This research project was part of a larger university initiative for creating open-access digital content. With the intention of expanding the number of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous users interacting with this content, this project sought out to determine the extent of racial and ethnic representation in university media. 

I developed a research plan for this project that outlined my research methodology: collecting data from publicly available sources, a timeline of four months, and designating myself as the principal investigator for this project.

Over the span of four months, I reviewed over 1,500 university videos, collecting metadata on the video itself and qualitative data on the presenter(s) in the video. Data collection was done through YouTube and included reviewing 30+ channels with university-affiliated media. I documented each video’s topic, duration, view count, likes, channel, date posted, and the presenter’s race and gender if applicable. 

Any videos posted after December 31, 2023 were not included, and all statistics were updated within the first week of 2024 to ensure accurate view counts and likes. I primarily reviewed videos, but also included YouTube Shorts for channels that key stakeholders had deemed particularly important.

I began the data analysis process by identifying patterns within the data and examining relationships between several variables. This was an exploratory research study so specific questions were not defined at the start, but I developed several research questions during the analysis process. 

Some relationships that were especially interesting included the disparity in view count and likes count for white and non-white presenters, the contrast in which video topics were discussed by presenters of different races/ethnicities, and the total number of videos that featured presenters of each race/ethnicity. 

I also reviewed the comments sections of multiple channels to get a sense of how viewers felt about the video presenters, which yielded informative results about the demographics of presenters who receive more “trolling” comments.