Abstract
YouTube which is a social sharing network allows its users to make personal broadcasting. However, through this broadcasting YouTube makes a capital accumulation in a way that is similar to the broadcasting model of the traditional television. While YouTube generates revenue from YouTubers who produce amateur or professional video content, YouTubers earn from followers and viewership rates. This functioning of commercialized social media has reminded “ the audience commodity” discussions brought to the literature in the 1970s by Dallas Walker Smythe. Smythe argues that the original commodity produced in mass media supported by advertising is the audience. The audience is organized as a commodity by mass media and this commodity is sold to the advertisers. In this study, Smtyhe’s approach “the audience commodity” was adapted to the working of YouTube for the purpose of understanding the process in which users were marketed to advertisers. For the study, a general description of the YouTube platform was made, then eight Turkish YouTubers popular with content production in different kinds were selected, and online ethnographic method and content analysis method were used together. In the videos of the selected YouTubers, product placement, sponsorship and banner ads were recorded and the positioning of the advertising elements in storytelling was described with the intention of understanding the commodification of the users. In the study, it was concluded that YouTube and YouTubers commodify the users and followers through the content they produce.