Chapter 7: The Role of Cultural YouTube Channels in Developing Critical Thinking Among Visual Design Students: A Field Study at Bahrain Polytechnic

This study aims to explore the role played by YouTube cultural channels in developing critical thinking skills among students of the Visual Design major at Bahrain Polytechnic and how these could help them develop constructive criticism. This study is predicated on the basis that YouTube’s cultural content helps students analyze design techniques and improve critical thinking. The paper also discusses how students are challenged in verifying the credibility and quality of the cultural information on YouTube, as well as the challenges due to the excessive number of advertisements or inappropriate content. Nonetheless, the study focuses on how such channels influence students’ creativity and how they can develop their creative skills by engaging with various cultural content. This study was conducted on a sample of 162 male and female students from the visual design major at Bahrain Polytechnic, located in the Kingdom of Bahrain, using a descriptive-analytical approach. It also leaned on the Cultivation Theory, which points to the influence of media on the development of individuals’ concepts and ideas. From the results, it can be determined that most participants were female and that most students were exposed to cultural YouTube channels from one period to another. The Pearson test revealed a positive correlation between media exposure to these channels and students’ improved critical thinking and creativity. The study suggests stimulating cultural content creation to include valuable and accurate materials, decreasing commercial ads in educational videos, and including cultural YouTube channels as supplementary tools of education within curricula.