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How Science Youtubers Become Experts

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Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) „Don’t Act Like a Teacher” – How Science YouTubers become Experts Andrea Geipel Vollständiger Abdruck der von der promotionsführenden Einrichtung Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) der Technischen Universität München zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) genehmigten Dissertation. Vorsitzende: Prof. Dr. Karin Zachmann Prüfende der Dissertation: 1. Priv.-Doz. Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth 2. Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen 3. Prof. Dr. Massimiano Bucchi Die Dissertation wurde am 06.10.2020 bei der Technischen Universität München eingereicht und durch die promotionsführende Einrichtung Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) am 01.02.2021 angenommen. “Don’t Act Like a Teacher” How Science YouTubers become Experts Andrea Geipel Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades Doktor der Philosophie (phil.) Acknowledgements The decision to start a dissertation at the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) at the Technische Universität München in 2015 presented me with new and exciting challenges. I am very grateful that Prof. Sabine Maasen believed in me being able to master the transition from Sport Science to Science and Technology Studies. Especially in the beginning, she supported me in refining my topic and helped me to find my way in a new discipline. During the first three years, a position at MCTS in the digital|media|lab under the direction of PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth allowed me to pursue my dissertation with sufficient time and the necessary collegial and infrastructural support. As my supervisor, Jan-Hendrik Passoth always encouraged me to find my own way in applying methods and integrating theories. In numerous conversations he helped me not to lose sight of central topics and was always available, even when faced with special challenges. Special thanks to him for being a great supervisor, as well as a supporter and motivator. I am grateful that I was always supported by my colleagues, who helped me when I struggled with my empirical material or theoretical concepts – Dr. Marcus Burkhardt who always gave helpful feedback and Felix Albrecht who actively supported me with the video analysis. Special thanks go to Nikolaus Pöchhacker, my office neighbour, friend and fellow sufferer on the way to my doctorate. He always had an open ear for questions and problems, immersed himself in my theories and helped me to find my way out of them. Many thanks especially for the daily phone calls for mutual motivation in the final spurt. I also want to thank my colleagues at the Deutsches Museum for their support and understanding as well as my friends and my family - especially my sister, Silvia Geipel, who always emphasises that she doesn’t understand what I actually do, but nevertheless listened to every little thing and was always there when I needed distraction, encouragement or motivation. Last but definitely not least I would like to thank Dr. Carolin Thiem. A special friendship has developed out of being colleagues at the MCTS, PhD representatives and fellow sufferers during the dissertation process. Thank you very much for always believing in me and remaining calm when I was once again thinking too much. Content I. INTRO ............................................................................................................................... 1 II. MAIN PART .................................................................................................................... 13 1. HOW TO ENGAGE WITH SCIENCE COMMUNICATION ON YOUTUBE? ......................... 14 How YouTube’s platform politics influence expertise ................................................. 14 How science communication became a part of YouTube ............................................ 27 Asking the right questions ............................................................................................ 46 2. FROM CHALLENGES TO METHODS – HOW TO DO RESEARCH ON YOUTUBE? ............ 49 How to deal with challenges ........................................................................................ 49 Why Grounded Theory? ............................................................................................... 53 How to apply a mixed-methods approach ................................................................... 54 How to define the sampling ......................................................................................... 59 3. HOW TO BECOME AN EXPERT ON YOUTUBE – THE REAL STORY ................................ 63 How expertise is negotiated on platforms ................................................................... 64 How authenticity turns into expertise ......................................................................... 92 How science YouTubers become experts ................................................................... 118 III. OUTRO ......................................................................................................................... 130 IV. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 141 V. LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 162 VI. LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 162 „Don’t Act Like a Teacher“ How Science YouTubers become Experts I. INTRO And we just sorta thought: We love science. We love explaining science to people. (Mitchell Moffit)1 In May 2019, the YouTuber Rezo2 posted a video called “Die Zerstörung der CDU” (The destruction of the CDU)3. The video, in which the YouTuber criticised Germany's governing parties, especially with regard to their climate policy, gained a lot of attention and initiated a discussion concerning the role of YouTubers in public discourses. The video and the consequences it caused are thus exemplary for the subject of this thesis: namely the question of how scientific topics are discussed on YouTube and how expertise is negotiated in this context. To what extent I will explain in the following. The following description is based on material collected for the paper “Climate Protection Policy in Germany: YouTubers and Scientists united against the Government?” published by Allgaier et al. in 2019. However, the data and interpretations have been extended for this thesis. The CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands) mentioned in the video title is the conservative governing party of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Up to the release of this video, the YouTuber Rezo was mainly known for entertaining clips with other YouTubers and cover songs. However, in 2019, he joined the public discourse on Article 13 of the “Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market” of the European Parliament4, by uploading a video in YouTube’s category “news and politics”. In particular video creators of the platform took part in the public discussion, since Article 13 requires internet platforms 1 From the video “The Science of AsapSCIENCE!”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAbMjI71JqY (accessed: 23.08.2020). 2 Rezo’s (second) channel “Rezo ja lol ey” contains videos with comedy content, funny challenges and a few similar videos dealing with political or societal topics. The videos have between 500,000 and 4 million views. Only the video discussed in this text (“Die Zerstörung der CDU”) has received more than 10 million views so far: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvU1c8D5n1Rue3NFRu0pJSw (accessed: 14.05.2020). He also runs the channel “Rezo” mainly posting music mash-ups and cover versions but has not posted a video there since autumn 2019. 3To date (14.05.2020) the video has 17,229,07 views and 244,736 comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y1lZQsyuSQ (accessed: 14.05.2020). 4 See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52016PC0593 (accessed: 24.08.2020). For more information on public protests regarding article 13, see, for example: https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/urherberrechtsreform-unterschriften-101.html (accessed: 24.08.2020). 1 INTRO such as YouTube to extract copyright-protected content. In the 60-minute-long video5 “Die Zerstörung der CDU”, Rezo attacks the governing parties and their policies. While he addresses many different topics, the main part criticises the lack of political strategies to fight climate change6. He, therefore, quotes various scientific publications, describes scenarios of what might happen if climate emissions are not reduced soon, and underlines his statement with a 13-page document listing all the sources he refers to in the video (Figure 1)7. Figure 1: “Die Zerstörung der CDU”. Screenshot of Rezo’s video “Die Zerstörung der CDU” where he attacks the governing party of Germany in 2019. In the description he posted a link to a Google document with the scientific references he quoted in the video8. 5 The video is unusually long for this channel. Most of Rezo’s videos are between 8 and 15 minutes long, which seems to be a common length of videos on YouTube. 6 In the video, Rezo also criticises other political strategies. However, I only want to focus on climate change here because it is his main topic and subsequent discussions mainly focused on this topic, and especially in this section, he refers to scientific publications (e.g. the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC). 7 List of references mentioned in the video: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C0lRRQtyVAyYfn3hh9SDzTbjrtPhNlewVUPOL_WCBOs/edit
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