Abstract: A Supply and Demand Framework for YouTube Politics (with Joseph Phillips)

Youtube is the most used social network in the United States. However, for a combination of sociological and technical reasons, there exist little quantitative social science research on the political content on Youtube, in spite of widespread concern about the growth of extremist YouTube content. An emerging journalistic consensus theorizes the central role played by the video "recommendation engine," but we believe that this is premature. Instead, we propose the "Supply and Demand" framework for analyzing politics on YouTube. We discuss a number of novel technological affordances of YouTube as a platform and as a collection of videos, and how each might drive supply of or demand for extreme content. We then provide large-scale longitudinal descriptive information about the supply of and demand for alternative political content on YouTube. We demonstrate that viewership of far-right videos peaked in 2017.

Kevin Munger is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Social Data Analytics, Penn State University. Ph.D., New York University, 2018. His research looks at social media and other contemporary internet technology has changed political communication. He has published research on the subject using a variety of methodologies, including textual analysis, field experiments, longitudinal surveys and qualitative theory. His research has appeared in leading journals like the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Communication, and Political Science Research & Methods. His present interests include cohort conflict in American politics and developing new methods for social science in a rapidly changing world.