YouTube as high culture?

Earlier last week a well respected media literacy expert Rob M. wrote his dissention about YouTubetongue-in-cheek to my media literacy listserve:
"This is sort of an odd assumption, friends -
That shooting and editing video of my dancing cat and then uploading it
to the You Tube mayhem/web constitutes "media literacy."

But heck, what do I know...
My Space and Google-Tube me,

Rob"

He had also responded to several other media literacy educators who wrote in to say they don't own cell phones and cable tv:

"I find it interesting that you and Frank are talking about a major way
that you decrease your time spent with less personal, less human
contact with others--cell phones, i.e., maximizing what Bill McK.
last week in VT called "healthy natural human interaction."
Meanwhile, Henry Jenkins and his funders at Microsoft are talking
about more ways to provide kids with more time to be spent with
screens. It is interesting because we have no solid evidence that such
media production accomplishes anything pro-social, whereas much
empirical data suggests that working in well designed, small groups on
beneficial projects does wonderful things for people."

While I usually respect R.M. 's opinions highly, because we don't have enough evidence doesn't mean that something pro social is not happening on YouTube. On the contrary. I believe when I see a particular video downloaded a thousand times that something highly social is going on... its up to the academics to figure out exactly the 'what' part of it, but I'd hazard a guess that individuals have a tendency to want to think and create in groups and whether they do it in person or with and through the media, they are engaged in highly beneficial activities... (this could be my future doctoral project in the making...)