Research Paper – Draft Introduction
January 22, 2010
YouTube is a platform for so many users worldwide. It has a sense of community online for users to create, upload and share their content for other users. The aim of this YouTube research project is to find out exactly what attracts people to YouTube, and why it has had such huge success. There are many theories that have been discussed on this topic and this paper will discuss those theories further and draw conclusions about the findings presented. What is happening with Web 2.0 is interesting, it gives the user the chance to create their own content, this is something which did not previously happen as consumers were ‘passive recipients’ rather than ‘active participants’. This further strengthens the argument that there is a shift from analogue media to what is now referred to as the ‘digital age’. But is it fair to say that with the idea of the ‘digital age’, everything is new, or is there some form of convergence between the two technologies going on here as Terry Flew suggests?
The introduction to the research paper should introduce what the paper will discuss. It is not necessarily about answering questions as asking questions and discussing issues.
Avoid making grand statements that can generalize too much. You ask a big question at the beginning – how will you find out what attracts people to YouTube or why it has been successful. These seem complex things that might prove difficult to prove.
Be careful with the passivity and activity issue – audiences have seen as being active in engaging with traditional media content, but it is true that the making of media content could be seen as being more active than watching media. The digital and the analogue aren’t converging. Formerly analogue forms of media are being converged through the processes of digitization, which isn’t the same as the convergence of analogue and digital that you were suggesting.
Write the introduction and conclusion last. Concentrate on creating a discussion that flows from paragraph to paragraph and then write an introduction that introduces the discussion.
There is a lot of interesting writing showing engagement with videos and reading in your blog. Good stuff