Uploaders' definition of the networked public on YouTube and their feedback preferences: a multi-method approach

Since its launch in 2005, video-sharing service YouTube has become one of the most popular Web 2.0 platforms with a daily increment of over 150,000 videos. Still, despite the large research body on the platform, it remains unclear for whom ordinary YouTube users upload their videos. A first qualitative study indicates that uploaders distinguish three types within YouTube's networked public. First, videos are uploaded for a select group of people with whom the uploader shares an offline bond (offline-identified public). Second, uploaders define part of their potential viewers as people with whom they are unfamiliar, but with whom they share a similar interest, opinion or practice (online-identified public). Third, uploaders also take into account the YouTube platform as a whole (online-unidentified public). A second, quantitative study of 450 recent uploaders validates these findings and tests the proposed associations with the importance that is attributed to receiving different types of feedback. As hypothesised, the expectancy of an offline-identified public positively predicts both offline and online off-platform feedback, while expecting an online-identified public positively predicts both on- and off-platform online feedback. However, the expectancy of an online-unidentified public yields a negative prediction for on-platform feedback.