USCHHS Analysis of YouTube as An Organization Paper

Book Reading:

Grant, A. E., & Meadows, J. H. (Eds.). (2018). Communication technology update and fundamentals (16th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter 1: The Communication Technology Ecosystem

Chapter 2: A History of Communication Technology

Chapter 3: Understanding Communication Technologies

Chapter 4: The Structure of the Communication Industries

Assignment
Choose a company or organization to research from the list below. Notice the organizations are
broken up into categories: Relationships, Work/Civic Participation, Information Gathering,
Entertainment & Culture, and Economic Participation.
Important: You are writing a balanced research paper and not a public relations brochure
glorifying the company. That means you MUST write about the pros AND cons of your
subject. Tell the good and the bad. Show balance!
Relationships
Work/Civic
Participation
Information Entertainment Economic
Gathering
& Culture Participation
Facebook Tinder
GoFundMe Google
Blogger
iTunes
Yelp
Twitter
Kickstarter
Skype
WordPress
Netflix
Amazon
MySpace eHarmony
Pixabay
Zoom
Reddit
Hulu
eBay
Instagram Match
Indiegogo
Dropbox
Tumblr
Amazon Prime Etsy
LinkedIn PlentyOfFish Patreon
Slack
Twitter
YouTube
Craigslist
Pinterest Bumble
Kiva Zip
YouTube Google
Twitch
Angie’s List
Nextdoor Hinge
Crowdfunder Wikipedia Wikipedia
Spotify
Home
Advisor
Grindr
Visit the websites for each app or service you are researching. Explore the history, find a
description of what the app or service does, and what it offers users. Figure out how the company
makes money! Does it charge a fee for its services or does it rely on advertisers? What are users
required to give up using the product or service? (Consider user privacy!)
Start searching for outside sources for information. That means using library, news articles, peer
reviewed articles, journals, and the like. DO NOT use Wikipedia or copy and paste
information from websites! This is a writing assignment.
For your paper, Remember, you will use a lot of what you include in this paper in the future
paper you submit in class. Again, DO NOT copy and paste from the company website. Write
your own words when addressing all the prompts.
You should include in this assignment:
Organization, target audience, messages. (4 to 5 brief paragraphs)
o Write a brief paragraph describing the organization, what it does, and who it
serves. Why did you choose it?
o Describe the target audience. What are their likely demographics and
psychographics? (You should know what those terms mean.)
o Identify a few messages the organization sends to its target audience.
o If you think the organization is missing an opportunity—not reaching out to
people who might be interested or poor messaging, include that here!
o Describe the technology generally.
o Explain what it does and how it works.
o Identify the motivations and goals users would have for seeking content on this
platform.
o Describe the participation requirements. (Do users have to provide a real name
and e-mail address or can they be anonymous?)
o Explain the costs associated with using the platform. (Do users pay a fee or
endure advertising?)
o Who are the company’s likely competitors?
o Provide a brief history of the company including growth or decline in users.