Deleveraging Creative Capital: A Decade of YouTube Campaigning

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to improve understanding of how democratized video technology is changing the market for video communication during political campaigns. The same content analysis methodology was applied to United States senate campaign YouTube videos during both the 2006 election when YouTube first made its mark on politics and the 2016 election a decade later. The evidence does not support the theory that democratized video technology will produce new winners communicating in new ways about political campaigns. The 2016 election was marked by a slight increase in the proportion of repurposed television ads compared to the 2006 election. Over the course of its first decade, the market for political campaign communication on YouTube has increasingly struggled to attract investors of creative capital.