Conclusion
Distributed networks for disseminating audio, video, image, and text files have generally become associated with a fragmented politics of personal liberty and rhizomatic modes of resistance to the hegemonic powers of the monolithic corporate state. As Siva Vaidhyanathan has argued in The Anarchist and the Library, decentralised mechanisms for distributing content through peer-to-peer modes of exchange tend to be opposed to oligarchic interests that govern through and for authorities that use ‘moral panics’ to retain control over the populace. Yet, as Vaidhyanathan also points out, entrenched interests shape the operational constraints of computer systems and may use proprietary software to prohibit decentralised lateral transactions. Moreover, the consequences, effects, and residues of seemingly improvisational and amorphous informational networks frequently coalesce into the form of what Ned Rossiter has referred to as the ‘specter’ that continues to haunt the age of informationality: state sovereignty.
In many ways, YouTube functions as a ‘network’ only to the extent that it emulates the quest for market share associated with traditional media monopolies, such as the Fox network controlled by Rupert Murdoch. Despite the fact that it seems to battle entertainment conglomerates nobly in American courtrooms on the side of liberalising copyright regulations, YouTube cannot be called a distributed network, based on its highly centralised business plan, structure of ownership, and corporate branding of product.
Losh, Elizabeth.
Government YouTube: Bureaucracy, Surveillance, and Legalism in State-Sanctioned Online Video Channels.
In Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer, eds. Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, 111–23. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2008.
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