Re: YouTube Drama
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:00 am
This entire incident could have been completely contrived. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it could be that the WSJ, YouTube/Google, Disney, and PewDiePie planned this out two or three months ago. All this talk about "new media" being uncontrollable probably is a concern to all large media companies and so the ability to manipulate and predict audience behavior is a big deal. An experiment like this could help the powers that be gather data which could be used to help nip issues in the bud before they become major movements or to perform damage control when an issue arises. In any case, analysis of the data will yield some insights which will help major media companies (particularly Google) to manipulate information flow as they see fit and thus shape the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of large populations.