Visibility matters: An exploration of YouTube ranking culture

Building on Rieder’s (2015) approach to describe the structure and dynamics of outputs of the YouTube ranking algorithm, this paper seeks to interrogate YouTube’s role in the curation of content and culture production with regards to different socio-cultural issues. By examining over time the ordered videos returned by YouTube when querying “Islam”, “Syria”, “Trump”, “refugees” and “Gamergate” we seek to explore YouTube ranking culture around different issues. First, we describe and compare the outcomes of the algorithmic work, and second we qualitatively analyse the top results over time and for each issue