Blog Five: Niche Identity

By Alesha Granshaw

Image from: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/the-power-of-gen-c-connecting-with-your-best-customers.html

A number of elements of the YouTube user experience reflect the concept of a form of people network termed a ‘diaspora’. Within the YouTube user population, there is a subset of unique, individual communities formed on the basis of genre, interests and/or like-mindedness. YouTube enables users to exist within one or more of these sub-communities through its subscribe function, wherein users are able to subscribe to their favourite users so that they receive notifications when those particular users upload new content. Some of these individual populations within the whole include the: beauty, fitness, sport, gaming, and music communities.

A diaspora is a group of people who share a common origin or beginning, and migrate to various, smaller clusters within a given space (Kuttainen, 2015). YouTube can be considered a form of diaspora as it consists of a massive amount of general users who find a sense of identity as they establish their place within a smaller community of people within the particular social network. Individual users establish ties between different groups as they often have more than one niched interest.

The YouTube music community revolves around the idea that “diasporic identities and histories are made and maintained through narrative, myth, and community memorialising (through song, religious festivals of commemoration), that map journeys from one place to another” (Kuttainen, 2015). Ma Mung (2005) suggests that when a population of people migrates and is displaced, “an identity develops and is based on the feeling of sharing a common origin, be it real or supposed”. This feeling of belonging leads to an established collective and individual sense of identity. YouTube has become such a popular platform for creative expression and forming an identity and a voice that many initiatives now exist to aid creators in growing their audience, one of which is discussed in this VentureBeat article.

Reference List:

Kuttainen, V. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place, Lecture 7: People Networks. [Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://www.learnjcu.edu.au

Ma Mung, E. (2005) Diaspora, spatiality, identities. In W. Bosswick, & C. Husband. (Eds), Comparative European research in migration, diversity and identities (pp. 33-48). Spain: Univeristy of Deusto.

Image Credits:

Think With Google. (Image). (2014). Retrieved from https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/the-power-of-gen-c-connecting-with-your-best-customers.html