Into the world of YouTube Since its debut in 2005, YouTube, a video sharing website, has been an agent of both popularity and controversy. The subsidiary of Google averages nearly 20 million hits per month on its website according to the Nielsen/Net Ratings, while simultaneously igniting questions of ethical, political, racial and moral proportions. Those questions and others is part of what nearly 30 students in a Pitzer College class, entitled “Learning From YouTube,” will explore throughout the semester in what will be a critical examination of various aspects of the popular website. “The class is a lot of fun but it is also meant to be serious,” said Alexandra Juhasz, Pitzer College professor of media studies. “It’s a serious class where we think critically about the daily culture and questions about a variety of issues as well as aspects of community and debate.” The first course of its kind at Pitzer College, the class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week at noon inside Pitzer’s Scott Hall. Created by Ms. Juhasz as a course to focus on the potentials and limits of digital media culture through the medium of YouTube, the class centers around the popular website with all of the coursework and assignments being linked to the site. While the first two class sessions were mainly directed by Ms. Juhasz to provide an overview of the course, the students will pace the course as the semester goes on. Being a mainly student-controlled course, the students will ultimately determine the themes of the course as well as the questions to explore about YouTube. The idea of the approach is to mimic the style undertaken by the users of the website. “YouTube has become much larger than people predicted,” said Dan Allen, a senior Media Studies major. “In terms of studying YouTube academically, I think it should have already happened by now. Colleges are very good at dealing with what is academically relevant but not always at what impacts lives. YouTube is something that people do daily.” Another reason that Ms. Juhasz has created the course is to explore her own curiosity of YouTube. Knowing that the website is popular among the demographics represented in her class, the Pitzer professor looks forward to learning more about what attracts viewers to the site. “I decided to offer the course to learn what the fuss was all about,” Ms. Juhasz said. “A lot of professors use the site as part of their courses, yet this class is actually about YouTube. This is a highly unstructured class and I think that the students know more about the website than I do. One thing that I’ve learned in teaching is that it’s okay for students to teach me, too.”
A unique aspect of the course is the public component that it carries. Each class session is videotaped and posted on YouTube. Student assignments will also be posted on the website since one of the main focuses of the class is its integration with the YouTube community. “You learn differently when you actually feel it than just watching it,” Ms. Juhasz explained. “It raises a level of self-consciousness that you wouldn’t have otherwise.” According to Ms. Juhasz, the idea of the course having its public element could have been a reason why the 50-plus students that showed up to Tuesday’s session dwindled down to nearly 30 students for Thursday’s class. Yet for students like Delaine Ureno, the fascination of the course outweighed the public component. “I’ve taken media studies classes before and in every class we used YouTube,” Ms. Ureno said. “To have a class based solely on YouTube makes it interesting. This class touches on every single major you could be studying.” Mr. Allen is familiar to the thought-provoking and exploration-friendly environment that Ms. Juhasz creates in her classes. Having taken one of her courses before, Mr. Allen decided to give the YouTube class a try and looks forward to the semester. “I took a production class last semester with her [Ms. Juhasz] and she is very good at leading and provoking discussions,” the Media Studies major pointed out. Although the first-time course has generated interest on the Pitzer College campus, “Learning From YouTube” is only slated to be offered for the fall semester. Whether the class returns next fall depends heavily on what how the course ends up at the end of the semester. “If we have a good experience, I may offer it again,” Ms. Juhasz said. “Yet if it doesn't turn out to be a good experience, there’s something to learn from that too.” The class has posted a group page on YouTube that can be accessed at www.youtube.com/group/learningfromyoutube.
—Landus Rigsby |
 
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September 8, 2007
September 8, 2007