YouTube
diverse takes on political reality’.
It provides ‘an opportunity for expression
different from conventional mobilization,
opinion expression, or protest’. This explains
why YouTube suff ers frequent blocking in many
countries, a practice that will spread as the range
of languages becomes increasingly interna-
tionalized, and content and language localized,
that is tailored to both international and local
consumption. See facebook; myspace.
▶Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, YouTube: Online
Video and Participatory Culture (Polity Press, 2009);
Michael Strangelove, Watching YouTube: Extraor-
dinary Videos by Ordinary People (University of
Toronto Press, 2010).Z
Zapping, zipping Th e practice of TV channel-
switching, especially when the commercials
come on, is referred to as ‘zapping’; made
worryingly easy – as far as the advertisers are
concerned – with the arrival of remote control.
In France, an anti-zapping strategy designed
to keep viewers glued to the commercials was
introduced in the late 1980s: individual numbers
placed in the corner of the screen off er viewers
bingo-style competition. A full line of numbers
wins a cash prize. ‘Zipping’ is fast-forwarding
through recorded programmes, again most
generally to escape the commercials.
Zinoviev letter, 1924 Probably forged by
Russian émigrés and used as a ‘Red scare’ tactic
by the UK Daily Mail to put the frighteners on
the electorate immediately before the 1924 elec-
tion. Labour lost the election and the Zinoviev
letter probably made some diff erence, if not a
substantial one. It was a 1,200-word document
marked Very Secret, bearing the address of the
3rd Communist International, the organiza-
tion in Moscow responsible for international
communist tactics.
The letter was addressed to the Central
Committee of the British Communist Party
and its tenor was the need to stir the British
proletariat to revolutionary action against their
capitalist masters. Among other recommenda-
tions, the letter urged the formation of cells in
the armed forces – the ‘future directors of the
British Red Army’.
Th e impact of the forged letter was due to its
timing. It was ‘intercepted’ by the Conservative
Daily Mail just a few days before the election
of October 1924 and published four days before
Polling Day. The Mail used a seven-deck (orand diff erent groups favour diff erent musical
styles and use music in diff erent ways.
Youth cultures and sub-cultures diff er not only
over time but can also vary between class, sex
and racial groups. Whilst they manifest signifi -
cant diff erences, there are some links between
them and individuals may move from one to
another. Th ey adopt and adapt aspects of each
other’s cultural style and those of past youth
cultures and sub-cultures. Th e more dramatic
sub-cultures have attracted attention from the
media and academics. Th eir often spectacular
modes of expression off er contrast and challenge
to society, usually communicated by style – the
hairstyle of the Punks, for example.
Th e media have been a notable mediator of
society’s reaction to such challenges, and this
role has been a focus of media research. Essen-
tially, youth culture is seen as deviant, or poten-
tially deviant; and since a function of media is to
patrol the boundaries between the norm and the
deviant, particular interest is expressed in youth
culture, often leading to demonization and a
tendency to work up concern that threatens the
social order. See folk devils; moral panics
and the media; sensitization.
YouTube An audio-visual network platform
launched in February 2005 to which millions
post their videos. Its slogan is ‘Broadcast Your-
self ’ and it has been described as a ‘speakers’
corner’. It limits submissions by individuals to 15
minutes. Part of the google empire since 2006,
YouTube is easy to use, observes no criteria for
selection, is anarchic in the sense that there are
no classifi cations of order, and is virtually impos-
sible to regulate, monitor or censor. It renders
copyright protection of content extremely
problematic.
In ‘Alternative modes of civil engagement’
in the book she also edited, Journalism and
Citizenship: New Agendas in Communication
(Routledge, 2009), Zizi Papacharissi writes that
the ‘main draw is that YouTube user generated
content serves a variety of purposes, ranging
from catching a politician in a lie to impromptu
karaoke, with no restrictions’.
‘Where blogging provides the pulpit,’
Papacharissi writes, ‘YouTube provides the irrev-
erence, humour, and unpredictability necessary
for rejuvenating political conversation trapped
in conventional formulas’ and serves as a potent
vehicle for citizen journalism (see journalism:
citizen journalism). She states that ‘YouTube
content completes the media and news sphere
that the monitorial citizen scans while surveying
the political environment, by adding various and