The Video Republic

Celia Hannon (London, Demos): In April 2007 charlieissocoollike, a 16 year-old vlogger from Bath joined YouTube. So did the British Prime Minister. Since then Charlie has amassed 70,000 subscribers. The Prime Minister has 5,000. These figures betray a very naked truth - young people are not flocking to listen to their presidents and Prime Ministers when they talk to them via internet videos. Instead, they are seizing power for themselves; taking on roles as reporters, distributors, commentators and artists. It seems that while their parents and grandparents won their freedoms by challenging governments, this generation of young people would rather find their ‘route-around’ existing institutions and forms of media.

The falling price of digital technology and the proliferation of broadband access have blown open a whole range of ways for people to express themselves and communicate with video. Drawing on research in five European countries, a new Demos report charts the rise of a ‘Video Republic’. ‘Republic’ from the Latin term res publica (‘public thing’) and ‘Video’ from the Latin videre (to see): literally, a visual public realm. Since its launch in spring 2005, it is estimated that YouTube has amassed 100 million videos on its servers, and they are now being uploaded at a rate of nearly 150,000 a day. Video mash-ups, citizen journalism, vlogging, viral-video marketing, community film-making projects… we can see the audiovisual explosion everywhere.

The rise of the Video Republic, and the activities of the ‘route-around kids’, assume a new significance when set alongside our spiraling disillusionment with European democracies. From 1980 to 2000 party membership in the established democracies of Western Europe almost halved. It seems that young people are simultaneously turned off by representative politics and drawn into the expressive possibility of online spaces. Yet these forums for debate are currently entirely adrift from our processes of decision making. Politicians have been taking their first tentative steps into the Video Republic, but the embarrassing results (webcameron anyone?) only confirm how estranged the two realms have really become. Only Barack Obama can claim to be the first Youtube savvy politician.

So, as this generation is busy wriggling out of restrictive relationships offline, they are also plunging headlong into an uncertain set of new relationships with private companies. They are finding that their new freedoms come with strings attached – teenage indiscretions are now broadcast to the world. Young video-makers and vloggers are at the very centre of ongoing tussles over questions of intellectual property and privacy. Meanwhile, the shadowy regulation of video hosting platforms limits what can be said in these supposedly ‘public’ spaces. 

It’s time to have an open and inclusive debate about the framework of digital rights which will be needed to navigate this uncertain territory. How can we develop a refreshed approach to intellectual property that places cultural exchange on an equal footing with economic interests? The Video Republic is still in its infancy and much of the content is incoherent and trivial. But the mass media, charities and other institutions can play a role in signposting videos of quality and helping people sift through a bewildering volume of content. Politicians should also take note. For democracies in dire need of legitimacy, the Video Republic could open up alternative channels for participation and self-expression.