Abstract
In its drive to make a profit and avoid copyright challenges, YouTube, the largest online video platform, is becoming a more hospitable place for news organizations that are targeting the medium’s young audience with an attractive fare of raw video and light content. But this changing YouTube environment appears to be less welcoming to the politically motivated online operations that found a voice there in the 2008 presidential election. This article explores the developments and tracks the audience changes to the largest YouTube news and politics sites from just before the election through early 2010. Corporate media were found to be more successful in building large sustained audiences, while online-only operations with a political bent have lost audience share since the election and appear to be confined to a niche.
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