koen leurs - video vortext
DESCRIPTION
Vernacular Spectacles? Dutch-Moroccan Youth on YouTube Youth born in the Netherlands from parents who migrated from Morocco experience various junctions in their transitional journeys of adolescence and diaspora. Multiple intersecting issues of age, generation, class, education, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ‘race’, religion and nationality become invoked. These journeys give rise to the question of whether Dutch-Moroccan youth engage in multiply located self-positioning, or attach to homogenized identity models circulating across online/offline spaces. Triangulating large-scale data of surveys completed in Dutch secondary school settings as part of the Utrecht University Wired Up research project, with in-depth interviews and critical discourse analysis of YouTube material, this research sets out whether we can observe something like a specific Dutch-Moroccan video-fandom practice. Explored here is whether YouTube is primarily used to consume ‘videos of affinity’ (Lange, 2009) and ‘vernacular spectacles’-niche (Androutsopoulos, 2010) (i.e. ethnic-cultural-religious) content that is unavailable elsewhere, or whether YouTube is rather used to consume mainstream global popular culture videos.TRANSCRIPT
Koen Leurs
Vernacular spectacles? Dutch-Moroccan Youth on / using YouTube
Video Vortex #6 / INC Amsterdam / March 12, 2011
www.koenleurs.net / Gender Studies / Utrecht University
Mixed methods
What? Surveys (1500+, 12-18 y. old)
Why? In-depth interviews (43, 12-18)
How? Analysis of digital material
Two-thirds of Dutch-Moroccan youth list YouTube as 1 of their 5 most favorite sites
Survey: YouTube is part of everyday life [1/3]
MacBlack/Flickr
77% of Dutch-Moroccan young people go on YouTube 4 days per week or more
70.5% of majority Dutch young people go on YouTube 4 days per week or more
Dutch-Moroccan youth use YouTube more than majority Dutch youth
(bivariate correlation is significant, p<.05)
Survey: YouTube is part of everyday life [2/3]
MacBlack/Flickr
55,8% of Dutch-Moroccan youth would miss YouTube very much if they would not be able to use it anymore versus 48,7% of majority Dutch youth
Dutch-Moroccan youth are more attached to YouTube than majority Dutch youth
Survey: YouTube is part of everyday life [3/3]
MacBlack/Flickr
In-depth interviews
Dutch-Moroccan video fandoms
1- Nostalgic ‘vernacular spectacles’ (Androutsopoulos, 2010)
2- Differential music ‘videos of affinity’ (Lange, 2009)
3- Knowledge brokering
"(from nostos – return home, and algia – longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy" (Boym, 2001: xiii)
Nostalgic ‘vernacular spectacles’ [1/2]
Nostalgic ‘vernacular spectacles’ [2/2]
I watch movies about where we come from. On YouTube there are movies about where we lived, that is nice to see. There is much to find about Nador. Many many movies. For instance clips that show the roads, the shopping malls, the boulevard. Lots of things that you are familiar with. I was born there and lived there until I was three years old, but I know it better from holidays. People from the Netherlands, who go there on holidays, when they get back they put the video they took there online - boy, 15 years old
Differential music ‘videos of affinity’ [1/4]
Differential music ‘videos of affinity’ [2/4]
‘Origin oriented’:Yes, Platinum Hitparade part II, you know. The new one from this summer. I listen to it 24 hours per day. My mother always tells me ‘A Farima, put down the music, I have had enough of it”[In Morocco] All summer holiday long I have listened to that song. When we were on our way to the beach I would say, mom put up the music, put it up! Number 5 and than we would sing along. And my mother would say: I have heard enough, I’m getting a headache, put down the music! – girl, 16 years old
Differential music ‘videos of affinity’ [3/4]
‘Ethnic oriented’:Girls listen more to female artists, and boys more to male rappers. They rap about what they experience. I can connect to what Moroccan rappers such as Yes-R and Ali B. have to say. - boy, 13 years old
Differential music ‘videos of affinity’ [4/4]
‘World oriented’:N: On YouTube I go to songs, and stars I also kind of like. I go and watch the starsK: What kind of stars for instance?Hey, I’m talking more about human stars?K: (laughing) yes, celebrities, not about the moon and theN: (laughing) no, well eh Justin Bieber is cute. Just to watch clips about him, especially him. And also to watch some music - girl, 13 years old.
Knowledge brokering
My father and I sometimes look up things about religion. My dad wanted to go to Mecca, but he wanted to get to hear more about Islamic rules [via YouTube]. Now, next year, he will go. My grandfather and grandmother have gone there four times. It was a beautiful experience. They have to walk around the black object for 7 times. They have to throw stones. Yes and they have a beautiful, luxurious hotel. They stay there for around two weeks. But I also watch other clips, funny videos. For instance you see someone falling from his bicycle. Or I watch Jackass.
– boy, 14 years old
Dutch-Moroccan video fandoms
-Some leads to understand popularity of YouTube-Typology (origin, ethnic, world) is narrow-fitting, but illustrates multiplicity-Informants connect to global youth culture in consumption of commercial phenomena such as Justin Bieber-Away from Dutch mainstream media & politicians’ stigmatization