Abstract
The affordances of Internet distribution have substantially expanded the array of video that is part of the everyday video cultures of many across the globe. Scholarly frames now need to integrate “hosted video” – video distributed without licensing agreements on services such as YouTube and TikTok and through social media – into broader conceptualization of viewing cultures. Hosted video encompasses a broad and diverse range of content and represents a new “subfield” of video use best understood as a part of a broader field of use including legacy video sources (moviegoing and television). This article first explains hosted video as a subfield, then identifies distinct “encounters” enabled by the various features offered by social media and hosted video services. It then draws from focus groups and interview findings to highlight four common uses that indicate considerable consistency with other types of viewing that supports the holistic video field we advocate.
Throughout the 20th century, cinema and television provided the basis of human engagement with video. For most of the century, the tools of video making were limited to professionals, and even with the availability of early consumer video cameras by the 1970s, video distribution remained rigidly controlled by corporate media gatekeepers. Set against that history, the transformation enabled by digital video recording and Internet distribution over the last 20 years is mind blowing.
The biggest change involves a subfield of video experience we distinguish as “hosted video” following Idiz and Poell (2024: 11) who identify a key industrial distinction of hosted video as being not licensed or commissioned by a distributor. Hosted video encompasses video accessed on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and X/Twitter) and via “open” video distributors that do not commission or license the video content they distribute (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch). 1 The distinction between hosted and licensed video is primarily industrial and reflects an adjustment in the risk profile of distributing services that has profoundly expanded the content available. Hosted video also has cultural implications; its different industrial dynamics make extensive hobbyist (non-commercial) video possible. Hosted video has enabled a flood of video reflecting specific interests and sensibilities although discrete videos are engaged by relatively few viewers in comparison with the “mass media” reach of pre-digital forms of video, especially television in the mid-to-late 20th century, that saturated co-located populations. Although billions globally access services that distribute hosted video, pieces of video rarely replicate the society-wide address and visibility characteristic of pre-digital video. Of course, a very few hosted videos do circulate to millions and even billions – and thus become the easily referenced and well-known cases – but they are most uncommon and peripheral to hosted video as a cultural phenomenon. 2
This article draws from an agenda of contemporary media use research informed by four pilot focus groups and 40 hour-long, in-depth interviews with a cross-section of recruited Australian adults (methods detail in note 5). It explores media sectors from the vantage point of audiences/users that now move fluidly across technologies (phones, computers, televisions), sectors (television, social media, film), media (video, audio, words, images), and a greater array of media forms (long, short; professional, hobbyist) in pursuit of different motives. The current environment of use necessitates stepping back from organizational schemes of media built on 20th-century norms that have since evolved but remain commonly viewed as separate and distinct from “digital” and “social media” to fundamentally rethink the experience of media, and particularly video in this article, as it is now commonly experienced in many industrialized Western contexts. In Figure 1, we illustrate how we can conceive of hosted video as part of the contemporary field of video experiences rather than separate from other video subsectors. This shifts hosted video from affiliation with social media, sometimes called social video in early conceptual frames (Boyle, 2018; Cunningham and Craig, 2019; Lotz, 2017).
The field of contemporary video and characteristics of the hosted video sector.
It is now clear that hosted video’s core industrial distinction derives from industrial norms and practices characteristic of what Lotz and Havens (2024) describe as a “simple-professional” dynamic of media industry operation. This distinction shifts the risk to the creator – often in exchange for unprecedented levels of creative agency and freedom from content gatekeeping by distributors – and alters relationships with financiers. It also allows for wide distribution of content created for the sake of expression rather than commercial gain or enterprise. This has enabled a significant expansion in the types, features, and sensibilities of content available and widely accessible and thus also has expanded how people use video and the needs and motives it can satiate. The abundant creation within the hosted video subsector supports contemporary media consumption norms better understood through theories of fragmentation and specialization rather than mass media norms that have structured social and cultural understandings of media.
Few scholars have approached video use as a field that now includes series, shows, and movies offered by television channels and streaming services based on licensed content, as well as the videos offered by hosted video services. 3 Too often, scholarly conversations and industry rhetoric have attempted to stretch the boundaries of television to suit the greater plurality of video sectors instead of recognizing hosted video as a further expansion in the field of video experience. Yet many viewers now commonly consume video across a mix of screens (mobile phone, tablet, computer, television) supported by a multiplicity of distribution technologies (broadcast, cable, satellite, Internet, physical media), and business models (advertising, direct payment, subscriber fees, government, donation). Although time available remains finite, there has not been a wholescale shift from one experience of video to another; rather, the dynamic for now is both/and, similar to previous cases of expansion in the field of video experience. 4
YouTube once seemed well categorized as some sort of “social video” because it enabled comments and feedback (likes) that parallelled the capabilities that were built into social media services such as Facebook that were emerging coterminously (Ellison and boyd, 2013). YouTube has since evolved into a multifaceted global video repository and service now more clearly distinct from the social media space and better understood as part of a sector of pure video services reliant on ‘uncommissioned’ creators that also distribute video on TikTok and Twitch.
Adding to conceptual confusion, from the mid 2010s social media services enabled access to video that also warrants inclusion within a reconceptualized field of video experience. All the major social media services now enable posting videos, and watching videos – many of which are not created by people known or even “followed” by the viewer – and has become core to “social media” use. In March 2024, Meta (2024) revealed that 60% of time spent on Facebook and Instagram was spent watching video.
Our recent interview research indicates that what people do as part of “social media” use has expanded significantly since its origin as a text-based form and in relation to what key works such as boyd and Ellison (2008) identify as its common uses. A significant amount of what industry regards as “social media use” (e.g. time spent on Instagram) is no longer dominated by maintaining ties to real and virtual relations or producing and sharing content about oneself but often also involves users curating their feeds into a personally relevant stream of multimedia content created by strangers that reflects their interests. As suggested by the Meta data, video increasingly plays a significant role in these personally cultivated streams. Of course the specific videos in those feeds are also algorithmically driven; as we note in our conclusion, the evidence in our research suggests frames of understanding that presume algorithmic determination without acknowledging user negotiation oversimplify the reality of actual practice.
This article begins crucial work of stitching together pre-digital and digital video media as a co-constitutive ecosystem that spans a variety of modes and motives of use increasingly part of the daily media diets of many, although the proportion of time spent with different types of screen media (series, movies, hosted video) varies to the individual and the precise videos that make up those diets are highly varied. Hosted video viewing can be sorted into different behaviors, modes (how watched), and motives (why watched) just as other subfields of video use facilitate a range of viewing experiences; for example, the motive that drives a viewer to the behavior of watching “what’s on” a linear television channel or seeing “what’s in” a TikTok feed are similar and both are different from deliberately seeking out a specific title on Netflix or YouTube – although a viewer could as easily approach Netflix or YouTube looking to see “what’s on.” Many behaviors, modes, and motives typical of hosted video use are consistent with other subfields of video experience. Our research suggests that from the viewer perspective, hosted video is not a fundamentally different type of viewing, experience, or industry in the way suggested by the common frames of journalists, industry, and most scholarship.
Our aim here is to illustrate the utility of including hosted video within the field of video experience and everyday video culture and to draw from field-defining scholarship from the pre-digital era to investigate the uses and cultural roles of hosted video and the broader 21st century field of video experience. This research is inspired by and returns to the in-depth methods of interviews and observation of media use that were central to establishing “active audience” theories in television and cultural studies. Researchers such as David Morley (1986), Ann Gray (1992) and Ien Ang (1991) observed viewers in their homes, asked broad questions about how and why they used television, or drew from open prompts about how they made sense of and valued particular titles to build rich understanding of the complexity of purpose and meaning making common in television consumption. Research methods that provide such “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) have rarely been applied to conceptualizing the use of digital era media and have mainly been used to understand its role in teen culture (boyd, 2014; Ito et al., 2010; Weinstein and James, 2022). The interview-based research of social media use (e.g. Whiting and Williams, 2013) has focused on the features of self-presentation, sociality, and connection that were more central to earlier phases of social media use, while interview-based research on the viewing of hosted video has focused on specific types of content, such as gameplay videos (e.g. Speed et al., 2023). Our interviews explore how people use hosted video as part of a wider media diet and to engage with content that satisfies varied personal interests as well as connection with others.
This article’s aim is primarily conceptual; it argues for the need to adjust common scholarly frames that separate video on social media and services such as YouTube and TikTok from video sectors established before digital distribution. The argument is based on conceptualization as well as evidence gathered in four pilot focus groups and 40 hour-long comprehensive interviews about media diet, changes in media use, and social media engagement with a cross-section of Australian adults. 5 More comprehensive analysis of those interviews will be reported elsewhere, while this article intervenes specifically to connect disparate literatures in media studies and digital studies.
The next section establishes conceptual challenges derived from the organization and diversity of features offered by hosted video services. The plethora of capabilities has made it difficult to appreciate how individual users engage with widely used services or to conceptualize use across the many services and platforms that many regularly employ. We introduce the terminology of “encounters” to describe consistent experiences cultivated by features often named differently across services in order to address common modes of use across them. We then explore the four ways of using hosted video most commonly expressed in interview and focus group data to illustrate the alignment of hosted video use with other video experiences as well as key differences. The discrepancies help us to better understand all kinds of contemporary video use by denaturalizing viewing practices that seem “normal.”
Conceptual challenges of the current field
One of the biggest challenges to conceptualization is how multifaceted the content available on major social media services has become over the last two decades. The original motivations of “performing the self” through a “social network,” typical of the early years of social media remain (boyd and Ellison, 2008; Ellison and boyd, 2013), but lack the centrality once the case. By the late 2000s, sites that facilitated the uploading and sharing of media by people outside the formal media industry, such as YouTube (for video) and Flickr (for photos), became popular. As part of the perceived “new media” phenomenon, they were associated with social media but warranted distinct framing. By the early 2010s, social media services could be divided into categories such as “social networking” (e.g. Facebook) and “user-generated content” sites (e.g. YouTube) (van Dijck, 2013: 8).
However, by the mid-2010s, major social media services introduced multiple video content-sharing features that complicated how we categorize – and understand – social media and its uses. For example, the success of Snapchat’s “Stories” in 2013 6 spurred Instagram – initially a photo-only service – to add the same feature to its service in 2016. Perhaps the most recent turning point in hosted video history was the internationalization and wide adoption of TikTok from 2017. TikTok’s exceptional popularity – especially among young adults – led Facebook and Instagram to launch “Reels,” Snapchat to launch “Spotlight,” and YouTube to launch “Shorts” in 2020, features that mimic TikTok.
By the 2020s most social media services offered video sharing features; videos are often shared privately and sometimes broadcast openly. Much of the openly broadcast video content is more performative (like traditional media) than personal, seeks remuneration, and is difficult to distinguish from video found on distributors such as YouTube and TikTok. 7 The content available across these services is wide-ranging and difficult to reliably organize by service.
In addition to the technological change that has blurred categories among social and other forms of media, a second conceptual challenge derives from the multiplicity of “features” that enables many different user experiences within a single service. Our interviews indicated most users regularly engage a narrow range of these features although there is great variation in what features are used across participants. Consequently, knowing that certain demographic groups or even a particular human spends 2 hours daily on Facebook tells us very little about that experience. It might involve reading and responding to messages in the groups they belong to, searching Marketplace, watching Reels in algorithm-generated feeds, or scrolling through feeds of followed content. While this variation within service is a bigger problem for conceptualization related specifically to social media, it also is relevant to this article’s examination of hosted video because of how the extensive video use on these services is easily obscured, especially by assumptions that maintain expectation that using “social media” remains defined by experiences characteristic of its social networking origins. The usage data from Meta (2024) suggests the scale of the behavior and makes clear that watching video has become a core part of Facebook and Instagram use but does not offer insight into what users are watching. Our interviews indicated profound variation in hosted video watching routines and content.
This second challenge of a multiplicity of features enabling different experiences can be addressed by recognizing how video experience has expanded over a century of once-new distribution technologies with different affordances. Until Internet distribution, what viewers could “do” with video was so limited that audience scholars focused little on it and instead focused on meaning-making and in-home viewing dynamics (Brooker and Jermyn, 2003). Successive advancement in video distribution has increased viewers’ content choice and enabled much more purposive video use. 8 The differences among the types of video content and how hosted video services allow viewers to watch requires identifying the variation among the “features” available within a single service and establishing a shared language to discuss features consistent across several services to enable higher-level conceptualization.
“Features” are the specific tools offered within a service that differentiate video characteristics (typical length, frame orientation, duration of availability on the app) and functionality (the affordances engineered into the feature). Content discovery mechanism is also an important differentiation of features: some are purely algorithmic, some blend algorithm and viewer input through “following,” and others allow viewers to search for specific content. For example, “Stories” is a feature available on Instagram that enables users to watch short videos, images, or text posted by followed accounts that disappear after 24 hours of posting, while “Reels” is a feature that offers an infinite scroll of short-form, vertical videos, from accounts algorithmically recommended by the service based on the user’s activity on the app. Similar features to Stories and Reels – albeit termed differently – can be found on other social media and hosted video services such as Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube. Our interviews revealed that these differences in content, functionality, and mechanisms for surfacing content led viewers to use a single service in different ways and even for a single viewer to use it in different ways at different times.
Each service enables several video experiences that generally cluster into five “encounters,” or viewer experiences derived from a combination of content, functionality, and discoverability. Naming and then investigating encounters enables us to talk about differently named features that offer comparable functionality across different services and to identify differences in use of a single service. We will draw from our interview findings that offer greater detail about how participants discuss the use of hosted video in accord with these encounters in later sections, but it is worth noting here that most users have individualized routines for their primary and less regularly used services that leads “typical” use to include only a few of these encounters (Table 1).
Hosted video encounters, created by authors.
Notably, each encounter identifies different experiences with videos and often different types of videos. These differences can be subtle, but explanations from research participants suggest distinct preferences for certain encounters over others, although often those preferences are situational. For instance, viewers recognize that differences between Exploring and Following deliver different experiences and consequently are useful in pursuit of different motives.
I think the For You page [is the best TikTok feature] just because it’s always got new content that you haven’t really seen, whereas with the Following page, I don’t know. . . it is videos by creators that you know, but some creators I follow I don’t want to watch every single thing they make. Some of the videos are less interesting, whereas the For You page is just really attuned to what I like to watch in that moment (Chloe, late 20s) I look a lot at people’s Stories. [. . .]. I can’t say I ever have [clicked on the Reels tab on Instagram], I didn’t even realize that there was a page just for Reels. If a Reel just comes up in my feed, [then] that’s how I consume it. Or if I have gone specifically to someone’s page and look for them. (Phoebe, late 30s)
Chloe’s comparison of TikTok’s “For You” and “Following” features and Phoebe’s description of using features on Instagram illustrate a key difference between Exploring and Following as encounters. The uses can be similar – looking for appealing content, updating on “what’s going on” – but the content on offer differentiates them into different experiences. When discussing the reason for turning to Exploring features, they note wanting to discover new and unexpected content based on suggestions from the algorithms – which may or may not be perceived as a “good” suggestion, but something novel. In contrast, Following limits the videos to the accounts viewers know and follow, which delivers a more expected experience.
For Chloe, the experience of TikTok’s “For You” page is positive because it offers her something unexpected (but probably attuned to her tastes), while Phoebe prefers to access her feed or Stories as it will show her content from accounts that she knows and follows. Participants also associate Exploring with watching videos from unknown creators rather than people they personally know, whereas Following is related with accessing content from both people they personally know (friends, acquaintances, family members) and accounts that produce content they are interested in (e.g. influencers, a sports team they support, artists, brands).
Our interviews revealed viewers are aware of distinct encounters that derive from a blending of engineered functionality that enables different experiences, that then are shaped by norms adopted by video creators, and strategic use of features by viewers – a negotiation between technology and users consistent with the circuit of culture framework (duGay et al., 1997). In another case, viewers Search when seeking more specific content than what Following or Exploring deliver. Searching provides a more targeted type of viewing used when participants are looking for a specific video, channel, or topic as when searching how-to videos or highlights from a sports match. Searching is also used when users are looking for broader topics of personal interests such as “makeup,” or a specific type of car they are looking to buy or modify. Crucially, nearly all participants discussed engaging in different hosted video encounters at different times for different reasons. Prioritized encounters vary across viewers and within the daily use of a single viewer.
Establishing the range of video encounters is a necessary precursor to our primary aim for the article: exploring key uses of hosted video and analyzing how they are both consistent with and distinct from use of other subfields of video experience. The encounters allow us to organize the variation of experience possible within a single service and to connect experiences across similar features in different services. Our inquiry was driven by the aim of developing an evidence-based understanding of how and why viewers use different hosted video services and features and how they regard them as related to use of other subfields of video.
Understanding different hosted video uses
The interview evidence helps to conceptualize how viewers pursue different individual aims across the diverse array of video material now available to them – and this diversity of content and the prevalence of curating personal media streams through strategic following emerged strongly in the interviews. Through fieldwork that asked participants to enact a typical “session” of social media use along with direct questions about habitual use of other hosted video and inquiry about their aims of use, we identified four pervasive uses: pursuit of personal favorite content, pursuit of specific content, to connect through sharing, and to fill time. These reasons for turning to hosted video substantially reproduce the aims and reasons for viewing recounted in the scholarship on television viewing, though with some notable expansion that is tied to differences in the content and activities enabled by the industrial conditions of the hosted video subfield. To be clear, we do not suggest the four uses we discuss here are exhaustive.
The fieldwork illustrates that watching hosted video – as the case of many other video experiences – is too internally varied to approach with singularity: Viewers behave differently from each other and any single viewer uses hosted video for different ends at different times. This is not surprising, indeed, decades of uses and gratifications and television audience studies research found a similar range of use; variation that has also been identified in interviews about social media use (Whiting and Williams, 2013). The participants revealed considerable intentionality in feature and service selection. Such audience “activity” is unsurprising given the history of initial assumptions versus evidence related to other forms of video use (Morley, 1993). In sum, the reasons for and explanations of hosted video viewing offered by participants align well with article’s broader conceptual argument that media scholarship incorporate hosted video viewing as subfield of video experience and that hosted video use can be best conceptualized by drawing from – and updating – longer traditions of investigating the role of video in culture.
Enjoying MY stuff
Participants most commonly used hosted video in pursuit of personal favorite content. When asked to reflect on the video watched on YouTube or in social media feeds relative to other subfields of video, replies emphasized a particularity of content that was precisely tuned to personal interests and often unavailable elsewhere. To be clear, no participant used hosted video to the exclusion of all other forms of video, but the key point of differentiation resulted from access to content for which other video experience did not offer a suitable substitute.
Many noted that the specificity and depth of what they could access with hosted video was desirable precisely because it was not available from other subfields of video that produce content under industrial dynamics that require much broader audiences. This reason for engaging with hosted video consequently fits well within common viewing motivations typical of other subfields of video where viewers have long pursued content of interest. But hosted video offers a distinctive experience because viewers are able to access videos that are much more reflective of specific tastes and sensibilities. Following was the encounter participants most commonly used to pursue content generally of interest.
Participants referenced valuing a range of content that did not bifurcate into motivations such as to be “entertained” or “informed” that have framed much previous gratifications research. Notably several spoke strongly against wanting or watching “news” but recounted considerable viewing of content clearly valued for information or learning. Their use suggested the need for a more encompassing concept, such as seeking enrichment, that allows for differences in interests and sensibilities that lead some to be deeply fulfilled by detailed gardening insight, others by clever comedy, and others yet by sophisticated assessment of the news of the day.
Hosted video delivers content that is more precisely in line with particular interests, passions, and sensibilities than is available in other video subfields, and the archive features of hosted video particularly distinguish what it can offer relative to other forms of video. Several in the 25 to 35- year-old age range
9
relied extensively on YouTube because of the availability of content connected to specific interests or sensibilities. For example: I try to nurture my subscription box [on YouTube] a little bit as well. [. . .] Like, sports are just never-ending. It’s always there. [. . .] And same for all these mini-documentaries about all sorts of things. . . there’s no [specific] topic. I really don’t know, it’s just the channel itself. I know they are going to produce something interesting. I don’t really know what it’s about, but it’s gonna be nice. (Lachlan, early 30s) [On YouTube] it’s always either very technically-focused because I’m an engineer, so there are about a million nerdy engineering channels that I can have a look at. It’s also the main place that I get my news. So, any ABC video or any news outlet, I’m always getting it through YouTube, and then there’s a few other kind-of-random special interests [. . .] I’ll always follow Formula One, or Moto GP, or anything like that. And then there’s just, like a random set of other strange things that I find interesting. [. . .] I found myself really into the world of aviation, and there’s just about a million YouTube channels out there, which you can just dive in and soak it all up. I think I’ve subscribed to maybe five- or six-hundred channels, so there’s a lot. (Ethan, late 20s)
Participants recognize the role that algorithms play and explained how they try to curate their feeds for certain services to show certain types of content. Several spoke of preferring certain algorithms over others for their capacity to deliver content generally of interest (although no service consistently preferred).
So, for me, I use YouTube a lot, and I go in the homepage, because I feel like it already knows me very well, and it just shows me what I need, what they think I want to watch. (Alice, late 20s) [hosted video on Instagram or WeChat] is so much more specific [than in other services], and I find myself discovering so much more niche subgenres [. . .] and, like, I go on comments so much [. . .] finding people who can relate to it, even some humorous comments under it, is so much more enjoyable than, I guess, going to YouTube, where it’s a lot more detached, and you’d probably have to go down a steeper rabbit hole to find stuff that is a bit more niche and tailored to you. (Betsy, early 20s)
One instance in which hosted video increasingly has come to substitute for linear viewing emerged when we specifically asked participants that had not mentioned watching much or any television. Though several recounted daily newscast viewing or watching sports, it became clear that daily routines that once commonly involved turning on a television to see “what’s on’” are being replaced with a longer session of scrolling social media – with much time spent watching video – or watching YouTube. Instead of investigating “what’s on” television, participants without a specific aim find investigating “what’s in my feed” or exploring what the service is suggesting more reliable for this viewing motivation.
Give me something specific
Participants’ pursuit of specific content is related to their use of hosted video for general enjoyment and enrichment, it may even be a subset of that aim, but we highlight it as a distinctive use here. In this use, viewers seek videos related to precise titles or specific content. Separate from the more general use just highlighted, participants search and use features that allow them to browse for specific content or accounts (known and preferred content creators with regularized content, e.g. “Vlog Brothers,” “The United Stand,” “Never Too Small”). Often Searching delivers this content or viewers find it through followed channels/creators that regularly post new content that is viewed with the routine of breakfast television or television newscasts rather than haphazardly finding it in a feed. Much of this viewing is “hidden” in popular culture because audience scale is so small, but it is very important to viewers.
This is a subtle but meaningful difference in viewing that also can be identified in uses of other subfields of video, but hosted video affords viewers much greater control in accessing video and a much broader range of video than typical of other video subfields.
I would only use YouTube if I want to, like inform myself of something. So, if I’m looking for something in particular, I’ll search it on YouTube. (Ava, early 20s) If I’m interested in a subject, I’ll go searching. Like, I’m into my cars and so, if there’s stuff I’m looking for. . . like, about Datsun. I want to see everyone else’s Datsun, I will definitely check in on that. (Don, early 40s)
The use of pursuing specific content is in no way new to the cultural uses of video and needs less explanation than other uses. This is generally true of going to the cinema, of watching owned or rented video, of sitting down to watch a particular title on television, or how streaming services that deliver on-demand video are sometimes used. Clearly it is not an unparalleled use of video, however, the ability to instantaneously access video about virtually anything is different from what other video subfields offer, and it is a very widely used video practice.
Connection through sharing
Another distinctive use is both unprecedented – not something the field of video has offered – and unparalleled – not offered by any other subfield of video in precisely this way. Separate from pursuing general or specific interests or filling time, participants also discussed the value of encounters that enabled them to view the latest posts or recommended viewing from family or friends.
There are two related components to this viewing that is premised more on interpersonal human connection than engaging with the performative media content that aims to achieve wide scope. In one case, the Following encounter enables viewers to create periscopes into the worlds of friends, family, and others of interest. “I wonder what is going on with” or “I wonder what Jane has been doing” – is a different viewing motivation than filling time or pursing interests.
I think the main reason I would go on Instagram or Facebook to watch videos, would be to see what friends have posted. And the stories at the top because that’s the first thing you see when you open either of the apps. And. . . you also get notifications of it. Like, “this person has just recently updated their story” and you go, “Ah, okay, what have they posted?” And it just continues you’re going next, and next, and next. But it’s not really for any purpose other than feeling like I’m updating myself on other people’s lives. (Ella, early 30s)
The second component of this more connection-rooted use is related to the Checking/Sharing encounter. It involves watching shared videos, as participants described viewing videos sent from friends and family as a separate mode of use, and often their first encounter when going to a service. Much of this viewing, which highlights human curation that exists in services typically framed in terms of algorithmic feeds, is of videos shared through private messages (e.g. Instagram’s Direct Messaging, Facebook Messager, or WhatsApp).
Interviewees also reported frequently sharing videos with their friends or family members as a form of connection and communication. Through this sharing, friends and family operate as human algorithms that may reliably deliver relevant videos based on their personal relationship.
I think for me, I prefer watching Instagram Reels because everyone is on Instagram. And when I find something funny, I can just share it to people. (Audrey, late 20s) To a degree, my main communication with friends that live in other countries is through sending memes or Reels on Instagram. [. . .] and they’ll send them back, and then [I’ll be] reacting to theirs, and then just messaging on Facebook Messenger (Linda, early 30s) I use [Instagram and TikTok] as a way to check out what my friends have sent me, rather than see what the algorithm is going to do for me. Because, yeah, everyone else will happily send me funny things or interesting things to look at, and that’s mainly how I use it. If I really run out of suggestions from friends, then I’ll just scroll and scroll and scroll (Ethan, late 20s)
Participants noted that the shared videos could expand their feeds in ways they appreciated. Ella (early 30s) explained that her husband’s sense of humor leads to very different videos in his feeds and notices receiving videos in her feed that likely result from the videos he’s shared. Likewise, her mom sends a video of a new recipe almost daily, which is content she wouldn’t have received or searched for but appreciates seeing. It is not only the functionality of hosted video services that allows sharing but also their particular industrial dynamics that allow users to create and share videos that enable the range of material on offer and the need to curate for others through sharing.
Connection has also long figured as an important motive in television and cinema viewing, but in those cases, it is typically a shared experience; people view together for connection rather than achieving that connection by using video as the form of communication. Viewing hosted video tends to be more individualized; a 2023 representative survey of Australians 18 + found only 15% of time spent watching “social media video” involved always or mainly viewing with others, while 43% of time spent watching television and 56% spent watching movies was always or mostly with others (Lotz and McCutcheon 2023b). The motive of connection through sharing continues a feature of other forms of video experience, although how connection is achieved varies.
To fill time
Filling time was a key use, but also particular – not all hosted video use is filling time. The mobile accessibility of hosted video on phones enables its use in all kinds of “in between” moments throughout the day, and participants consistently described this use as something to do when they don’t want to think. Some people prefer the ease of algorithmically selected feeds typical of Exploring when filling time, especially after work. Many described it as an activity done when they have limited time to spare, for example in a work break, commuting, or while in the bathroom. 10
Participants described a drive for a more passive experience of entertainment when filling time that can be reasonably understood as not significantly different from how other sectors of video have been used at some times. The key difference is that video wasn’t previously mobile, so video now can be used in instances that previously favored print or audio forms.
[I watch] short videos that are quickly entertaining and over really quickly and it’s not a big commitment like a TV series or a movie and can be fitted in between as the kettle is boiling (Ella, early 30s) I think, also, that during the day, like in between work, doing an email, or at lunch, my scrolling is a lot more, I guess, unfiltered, not targeted, more random. I don’t really care what it is. It’s just something to fill the time. (Connor, early 30s)
Relative to how people have used other subfields of video to fill time, a key difference is the suitability of hosted video to viewing in more places and throughout day. As evidenced by many of these participants, mobility – even within the home – is a crucial differentiator from the way other subfields of video are most commonly used; although video from other subfields can be viewed with similar mobility, that isn’t how participants preferred to view them.
Conclusion
Most participants described using hosted video services for all four reasons. This highlights the need to conceptualize hosted video use in ecological rather than categorical ways to allow for plurality and variation (Ito et al., 2010). All hosted video use is not the same, different people use it for different reasons at any time, and an individual might use it for different reasons throughout any day. This suggests the complexity of conceptualizing hosted video use, but notably does not suggest complexity profoundly greater than underlies the use of other video subfields. Rather, the participant accounts suggest that the significant changes to how viewers can engage with other subfields of video require comparable investigation into the varied uses and purposes of those forms of video.
The interview data presented in this article that identifies commonality across and variation within hosted video services may not be surprising but little research has explored how individuals construct media diets from the comprehensive range of media now available and the varying motivations of that use. Our empirical work in this area remains early stage; we’ll next test findings in nationally representative surveys and pursue interviews with young adult users. The interview data strongly suggest many common discursive frames that flatten social media use to behaviors and motives common in the early 2010s or to the behaviors common among younger users are missing a broader picture of use. Organizing the use of hosted video into encounters builds a vocabulary to address the variation of use and assists in the development of more comprehensive understanding of the personal and cultural purposes of hosted video.
It is vital for research in this area to proceed with wide acknowledgment of the variation of experiences delivered by and reasons for hosted video use. Our brief analysis places hosted video content in conversation with other forms of video to illustrate the often-subtle differences that enable hosted video to serve distinct purposes that are complementary rather than purely competing for viewers’ time. Shifting from investigating what services viewers use and with what frequency – as has been the focus of an inordinate amount of government and industry research – to why they use a complement of video and how different encounters with different services fulfill different motives is needed for deeper understanding.
Our interest in exploring whether there is evidence to warrant pulling hosted video into a broader field of viewing is also tied to aims of bringing the methods and approaches of audience studies (Ang, 1991; Gray, 1992; Morley, 1986; Morley and Brunsdon, 1999) to a different era of media and video use. This tradition of research proved crucial to resetting understandings of the cultural role of television in society and helped move beyond functionalist assumptions that have reappeared in current panics regarding social media use, TikTok, and the diminishing role of public service and commercial broadcasters as a result of advertisers shifting funds from these legacy services. Audience studies approaches offer tools for understanding video use across a range of video subfields that will aid development of more scalable and flexible conceptualization.
As empirical audience studies research identified the “active audience,” our interviews suggest a “deliberate user.” We do not dispute the agenda-setting and gatekeeping roles algorithms can play, but our interviews indicated users actively engage many strategies to increase their ability to receive what they want from hosted video services. Constructs of use that imagine passive users captive to feeds beyond their control over attribute technological and corporate agency. Such concerns are important and must remain part of critical analysis, but given the paucity of user-specific, qualitative research, our findings suggest a need for caution in overattributing platform and algorithm control due to an underdeveloped evidence base of individual-specific use. Motives, deliberate strategies, and meaning making cannot be intuited from big data approaches.
Investigating hosted video through an approach that prioritizes the value it provides to viewers rather than by looking for behavior particular to a single service or feature helps build knowledge and understanding that will withstand the inevitable launch of new services and changes in available features/components. Of course, other types of research questions, such as those that foreground industrial concerns have good reason to organize the field of contemporary video in other ways to account for their particular ownership, business model, or algorithm, but such framing hides the integration of hosted video with other forms of video use now common.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Fieldwork was supported by funding from the Digital Media Research Centre and Queensland University of Technology.
