Study: YouTube 'Creating a New Kind of TV News'

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism recently released a study that showed that more Americans are turning to for their news.

While the audience tuning into TV news far outpaces those who consume news on the vide-sharing site, the study found that YouTube is growing as a platform where the line is gradually blurring between citizen-created content and professional journalism.

"Citizens are creating their own videos about news and posting them. They are also actively sharing news videos produced by journalism professionals. And news organizations are taking advantage of citizen content and incorporating it into their journalism," the study said. "Consumers, in turn, seem to be embracing the interplay in what they watch and share, creating a new kind of television news." 

Some of the key findings of the study, which examined 15 months of the most popular news videos on the site:

• Videos of natural disasters and political upheaval were the most popular.
• No main personality was a significant driver of the top news videos. Within the small number of videos that focused on people, President Barack Obama was the most popular figure.
• More than a third of the most watched videos were supplied and produced by citizens, not journalists.

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