Talking About the YouTube Indians: Images of Native Americans and Viewer Comments on a Viral Video Site

Abstract

This study explored the effects of YouTube videos relating to Native Americans on viewer comments posted under the videos. An analysis of user comments as a function of different aspects of racial depictions shows that although users respond favorably to some traditional portrayals of Native Americans, they also respond favorably to Native depictions in contemporary, mainstream contexts and that the videos motivate the viewers to talk about racial discrimination. These findings point to new media outlets’ potential to influence established social perceptions of marginalized racial groups.

KEYTERMS:

• audience response
• contact hypothesis
• Native Americans
• parasocial content analysis
• YouTube videos

Notes

^a Welch statistic is reported due to violation of the homogeneity of violence assumption.

*Bold numbers signify p < .05.

*Bold numbers signify p < .05.

*Bold numbers signify p < .05.

^a Welch statistic is reported due to violation of the homogeneity of violence assumption.

*Bold numbers signify p < .05.

*Bold numbers signify p < .05.

*Bold numbers signify p < .05.