Ozan Aşık is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Bursa Uludag University in Turkey. He has been working on the sociology of journalism since his PhD study at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Aşık is currently moving his research toward examining the platformization of journalism and news consumption with a contextual focus on social polarization and authoritarianism.
What social conditions and resources shape the efforts of journalist YouTubers to create public impact? My talk addresses this question based on my recent research, which examines how YouTube’s platform rules, technologies, and affordances influence Turkish journalists’ attempts to gain symbolic power as opinion leaders through the lens of Bourdieusian sociology. Digital platforms introduce new resources, possibilities, and limitations into the emerging digital journalistic field to acquire the power to shape public discourse. To explore this change, my colleague and I interviewed 14 journalist YouTubers – many of whom are former news anchors and editors who now produce critical political commentary, often reaching larger audiences than traditional media outlets. The research will first illustrate the newly emerging field relations of journalism on YouTube, which are characterized by the de-institutionalization and platformization of the field. Second, our findings will demonstrate how Turkish journalist YouTubers navigate the reconfigured field to acquire different forms of capital so they can enhance their symbolic power to shape public opinion and influence current political debates in Turkey.
