Research Article
BibTex RIS Cite

Ergenlikte YouTube Etkisi: Ergenlerin Kimlik İnşasında YouTuberların Etkisini Keşfetmek

Year 2022, Volume: 18 Issue: 2, 126 - 141, 31.12.2022
https://doi.org/10.17244/eku.1127880

Abstract

Bu çalışmanın amacı ergenlerin kimlik inşasında YouTuberların etkisini araştırmak ve bu süreçte aralarında ne tür etkileşimler olduğunu keşfetmektir. Bu bağlamda, YouTuberların ergenlerin hayatındaki rolü, onların düşünce ve günlük pratiklerine etkilerini incelemektedir. Bu nitel çalışmada, ergenlerin kimlik deneyimleri hakkında derinlemesine bilgi toplamak için çoğunluğu İstanbul’da yaşayan 10 ergenle görüşme yapılarak veri toplanmıştır. Veriler, yorumlayıcı fenomenolojik analiz metodu kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmanın sonuçları YouTuberların ergenlere kimliklerinin duygu, düşünce ve inançlar gibi benzeşen yönlerini fark ettirerek topluma entegre olmalarına katkı sağladıklarını göstermiştir. Bunun yanı sıra, YouTuberlar hem kendi çektikleri videolar hem de bu videolara başkalarının yaptığı yorumlar aracılığıyla, ergenlerin bireyselliklerini fark etmelerinde yardımcı olmaktadırlar. Ayrıca, YouTuberlar sayesinde seçeneklerin araştırması imkanın ve sosyal etkileşim alanının oldukça genişlediği görülmüştür. Yine de, ergenlerin zaman zaman Youtuberlarla fazla özdeşim kurdukları, onlara özendikleri ve onların önerilerini sorgulamadan uyguladıkları ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu bağlamda, ergenlerin ne derece etkilendiklerine dair farkındalıklarının düşük olduğu ve yeni medya okuryazarlığı becerilerinin yetersiz olduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Sonuç olarak, ebeveynler, danışmanlar ve yetkililer için de uygulamaya dönük çıkarımlar tartışılmıştır.

Supporting Institution

Boğaziçi Üniversitesi

References

  • Adams, G. R., & Marshall, S. K. (1996). A developmental social psychology of identity: Understanding the person-in-context. Journal of Adolescence,19(5), 429-442.
  • Andò, R. (2016). The ordinary celebrity: Italian young vloggers and the definition of girlhood. Film, Fashion & Consumption, 5(1), 123–139.
  • Aran-Ramspott, S., Fedele, M., Tarragó, A. (2018). Youtubers’ social functions and their influence on pre- adolescence. Comunicar Journal. 26(57), 71-79.
  • Aukes, A. (2017). A matter of taste: A study on influences of youtube influencers. Utrecht University, Holland.
  • Bentley, A., Earls, M., & O’Brien, M. J. (2011). I’ll have what she’s having: Mapping social behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Berryman, R., & Kavka, M. (2017). ‘I guess a lot of people see me as a big sister or a friend’: The role of intimacy in the celebrification of beauty vloggers. Journal of Gender Studies, 26(3), 307–320.
  • Biggerstaff, D., & Thompson, A. R. (2008). Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): A qualitative methodology of choice in healthcare research. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 5(3), 214–224.
  • Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). YouTube: online video and participatory culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  • Chau, C. (2010). YouTube as a participatory culture. New Directions for Youth Development, 2010(128), 65–74.
  • Davis, K. (2012). Friendship 2.0: Adolescents’ experiences of belonging and self-disclosure online. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 1527–1536.
  • De Jans, S., Cauberghe, V. & Hudders, L. (2019). How an advertising disclosure alerts young adolescents to sponsored vlogs: The moderating role of a peer-based advertising literacy intervention through an informational vlog, Journal of Advertising, 47(4), 309-325.
  • DEFY Media. (2015). Acumen report: Constant content. Retrieved from http://defymedia.com/wpcontent/uploads/2017/11/Acumen-Handout-150212-12.pdf
  • Eftekhar, A., Fullwood, C., & Morris, N. (2014). Capturing personality from Facebook photos and photo-related activities: How much exposure do you need? Computers in Human Behavior, 37, 162–170.
  • Ergen, Y. (2019). Popüler kültürün popüler rol modelleri youtuberlar: İlköğretim çağındaki özel okul öğrencileri üzerine bir araştırma. İnsan ve Toplum, 9(1), 117-153.
  • Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • Ferah, A. B. (2016, October 6). YouTube’un Türkiye kullanıcı profili araştırması. Retrieved from. https://webrazzi.com/2016/10/05/youtubeun-turkiye-kullanici-profili-arastirmasi/.
  • Folkvord, F., Bevelander, K. E., Rozendaal, E., & Hermans, R. (2019). Children’s bonding with popular youtube vloggers and their attitudes toward brand and product endorsements in vlogs: An explorative study. Young Consumers, 20(2), 77-90.
  • Gardner, J., & Lehnert, K. (2016). What’s new about new media? How multi-channel networks work with content creators. Business Horizons, 59(3), 293–302.
  • Gewerc, A., Fraga, F., Rodés, V. (2017). Niños y adolescentes frente a la competencia: Digital entre el teléfono móvil, youtubers y videojuegos. Revista Interuniversitaria De Formación Del Profesorado, 31(2), 171–186.
  • Holmbom, M. (2015). The youtuber: A qualitative study of popular content creators. Umea University, Sweden.
  • Illera, A. E., & Benito, S. M. (2018). The professionalization of YouTubers: The case of Verdeliss and the brands. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73, 37-54.
  • Ivtzan, I., Lomas, T., Hafferon, K., & Worth, P. (2016). Second wave positive psychology: Embracing the dark side of life. London: Routledge.
  • Jensen, L. A., Arnett, J. J., & McKenzie, J. (2011). Globalization and cultural identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 285–301). New York: Springer.
  • Jerslev, A. (2016). In the time of the microcelebrity: Celebrification and the youtuber Zoella. International Journal of Communication, 10, 5233–5251.
  • Kroger, J. (1996). Identity in adolescence: The balance between self and other (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
  • Laursen, B., & Collins, W. A. (2004). Parent-child communication during adolescence. In A. L. Vangelisti (Ed.), LEA's communication series. Handbook of family communication (p. 333–348). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
  • Ledbetter A, Mazer J, DeGroot J, et al. (2011). Attitudes toward online social connection and self-disclosure as predictors of Facebook communication and relational closeness. Communication Research 38(1), 27–53.
  • Lenhart, A., Smith, A., Anderson, M., Duggan, M., Perrin, A. (2015, August 6). Teens, Technology and Friendships. Retrieved from. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/teens-technology-and-friendships/
  • Livingston, Michael. Personal Interview, 20, January 2012.
  • Lovelock, M. (2016). ‘Is every youtuber going to make a coming out video eventually?’ YouTube celebrity video bloggers and lesbian and gay identity. Celebrity Studies, 8(1), 87–103.
  • Marcia, J. E. (1989). Identity and Intervention. Journal of Adolescence, 12 (4), 401-410.
  • Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2006). Designing a qualitative research. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
  • Merriam, S. B. (1995). What can you tell from an N of 1? Issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research. PAACE Journal of Lifelong Learning, 4. 51-60.
  • O’Neil-Hart, C., & Blumenstein, H. (2016, July). Why youtube stars are more influential than traditional celebrities. Retrieved from https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/youtube-stars-influence/.
  • Pelling, E, & White, K. (2009). The theory of planned behavior applied to young people’s use of social networking web sites. CyberPsychology & Behavior 12(6), 755–759.
  • Pereira, S., Moura, P., & Fillol, J. (2018). The youtubers phenomenon: What makes youtube stars so popular for young people? Journal of Communication, 17, 107-123.
  • Pérez-Torres, V., Pastor-Ruiz, Y., & Abarrou-Ben-Boubaker, S. (2018). YouTuber videos and the construction of adolescent identity. Comunicar Journal, 26(55), 61–70.
  • Scolari, C. A., & Fraticelli, D. (2017). The case of the top Spanish YouTubers: Emerging media subjects and discourse practices in the new media ecology. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 1-20.
  • Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
  • Silverman, D. (1985). Qualitative methodology and sociology: Describing the social world. Brookfield, VT: Gower.
  • Stald, G (2008). Mobile identity: Youth, identity, and mobile communication media. In Buckingham, D (eds) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. (pp. 143–164). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Stern, S. (2008). Producing sites, exploring identities: Youth online authorship. In D. Buckingham, (Ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media. (pp. 95–118). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
  • Suing, A., Salazar, G., & Ortiz, C. (2018). Are Latin American youtubers influential? Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Digital Science, 850, 341–348.
  • Tamir, M., Schwartz, S. H., Oishi, S., & Kim, M. Y. (2017). The secret to happiness: Feeling good or feeling right? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(10), 1448–1459.
  • Tolson, A. (2010). A new authenticity? Communicative practices on YouTube. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 277-289.
  • Weber, S. & Mitchell, C. (2008). Imagining, keyboarding, and posting identities: young people and new media technologies. In Buckingham, D. (eds) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. (pp. 25–48). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Valkenburg P.M. and Peter J (2008) Adolescents’ identity experiments on the Internet: consequences for social competence and self-concept unity. Communication Research, 35(2), 208–231.
  • Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2011). Online communication among adolescents: An integrated model of its attraction, opportunities, and risks. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48(2), 121–127.
  • Weiss, R. S. (1995). Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press.
  • Westenberg, W. (2016). The influence of YouTubers on teenagers. Master Thesis. The University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands https://essay.utwente.nl/71094/1/Westenberg_MA_BMS.pdf
  • YouTube (n.d). About YouTube. Retrieved November 29, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/about/.

The YouTube Effect on Adolescence: Exploring the Influences of Youtubers on Adolescents’ Identity Construction

Year 2022, Volume: 18 Issue: 2, 126 - 141, 31.12.2022
https://doi.org/10.17244/eku.1127880

Abstract

This qualitative research study investigated the influence of YouTubers on adolescents’ identity construction by exploring interactions between YouTubers and adolescents. Towards this goal, this study intended to examine YouTubers’ role in adolescents’ lives in terms of mindset and daily practices. In this interpretative phenomenological study, the analyses of the data collected from 10 adolescents through semi-structured interviews revealed that YouTubers guided adolescents to become integrated into the society by noticing the similar aspects of their identities such as feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Furthermore, YouTubers have been found to assist adolescents to discover their individuality through their videos and comments of other viewers on these videos. Also, it has been observed that the exploration option and range of social interactions extended thanks to the YouTubers. However, adolescents sometimes overly identified themselves with the YouTubers, imitated them and implemented the YouTubers’ recommendations without questioning.

References

  • Adams, G. R., & Marshall, S. K. (1996). A developmental social psychology of identity: Understanding the person-in-context. Journal of Adolescence,19(5), 429-442.
  • Andò, R. (2016). The ordinary celebrity: Italian young vloggers and the definition of girlhood. Film, Fashion & Consumption, 5(1), 123–139.
  • Aran-Ramspott, S., Fedele, M., Tarragó, A. (2018). Youtubers’ social functions and their influence on pre- adolescence. Comunicar Journal. 26(57), 71-79.
  • Aukes, A. (2017). A matter of taste: A study on influences of youtube influencers. Utrecht University, Holland.
  • Bentley, A., Earls, M., & O’Brien, M. J. (2011). I’ll have what she’s having: Mapping social behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Berryman, R., & Kavka, M. (2017). ‘I guess a lot of people see me as a big sister or a friend’: The role of intimacy in the celebrification of beauty vloggers. Journal of Gender Studies, 26(3), 307–320.
  • Biggerstaff, D., & Thompson, A. R. (2008). Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): A qualitative methodology of choice in healthcare research. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 5(3), 214–224.
  • Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). YouTube: online video and participatory culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  • Chau, C. (2010). YouTube as a participatory culture. New Directions for Youth Development, 2010(128), 65–74.
  • Davis, K. (2012). Friendship 2.0: Adolescents’ experiences of belonging and self-disclosure online. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 1527–1536.
  • De Jans, S., Cauberghe, V. & Hudders, L. (2019). How an advertising disclosure alerts young adolescents to sponsored vlogs: The moderating role of a peer-based advertising literacy intervention through an informational vlog, Journal of Advertising, 47(4), 309-325.
  • DEFY Media. (2015). Acumen report: Constant content. Retrieved from http://defymedia.com/wpcontent/uploads/2017/11/Acumen-Handout-150212-12.pdf
  • Eftekhar, A., Fullwood, C., & Morris, N. (2014). Capturing personality from Facebook photos and photo-related activities: How much exposure do you need? Computers in Human Behavior, 37, 162–170.
  • Ergen, Y. (2019). Popüler kültürün popüler rol modelleri youtuberlar: İlköğretim çağındaki özel okul öğrencileri üzerine bir araştırma. İnsan ve Toplum, 9(1), 117-153.
  • Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • Ferah, A. B. (2016, October 6). YouTube’un Türkiye kullanıcı profili araştırması. Retrieved from. https://webrazzi.com/2016/10/05/youtubeun-turkiye-kullanici-profili-arastirmasi/.
  • Folkvord, F., Bevelander, K. E., Rozendaal, E., & Hermans, R. (2019). Children’s bonding with popular youtube vloggers and their attitudes toward brand and product endorsements in vlogs: An explorative study. Young Consumers, 20(2), 77-90.
  • Gardner, J., & Lehnert, K. (2016). What’s new about new media? How multi-channel networks work with content creators. Business Horizons, 59(3), 293–302.
  • Gewerc, A., Fraga, F., Rodés, V. (2017). Niños y adolescentes frente a la competencia: Digital entre el teléfono móvil, youtubers y videojuegos. Revista Interuniversitaria De Formación Del Profesorado, 31(2), 171–186.
  • Holmbom, M. (2015). The youtuber: A qualitative study of popular content creators. Umea University, Sweden.
  • Illera, A. E., & Benito, S. M. (2018). The professionalization of YouTubers: The case of Verdeliss and the brands. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73, 37-54.
  • Ivtzan, I., Lomas, T., Hafferon, K., & Worth, P. (2016). Second wave positive psychology: Embracing the dark side of life. London: Routledge.
  • Jensen, L. A., Arnett, J. J., & McKenzie, J. (2011). Globalization and cultural identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 285–301). New York: Springer.
  • Jerslev, A. (2016). In the time of the microcelebrity: Celebrification and the youtuber Zoella. International Journal of Communication, 10, 5233–5251.
  • Kroger, J. (1996). Identity in adolescence: The balance between self and other (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
  • Laursen, B., & Collins, W. A. (2004). Parent-child communication during adolescence. In A. L. Vangelisti (Ed.), LEA's communication series. Handbook of family communication (p. 333–348). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
  • Ledbetter A, Mazer J, DeGroot J, et al. (2011). Attitudes toward online social connection and self-disclosure as predictors of Facebook communication and relational closeness. Communication Research 38(1), 27–53.
  • Lenhart, A., Smith, A., Anderson, M., Duggan, M., Perrin, A. (2015, August 6). Teens, Technology and Friendships. Retrieved from. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/teens-technology-and-friendships/
  • Livingston, Michael. Personal Interview, 20, January 2012.
  • Lovelock, M. (2016). ‘Is every youtuber going to make a coming out video eventually?’ YouTube celebrity video bloggers and lesbian and gay identity. Celebrity Studies, 8(1), 87–103.
  • Marcia, J. E. (1989). Identity and Intervention. Journal of Adolescence, 12 (4), 401-410.
  • Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2006). Designing a qualitative research. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
  • Merriam, S. B. (1995). What can you tell from an N of 1? Issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research. PAACE Journal of Lifelong Learning, 4. 51-60.
  • O’Neil-Hart, C., & Blumenstein, H. (2016, July). Why youtube stars are more influential than traditional celebrities. Retrieved from https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/youtube-stars-influence/.
  • Pelling, E, & White, K. (2009). The theory of planned behavior applied to young people’s use of social networking web sites. CyberPsychology & Behavior 12(6), 755–759.
  • Pereira, S., Moura, P., & Fillol, J. (2018). The youtubers phenomenon: What makes youtube stars so popular for young people? Journal of Communication, 17, 107-123.
  • Pérez-Torres, V., Pastor-Ruiz, Y., & Abarrou-Ben-Boubaker, S. (2018). YouTuber videos and the construction of adolescent identity. Comunicar Journal, 26(55), 61–70.
  • Scolari, C. A., & Fraticelli, D. (2017). The case of the top Spanish YouTubers: Emerging media subjects and discourse practices in the new media ecology. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 1-20.
  • Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
  • Silverman, D. (1985). Qualitative methodology and sociology: Describing the social world. Brookfield, VT: Gower.
  • Stald, G (2008). Mobile identity: Youth, identity, and mobile communication media. In Buckingham, D (eds) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. (pp. 143–164). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Stern, S. (2008). Producing sites, exploring identities: Youth online authorship. In D. Buckingham, (Ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media. (pp. 95–118). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
  • Suing, A., Salazar, G., & Ortiz, C. (2018). Are Latin American youtubers influential? Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Digital Science, 850, 341–348.
  • Tamir, M., Schwartz, S. H., Oishi, S., & Kim, M. Y. (2017). The secret to happiness: Feeling good or feeling right? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(10), 1448–1459.
  • Tolson, A. (2010). A new authenticity? Communicative practices on YouTube. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 277-289.
  • Weber, S. & Mitchell, C. (2008). Imagining, keyboarding, and posting identities: young people and new media technologies. In Buckingham, D. (eds) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. (pp. 25–48). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Valkenburg P.M. and Peter J (2008) Adolescents’ identity experiments on the Internet: consequences for social competence and self-concept unity. Communication Research, 35(2), 208–231.
  • Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2011). Online communication among adolescents: An integrated model of its attraction, opportunities, and risks. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48(2), 121–127.
  • Weiss, R. S. (1995). Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press.
  • Westenberg, W. (2016). The influence of YouTubers on teenagers. Master Thesis. The University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands https://essay.utwente.nl/71094/1/Westenberg_MA_BMS.pdf
  • YouTube (n.d). About YouTube. Retrieved November 29, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/about/.
There are 51 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Studies on Education
Journal Section Makaleler
Authors

Merve Nadide Akbaş 0000-0002-5534-3268

Gulistan Gursel-bilgin 0000-0002-9987-7982

Early Pub Date January 6, 2022
Publication Date December 31, 2022
Submission Date June 8, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 18 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Akbaş, M. N., & Gursel-bilgin, G. (2022). The YouTube Effect on Adolescence: Exploring the Influences of Youtubers on Adolescents’ Identity Construction. Eğitimde Kuram Ve Uygulama, 18(2), 126-141. https://doi.org/10.17244/eku.1127880