How Mirko Drotschmann Imparts Knowledge Via YouTube

Mirko Drotschmann is a journalist, YouTuber and producer of web videos on history, politics and society. He is also a presenter for ZDF’s TV program “Terra X” and runs the YouTube channels “MrWissen2go” and “MrWissen2go Geschichte” (dedicated specifically to history topics). The latter are now part of funk, the public broadcasters’ online media portfolio. His videos impart knowledge primarily related to politics, current affairs and historical contexts. With several million views per month, he is one of the knowledge mediators with the furthest reach in the German-speaking world.

In his lecture, Drotschmann first set out several reasons why knowledge communication via social media is so successful and why the audience is mostly made up of young consumers. According to him, viewers value the customizable reception of content, for example, and the opportunity to provide feedback via comments and to interact with the community. To substantiate his observations, he presented analysis data from the channel “MrWissen2go Geschichte”, with its focus on history topics, which is often watched by school students and recommended by teachers. During the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting school closures, teachers sent their classes lists of links to YouTube videos. “Since then, I am approached more often on the street,” said Drotschmann, “and my videos are still shown in classrooms today.”

Remain authentic and actively engage viewers

In this context, he says that a well-made video must fulfill similar demands to conventional journalism. The difference, however, is that YouTube also has to do with the specific audience and the authenticity of the protagonists. “For example, I wouldn’t use youth slang in my videos just because I’m addressing a young target group,” he is keen to stress. Encouraging his viewers’ active involvement is very important to him: “That’s why my videos often end with questions aimed at motivating people to get to grips with the topic, evaluate it critically and develop their own opinion about it.”

For the most part, Drotschmann is solely responsible for the “MrWissen2go” channel and for creating corresponding content. He chooses the topics, writes the scripts and produces the films in his own basement. According to Drotschmann, it usually takes a week to make a video. In exceptional cases and for topics hot-off-the-press, he can do it in six hours. “But you can spot that because then I’ve also edited the videos myself,” he says. For “MrWissen2go Geschichte”, with its focus on history topics, he works with a team of writers. To conclude his lecture, Drotschmann emphasized the importance of not being carried away too much by a platform’s algorithms. Although dependent on what is shown and gathers clicks on the larger platforms, as a journalist and a contributor to the public broadcasters’ media portfolio it is also necessary, he says, to stay relevant and reliable: A balancing act that Drotschmann – with around 2.4 million subscribers to his channel – evidently manages quite well.

The Knowledge Makers

“Die Wissensmacher” (“The Knowledge Makers”) is a lecture series launched in 2003. It is organized by the Chair of Science Journalism at TU Dortmund University in cooperation with the Medical Faculty and Corporate Communications at Ruhr University Bochum. Every winter semester, around a dozen media experts are invited to TU Dortmund University to hold lectures and give a glimpse behind the scenes of their everyday working lives – for science journalism students, but also for anyone else who is interested.

Lecture series “Die Wissensmacher” (“The Knowledge Makers”)

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