An alternative media experience: LiveLeak

Abstract

This research examines a video sharing web site called LiveLeak to be able to analyze the possibilities of democratic and horizontal social mobilization via Internet technology. In this sense, we take into consideration the Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's philosophical conceptualization of "rhizome" which provides a new approach for activities of online communities. In the light of this concept and its anti-hierarchical approach we tried to discuss the potentials of network communication models such as LiveLeak in terms of emancipating use of media and democratic communication. By analyzing the contextual traffic on the LiveLeak for a randomly chosen one week (first week of December 2013) we argue that this video sharing web site shows a rhizomatic characteristic. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.