Video Sharing Strategies of Higher Education Institutions: A research on Universities YouTube Channels in Turkey

With the expansion of new communication technologies, a significant change has started in the field of education and science. Social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter enable researchers to distribute and discuss their scientific and educational contents in a digital environment. This study seeks to understand universities’ video sharing practices on YouTube and asks: For which purposes do universities use YouTube? What kind of streaming strategies do universities implement on this platform? Do they use YouTube efficiently for educational purposes? This study attempts to answer these questions by focusing on official YouTube channels of 182 universities in Turkey. The study uses web-harvesting technique and content analyze methodology to examine universities’ YouTube channels. Results reveal that there are important differences among universities YouTube channels in terms of quality and quantity. In this context, it can be argued that instead of distributing scientific and educational content, universities YouTube channel are used for promotional purposes and webcasting administrative practices. This study suggests a roadmap for the universities to improve their education-based video sharing strategy to facilitate their participation in the scientific video ecosystem