YouTube: The Perfect Medium for Showcasing and Sharing Non-Mainstream Sports, by Jared Cohen
NOTES: Origins and Context | See Also
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Origins of this content
This texteo was made by Jared Cohen as his final for 2010 LFYT.
Contextualization
In "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream," Noam Chomsky writes: "The elite media set a framework within which others operate ... That framework works pretty well, and it is understandable that it is just a reflection of obvious power structures."[cit]
Television, in particular ESPN, does an exceptional job of allowing viewers to be engaged with the happenings of football, soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis, and golf. However, what about combat sports, extreme sports, e.g., skateboarding, roller-blading, BMX biking, and motocross, Olympic sports, disabled sports, gymnastics, rock climbing, parkour, crossfit, etc.? The list is infinite. YouTube allows this to be the case. These types of non-mainstream sports might have the tendency to feel small especially in contrast to what is broadcasted over television; however, YouTube challenges this. Not only do the communities of people grow at a much faster rate than what would probably be the case if YouTube were not able to support it but also there are phenomenona that are happening and shared 24/7. Even if television were to display non-mainstream sports they would never be able to compete with the prolific nature that is the essence of YouTube's user generated platform. In skateboarding new tricks are created all the time by way of someone doing a maneuver he or she has never seen before, others observing it, and then adopting it and naming it. The same can very well take place for the creation of a new sport through footage seen on YouTube.