Sensationalism in YouTube news platforms is common in developing countries given amateur content creators having easy access to produce video contents and unhealthy competitions in going viral. This study explores how viral-going sensational stories have ignored journalistic ethical standards in Nepal. Contents of 20 mostly viewed video stories streamed in 14 YouTube news platforms were analyzed to evaluate some core ethical values. The study was focused on whether the sample video stories followed principles of harm minimization; responsibility to sources and audiences; and comprehensiveness in the stories to enhance truthfulness. This study found that the YouTube platforms heavily used negative emotions such as extreme anger, cruelty, heartlessness, cold-heartedness, having no mercy or pity or compassion in their stories with substantial misrepresentation. They blatantly violated ethical principles while covering the two cases which were based on vulnerable and gullible people. The qualitative content analysis analyzed the latent meaning of the contents through the content cloud approach. This paper puts down how unsubstantiated contents flow along with the viral-going culture. It concludes that such a devious role has posed threats to journalistic values. Further, this paper will help to widen the ethical scholarship about rising viral culture and ignorance to ethical principles, particularly by YouTube-based alternative news platforms in developing countries. At theoretical level, this study addresses the literature gap on how sensationalism is promoting buzz culture further harming the vulnerable people.

Authors:
Prakash Acharya, Ohio University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Prakash Acharya is currently Ph.D. Student and Instructor of Record at E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University, USA. A long-time journalist and journalism teacher, Acharya is interested in public policy coverage and audience engagement.

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