Inside the Right-Wing YouTube Empire That's Quietly Turning Millennials Into Conservatives - Mother Jones

Inside the Right-Wing YouTube Empire That's Quietly Turning Millennials Into Conservatives - Mother Jones

Left-wing magazine on the success of PragerU: "Canned testimonials aside, I don't doubt PragerU's videos are changing minds. Most of us are fairly ignorant about most things, so what happens when our outlook on a subject is based largely on one slick, accessible video? Knowing little about Native American politics, I found Naomi Schaefer Riley's argument--that American Indian poverty is largely the fault of well-meaning government overreach--pretty persuasive. I'm sure there's another side, but what if fact-checking her thesis isn't high on my priority list?

"The formula is simple enough--a broad range of presenters and topics, a consistent supply of new product, aggressive promotion--but Estrin thinks the real key is brevity. He's seen the liberal academics natter away in lecture-hall videos, taking for granted that busy people will sacrifice an hour to absorb their views on economics or Plato. Even the YouTube videos in the popular Crash Course series are 10 to 12 minutes--too long. 'In the world of the internet, five minutes is the right dosage,' Estrin says. 'You can't get calculus across, but you can get a lot in politics, history, a lot of things.'"