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When a researcher recently researched YouTube for the term "public education," the results painted a dark picture of the nation's schools and public colleges.
Among the best results: an animated video titled "Problems in Public Education," a rant arguing that all public education "kills creativity," and a video essay titled "Public Education" became indoctrination and distraction. "And"
The researcher in question, Burhanettin Keskin, is a professor of education at the University of Mississippi, so he decided to do an analysis of how public education is represented on YouTube.
His study, published in the peer-reviewed journal SAGE Open earlier this year, formalized what he had found in this initial search: that the majority of videos on the first pages of research for "public education" painted a negative opinion of the subject. "A substantial amount of these videos contained brutal attacks on public education," writes Keskin in the journal.
The professor believes that the YouTube's search algorithm promotes extreme views against education. And this, he worries, could influence netizens around the world. As he concludes in the paper: "Negativity severe of these videos continues to pose barriers for teachers and public education in general. "
Keskin himself is a promoter, and a product, of public education. To avoid bias in his research, he had an independent coder evaluating the videos. And he ensured that searches on YouTube were done without connecting to a specific YouTube account and with a web browser whose history had been erased.
The researcher notes that the exact nature of the operation of YouTube's algorithm is a mystery. owns YouTube, considers its operation as a trade secret. It also changes constantly, and the results will likely vary for each user once they are connected. But many of the videos that appeared in the professor's research are clearly popular, with many of them attracting hundreds of thousands of views.
An interview this week, Keskin notes that one of his goals is to draw attention to how technology giants can skew the debate on all kinds of policy issues public, including education
or not, they shape and have an impact on the social construction of reality, "he says. "People say" it's coding "or" the algorithm does it ", but it's not a neutral act."
Others have raised similar questions about search algorithms. In a TED talk in 2017, Zeynep Tufekci, a techno-sociologist, described her experience on YouTube, which she noticed recommending more and more extreme videos as she conducted her research in political science. . While she was watching videos of Trump's rallies to write about them, for example, suggestions on YouTube have pushed to white supremacist arguments. "Once, I watched a video about vegetarianism on YouTube, and YouTube recommended and broadcast a video about being vegan," she said in her speech. "It's like you're never hardcore enough for YouTube."
This article is part of our next guide The World Looks: How YouTube Shapes Education, Soon Available.
Tufekci's argument is that YouTube's algorithm is not intentionally biased veganism, or any other political point of view. But she guesses that shocking arguments can simply be the most successful at keeping users engaged. "The algorithm has figured out that if you can induce someone to show them something more hardcore, they are more likely to stay on the site watching the video after the video – by going down that rabbit while Google shows them advertisements. 19659002] Just this week, YouTube announced a $ 25 million effort to boost what it calls "authoritarian" news in the search results, in preparation for the upcoming mid-term US congressional elections.
At a press conference, Neal Mohan, product manager at YouTube, announced that the changes would be unveiled in the coming weeks and that users could soon see text articles as well as videos. As the videos take longer for longer-running news outlets, Mohan suggested that often the most complete sources are in text form, according to a report on the event published by The Financial Times
. even those expressing marginal points of view. "Current events are going to be questioned, rightly or wrongly, people will have a conspiratorial opinion," Mohan said. "We want users to make decisions for themselves."
In March, YouTube announced another effort to combat misinformation in its videos, offering Wikipedia articles alongside some videos to provide a broader context. "People can always watch the videos, but they have access to additional information, can click and go to see," said Susan Wojcicki, YouTube's executive director, announcing the effort.
19659018] But policy and news research is not the only way that YouTube's algorithms shape public perceptions of education.
In another study, Keskin did a similar analysis of teacher representation in popular YouTube videos. This time, he searched for the word "teacher" and coded if the content of the videos in the first three pages of search results was positive, neutral, or negative. An article on research has appeared in a peer-reviewed Turkish academic journal (search for Keskin's name to find the article, which is in English).
The results indicate that about 60% of the videos were negative, and about 17% were positive. A large number of representations were sexual in nature, with about 29 percent including sexuality in their content, title, or cover image.
"If a naive person, like someone who does not know anything about the teaching profession or teachers, had to do a research on teachers, the videos that she would discover would be very troubling in terms of nature and role of educators, "The professor wrote. "This person would be inclined to think that what happens in schools is largely a sexual issue, and that teachers are sexual predators."
What can teachers do about such representations? In his article, Keskin offers some suggestions:
"The teacher training departments of higher education institutions should pay particular attention to the effective preparation of future teachers so that teachers have the necessary knowledge to counter the problem. Negative image of teachers on the Internet, "he writes. "Such programs should also emphasize critical thinking because it is essential in the establishment of media education."
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