A study on streaming media as a method to overcome the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka: with special reference to YouTube content creations

Abstract

In the Digital Age, streaming media can be recognized as a mainstream way of getting information. It brings out the audio and/or video content that internet users consume without downloading it to their hard drives. Further, this is the apex of technological advancement in sharing audio and video content on the internet. Among many streaming media platforms, "YouTube" is the largest and most popular video-sharing platform on the internet. YouTube is the key reason behind online video culture. In Sri Lanka, a few studies have been done on streaming media through the scope of information and communication. Yet, streaming media and its usage in Sri Lanka should be studied through a humanistic scope in a film and television context as they are video creations. YouTube has given an opportunity to video creators to earn through their video content. Accordingly, creating videos for YouTube by freelancers, nowadays identified as ‘YouTubers’, is one of the most recognized professions in the world. Thus, YouTube can be used as an effective method by the Sri Lankan YouTubers to overcome the current economic crisis faced by Sri Lanka by earning foreign currency for the country. The study mainly focused on the top 200 YouTube channels in Sri Lanka and narrowed it down to the most viewed 15 video creations from the 15 most subscribed channels. Film linguistic elements, story-telling elements, and the visual appeal which should be aligned with the creativity of these video contents will be analyzed through the content analysis method. The study is focused on how content creators used their video creation practices to succeed on the YouTube platform. Further, the study will discuss how to develop the overall quality of these video contents to increase the popularity of the YouTube channels created by the Sri Lankan YouTubers. The study revealed many findings related to streaming media within a Sri Lankan context. The study evidently proved that contents created by the top Sri Lankan YouTube channels lack the qualities of originality, and creativity and they have not considered philosophy and theoretical values, in their video productions. Consequently, suggestions have been made to expand the conventional video content creation practices in streaming media platforms.