Quick link to Jenkins’ reflections on YouTube, WeTube, cross-posted to both Confessions of an Aca/Fan and Convergence Culture Consortium, commenting on the DYI Video Conference at the University of Southern California. A quote from the Chief:

“One of the things that has excited me about YouTube is the ways that it represents a shared portal where all of these different groups circulate their videos, thus opening up possibilities for cross-polination. Yet, as many at the conference suggests, the mechanisms of YouTube as a platform work to discourage the real exchange of work. YouTube is a participatory channel but it lacks mechanisms which might encourage real diversity or the exchange of ideas. The Forums on YouTube are superficial at best and filled with hate speech at worst, meaning that anyone who tries to do work beyond the mainstream (however narrowly this is defined) is apt to face ridicule and harrasment. The user-moderation system on YouTube, designed to insure the “best content” rises to the top, follow majoritarian assumptions which can often hide minority works from view. Perhaps the biggest problem has to do with the way YouTube strips individual works from their larger contexts — this was an issue even here where “Closer,” a fanvid considered to be emotionally serious within slash fandom, drew laughter from a crowd which hadn’t anticipated this construction of same sex desire between Kirk and Spock. This conference, from its preplanning sessions which encouraged people from different communities to work together towards a common end, through the main conference screening which finally juxtaposed videos around shared themes rather than respecting the borders between different traditions, and through conference panels and hallway conversation and hands-on workshops, created a space where different DIY communities could learn from each other (and perhaps as importantly, learn to respect each other’s work).”