Digital culture in youtube categories and interfaces: User experience and social interactions of the most popular videos and channels

Abstract

YouTube is able to generate new forms of user interactions and an entire evolutionary cycle in audiovisual languages and digital culture through the interface. This platform offers the possibility for the user to assume the functions of prosumer of audiovisual contents, through generating their own digital identities. In this way they are able to influence and be part of the society of production, diffusion and audiovisual user interactions. The main aim of this research was to obtain a general idea and a first approximation of the tendencies of audiovisual popular user interactions and the digital culture on YouTube, which was undertaken by means of the quantitative analysis of YouTube video interfaces selected by YouTube categories. In order to extract this information, a quantitative analysis of the most viewed channels and videos was undertaken. These interface categories were those with more views, with more subscribers, with more likes and dislikes, with more comments, as well as the average time of some of the most viewed videos. This was done through a sample of 160 most viewed videos of the platform. The aim was to understand the common denominators and interface preferences that users manifest through their interactions with videos, channels and thematic categories in the YouTube digital culture interface. The conclusion from the study was that the YouTube categories that enjoy the most popularity are education and music, at the same time the interaction features of each category can also be defined on the YouTube platform.