Pedagogical Activism and Ideological Duality as seen in YouTube Videos

In March 2018 riots broke out against Muslim minorities in the Kandy district in Central Sri Lanka, in a climate of growing anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. It was said that Facebook and YouTube videos played a key role in inciting the public which lead to communal violence. These videos were produced by both parties, the rioters, and the victims. By adopting Stuart Hall’s theories of encoding and representation, together with Benedict Anderson’s theory of imagined communities, this article undertakes a study of the YouTube videos uploaded during February and March 2018. It examines the encoding strategies, representations and forms of identity, nationalism and corresponding imaginations of these YouTube video content and debates, and maps the content and viewership for their diversity and openness. YouTube exhibits a democratizing and hegemonic duality. The challenge lies in exploiting this duality in developing pedagogical activism and strategies of democratization and socio-political awareness.