YouTube Video-Sharing Site Is Changing Popular Culture

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Sara Terry

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Find out what happens when you put a box of Mentos in a bottle of Diet Coke. Watch a US senator make the mistake that lost him the race. It all started with one video of a trip to the zoo, then turned into a billion-dollar deal. How did YouTube become an overnight Internet success? Sara Terry guest hosts.

Find out what happens when you put a box of Mentos in a bottle of Diet Coke. Watch a US senator make the mistake that lost him the race. It all started with one video of a trip to the zoo. Less than two years later, YouTube features 100 million videos, enjoys 20 million visitors each month, and has won Time magazine's Invention of the Year award. The founders of the Internet site have cashed in big, selling to Google for more than $1.65 billion. The video-sharing site has created a video village on the web, where anyone can be a star, from lip-synching teenage girls to skateboarding dogs. It even played an unexpected role in this year's elections. What is YouTube's appeal in a media-saturated age? Who's using it and why? How is it helping to redefine copyright issues? Sara Terry guest hosts. (An extended version of this discussion originally aired earlier today on To the Point.)

Guests:

Lev Grossman: Staff writer for Time magazine
Robert Thompson: Professor of Popular Culture at Syracuse University
Bryant Fisher: Film student at Pratt Institute in New York City
Julie Barko Germany: Deputy Director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet
Wendy Seltzer: Visiting Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School

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A CD copy of Which Way L.A.? is a available by calling 1.888.600.5279.
Transcripts are not available.

Underwriters

Which Way L.A.? is made possible in part by the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, which supports study and research into policy issues of the Los Angeles region.

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