ABSTRACT
YouTube’s multimedia–videos, images, texts, and lists–shift their order and composition under given search engine result pages in accordance with user-generated content, algorithms, and Google’s business models. YouTube dance videos of intangible heritage are viewed and accessed on the site through the platform’s screens, which are produced by its mediated architecture. To be situated within the domain of screendance, analyses of dance videos on YouTube need to incorporate the platform’s screens and the technologies that produce them. The example of sema videos on YouTube provides further research on the impact that the platform’s architecture or screens can have on the meaning of individual videos, a stance that builds upon previous research. To analyze YouTube’s screens of the sema from aesthetic, cultural, and political perspectives, various frames of meaning-making are integrated into the analysis. YouTube is a commercial platform governed by Google’s business policies that are in place primarily to obtain revenue through video searches.
