(The Hosting News) – As the digital age has gone on, new forms of media have obviously emerged. One notable outlet has been YouTube. On Monday, Pew Research unveiled a study indicating that the popular video streaming site is increasingly becoming a platform for viewers looking to receive visual news reports.

“Citizens are creating their own videos about news and posting them. They are also actively sharing news videos produced by journalism professionals. And news organizations are taking advantage of citizen content and incorporating it into their journalism. Consumers, in turn, seem to be embracing the interplay in what they watch and share, creating a new kind of television news,” commented Pew via Journalism.org.

Analyzing data in a 15-month timespan, Pew shared statistics showing that majority of news videos on the site covered events on “natural disasters or political upheaval-usually featuring intense visuals.” The top searched story on the streaming video network? The Japanese Earthquake and tsunami. That was followed by those looking for news on the Russian elections that saw former President Vladimir Putin reclaim power. Lastly were videos on middle-eastern issues.

An interesting finding signaled that citizen journalism was at play. According to the results, 39% of the analyzed footage came from regular folks while 51% belonged to news companies. Videos of the news also varied greatly in length.

The content also lacked a bit of personality. The results showed that 65% of them were without a person appearing on screen. Pew also featured a chart showing how more internet users are visiting Internet video sites than ever. YouTube was notably purchased by Google back in 2006. Many news organization maintain YouTube channels to showcase their content via the popular streaming platform.

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