Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos

The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos is a thorough analysis of YouTube audiences and creators of online videos that considers how the coexistence of user-generated and professional media content on YouTube makes the site a unique platform in the ever-expanding online video industry. Using a mixed method approach, the authors examine the underexplored business side of YouTube with a focus on product review videos, brand videos, sponsored videos, and online video advertising. This book also addresses recent developments such as YouTube Red subscription, pay TV, and movie services and discusses the future of online video audience research. Recommended for scholars interested in media studies, communication, marketing, and popular culture.

. . . . Ha has created a research agenda for other researchers to follow, which appears to be the greatest contribution of all from this book. YouTube is hardly static; Ha and her colleagues collected research findings seemingly point the way toward future studies of online video users., Once again Dr. Ha is at the vanguard of deciphering the mysteries of Internet media. She and her team of doctoral student researchers establish the intricacies of audience engagement with the world's largest depository and distributor of online video in The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos. Beware all of you involved in any aspect of the cable, network, affiliate, or film industries. YouTube is the future...today. Prepare yourself. Engage with Dr. Ha's exciting new edited collection., Ha closes this work by posturing what might be next for online video audience research in thinking about YouTube’s global potential and reach. To parallel her efforts, I do not believe that YouTube is going anywhere fast, nor that it will be any less complicated moving forward. This work may provide a useful toolkit and helpful reference to those studying YouTube’s content, audiences, business models, or platform affordances in future media, communications, and marketing studies., In an era in which “YouTuber” is now an option at elementary school career days and YouTube itself is a standard app on smart televisions, comes a book providing a helpful and insightful illumination of many of the mysteries behind the ubiquitous video platform’s audience and business development. . . the work also serves as a strong, effective model for transforming group research projects into a detailed and comprehensive multiple-lens narrative exploration of a single topic. Written by Ha and her students, the 12 chapters accomplish meticulous and disparate mixed-methods analyses of the inner workings of YouTube that shed light beyond the platform, to the world of online video in general, through admirably concise research arguments. . . . The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos’ two greatest strengths for online video users and researchers include its clear breakdowns of the platform’s demographics and audience behaviors, at least as of 2015, and the insights on valuable future areas of exploration in this field. The authors accomplish a satisfying, effective analysis of a daunting number of audience and business factors of YouTube in only 218 pages, while simultaneously creating clear paths for future research., This book offers an insightful look at YouTube from an audience perspective, providing not only valuable background information but also original data that helps us understand the dynamic nature of YouTube users and online video business. A must-have book for both practitioners and scholars who want to understand in-depth the ecosystem of YouTube and audience characteristics beyond simple statistics.

Louisa Ha is professor in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University and editor of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.