction, but seemed to have no room for the counterreaction.
YouTubes political context is similar in some notable ways: the value it places on personalities; its reliance on monologue and repetition; its isolation and immunity from direct challenge; its promise to let listeners in on the real, secret story. Both are obsessed with persuasion and conversion, combined with a giddy disbelief at the sheer stupidity of liberals, who and this is part of the fun arent listening. Comparing YouTube to talk radio is also a useful reminder of how potent a medium can become while still appearing marginal to those who dont care for it or know much about it. For listeners of conservative talk radio where right-wing populist rhetoric has flourished for decades, and where hosts can get away with authoritarian flirtations and xenophobic rhetoric that mainstream politicians cant the rise of Donald Trump was somewhat less of a surprise than it was for many others.
More here: https://nytimes.com/2017/08/03/maga...io.html?referer=https://t.co/rJDjXNCbXJ?amp=1
This isn't surprising. Young kids today aren't listening to talk radio, but they're getting the same content (or worse) from YouTube.