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Abstract
In this article we examine the hundreds of videos that were posted to YouTube in response to the fierce anti-Islam video Fitna. We use this case to analyse whether and how the participatory opportunities of the digital technologies invite performances of citizenship, especially with respect to the articulation of religious and/or political identity. The sheer numbers of YouTube activities (videos, views and comments) demonstrated that this was not at all a marginal phenomenon within the wider Fitna and Wilders controversy, making the question as to what these videos mean, or – to be more precise – for which contexts the posters make them meaningful, all the more pressing. We used the concepts of ‘voice’, ‘performance’ and ‘citizenship’ to approach this issue and found that the video genres unique to visual digital culture (tagging/jamming, cut-and-mix and vlogs) each invited their own kinds of political and religious performances, and assumed particular traits and interests of their audience. The most common YouTube reaction for Muslims was to upload copies of videos that expressed their own understanding of Islam as a peaceful religion in contrast to the picture drawn by Wilders. The jamming videos saying sorry were unique digital means of activism, enabling a particular participation in the controversy around Fitna that assumed a global audience open to apology. The cut-and-mix videos appeared to be especially welcome means for satire and parody, and appealing to audience emotions, but also for the deconstruction of Fitna, which addressed audience cognitive competence. Vlogging about Fitna was often part of a more regular practice of video production that was individually or institutionally maintained. We conclude that the particular articulations of religious and political identities, with different modes of audience address assume a connectedness between dispersed people in which new forms of (unlocated) citizenship emerge.
Notes
For a more detailed analysis of the film, especially from the perspective of gender, see Vis, Van Zoonen, Mihelj Citation(2010b).
The research was funded by the AHRC and ESRC (UK) in the context of their Religion and Society Program, grant number AH-G016631-1. More information about the project can be found on: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/research/FITNA/index.html
It is telling, in this respect, that the formal organisation of Wilders Freedom Party does not allow for membership; financial donations are the only formal means of participation possible.
This is, however, a question we take up in a subsequent part of the research, about the views of, comments on and interaction between the videos.
When repeating this procedure on Google.video we got 2875 hits for ‘Fitna’ and 1781 hits for ‘Fitna’ combined with ‘Wilders’; we therefore limited further searches to YouTube, which seemed to be most comprehensive.
The e-research tool was developed in collaboration with Mike Thelwall, Professor in Information Science at Wolverhampton University, where among other things he is the head of the Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group (http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/).
Obviously there was a long period between the first videos in early 2008 and the moment that we stabilised our data in September 2009. Funding for the research, which made this more systematic approach possible, became available from June 2009.
The full coding sheet is available from our website.
Netherlands, 28%; United States, 15%; UK 8%; Germany (4%), Egypt (3%), Canada (3%), Pakistan (3%), Australia (2%), Sweden (2%), Denmark (1%), India (1%), France (1%), Morocco (1%), but also Burundi, Poland, Kiribati, Singapore, France and Jordan.
The remaining 10.8% was unclear.
χ 2 = 631.4, p = 0.000.
http://www.ummahfilms.com/, last visited 9 April 2010.
χ 2 = 116.8, p = 0.000.
http://www.mediamatic.net/page/33851/en, last accessed 3 April 2010.
The videos themselves do not explain these differences, since they all had the same content and style; with the data at hand there is no way of telling why the one video drew so many more views than the other.
The evil doll of the Child Play movies.
http://www.youtube.com/user/verwildering, last accessed 7 April 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZgCwhuD4Rs, last accessed on 7 April 2010.
Some links to the video still require the visitor to register as over 18 (dd. 12 April 2010).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2806UIdCJE, last accessed 7 April 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngGf3HRhneg&feature=related, last accessed 7 April 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/user/kellibelli530, last accessed 9 April 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxbYBIlT6VE&feature=related, last accessed 6 April 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQXh20OuhIc, last accessed 6 April 2010, viewed 3674342 on that date.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzbs2uN_aXI,, last accessed 6 April 2010, see for a similar case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY717N-rcl4.
