From Youtubers to Cultubers. A Phenomenon of Academic, Cultural and Scientific Dissemination on YouTube

Authors

  • Álex Buitrago Universidad de Valladolid https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1709-6972
  • Alberto Martín García Universidad de Valladolid
  • Ana María Beltrán Flandoli Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33732/ixc/12/02Deyout

Keywords:

Social Media, Content Creators, Science Communication, Science Education, Youtubers, YouTube

Abstract

The term youtuber label has sometimes been associated with pejorative considerations when it has been reduced only to define YouTube creators linked to the video game and entertainment sector. Parallel to the quantitative success of this type of youtubers, communicators from practically all academic, cultural and scientific fields have emerged on YouTube in recent years. Cultube is a digital community conceived within the Spanish-speaking digital reality that brings together this kind of creators and promotes this increasing model of science communication on the most popular video social media. Based on a grounded theory methodological orientation, this article presents the results of a semiotic-discursive analysis applied to interviews and ethnographic data collected from the three editions of Cultube held to date: 2018, 2019 and 2021. This case study helps to understand the global and growing phenomenon of cultural and science communicators on YouTube, their role in the global democratization of learning and their potential for the future.

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Author Biographies

Álex Buitrago, Universidad de Valladolid

Álex Buitrago (PhD University of Valladolid, extraordinary doctorate prize 2016) is an assistant professor of audio-visual communication and advertising at the University of Valladolid (Spain). His research interests include media education and social media platforms. He has been visiting researcher at the Digital Literacy Centre at University of British Columbia (2019-2020) and at Università La Sapienza di Roma (2015). He is author of the book ‘La educación mediática y los profesionales de la comunicación [Media education and mass media professionals]’ (Gedisa, 2015) and founder of the “Social Media Education Lab” (University of Valladolid, Spain).

Alberto Martín García, Universidad de Valladolid

Alberto Martín García has a PhD (University of Valladolid). Since 2010, Alberto combines his job as community manager and associate professor at María Zambrano Campus in Segovia where he teaches Advertising and communication system. Nowadays, he is working on his doctoral thesis about how social media impacts on media education. In addition to that, Alberto has published three novel, the last one, El silencio de Raquel, thanks to Ediciones B, Penguin Random House.

Ana María Beltrán Flandoli, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja

Profesora del Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicación de la Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL). Es candidata a doctora en educomunicación por el Programa Interuniversitario de Comunicación de Andalucía. Tiene una maestría en comunicación  y educación audiovisual por la UHU. Es miembro de la Red Euroamericana Alfamed, del el G.I en Comunicación, Educación y Tecnología (CET) y del MediaLab (UTPL). También es miembro asociado del G.I. en comunicación y educación de la Universidad de la Lima. Tiene experiencia como docente de Educomunicación, Teoría de la Comunicación, Introducción a la Comunicación, y Sociología de la Educación. Es autora de comunicaciones científicas y divulgativas en journal y eventos en el ámbito de la educación mediática y la comunicación digital.

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Published

2022-07-15

How to Cite

Buitrago, Álex, Martín García, A., & Beltrán Flandoli, A. M. (2022). From Youtubers to Cultubers. A Phenomenon of Academic, Cultural and Scientific Dissemination on YouTube. index.Comunicación, 12(2), 55–77. https://doi.org/10.33732/ixc/12/02Deyout

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2022): Creación, difusión y consumo de contenidos audiovisuales en la enseñanza y la investigación universitarias

Section

Monographic 12(2) Creation, dissemination and consumtion

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Copyright (c) 2022 Álex Buitrago, Alberto Martín García, Ana María Beltrán Flandoli

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