YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States

A predominant story about YouTube is 'going viral'. 'Going viral' is about dynamics; changes in views of videos through time. The paper begins with a question about how to move the phrase from vernacular to a concept that political scientists might use. By looking at three possible interpetations of the phrase I show that the 2008 campaign videos of McCain and Obama were unlikely to be characterized as 'going viral.' However, viewing the campaign videos does have a very regular dynamics that can be conceptualized straightforwardly and represented in a simple dynamics equation. By examining each of the approximately 800 videos of the campaign the regularity in the dynamics of viewing these videos is demonstrated. After setting out the general pattern I look at interaction between videos in the campaign that seems to preclude going viral. The final point is that an examination of the impact of exogenous factors needs to start with the general pattern to estimate that impact otherwise the standard/expected views is confounded in the treatment of the exogenous factor.