Bourdieu Perspektifinden Sınıfsal İlişkileri Okumak: Youtuberların Simgesel Şiddetin Üretimine Etkisi
Öz
Televizyon, eğitim, sanat ve edebiyat gibi çeşitli alanlarda yapmış olduğu araştırma ve analizlerle kültürel üretim ve tüketim süreçlerini inceleyen Pierre Bourdieu, tüketicilerin habitusuna ve alandaki eylemlerine odaklanarak bir kültür kuramı oluşturur. Sosyal medya da üretici ve kullanıcıları ile düşünüldüğünde Bourdieu’nün temel kavramlarından biri olan alanı işaret etmektedir. Sosyal medya, Bourdieu’cü perspektiften bakıldığında habitusların mücadele alanı olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır ve bu mecralar günümüzde daha çok kullanıcı odaklı bir görünüme sahip olsa da kullanıcılar, kendilerine sunulmuş olan bu alanlarda çeşitli sınıfsal ilişkilerin üreticisi ve temsilcisi konumunda olabilmektedirler. Youtube fenomenleri ya da Youtuberlar, sosyal medya alanında bu konuda düşünülmesi gereken önemli etkileyicilerdir. Bu çalışmada, sınıfsal tahakküm ilişkilerinin dijital dünyaya taşınması sorunsalından yola çıkılarak amaçlı örneklem yoluyla belirlenen iki Youtuber Bourdieu’nün sosyolojisi çerçevesinde incelenmiştir. Çalışmanın temel amacı, Bourdieu’nün sınıf, beğeni ve simgesel sermaye kavramları temelinde Youtuberler’ın sınıfsal farklılıkların üreticisi ve temsilcisi olup olmadıklarını ortaya koymaktır. Boomsocial verilerine göre takipçi sayısı en yüksek iki kanal olan Danla Bilic ve Merve Özkaynak’ın üç videosu netnografik analiz yöntemi ile ele alınmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda her iki Youtuber’ın da hâkim sınıfların sahip olduğu simgesel formları sosyal medya alanında takipçilerine sundukları ve sınıfsal ikilikleri üreten temsilciler oldukları tespit edilmiştir.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Analyzing Class Relations from the Perspective of Bourdieu: The Influence of Youtubers in the Production of Symbolic Violence
Öz
Class differences, struggles between classes, and the relationships of domination are as old as human history. The cultural, economic, social and symbolic struggles that take place between classes in terms of relationships, have brought many questions from the past to the present. “How one class’ superiority over another is realized, what are the tools in the production and dissemination of these class struggles and relations of domination”, are among the questions that the researchers focus on.
Pierre Bourdieu is one of the leading names seeking answers to these questions in the field of sociology and coming to the fore with his sociological perspective. Bourdieu tries to explain the cultural production and consumption processes within the framework of the concept of class, with interdisciplinary field studies such as television, education, school, art and literature. The famous sociologist, who tries to overcome the dualism of objectivity and subjectivity with the concept of habitus, defines habitus as the individual’s characteristic sets of tendency. The habitus that emerges with the combination of fields and institutions must have various capitals in order to survive in the social space. Bourdieu examines these capitals under four main headings: social, economic, cultural and symbolic.
One of the concepts that should be handled within the concept of capital is the field. The field contains individual and collective struggles. The position of social actors in social space is important in relational context. In terms of their location, survival depends on capital ownership and habitus. In this framework, areas have a semi-autonomous structure. In the field, there are struggles between the classes, symbolically, on the basis of their lifestyles and taste. Pierre Bourdieu, who problematizes these symbolic struggles with the concept of symbolic violence, states that, there are symbolic struggles between classes and that the legitimacy of the ruling class is realized with the consent of social agents. At this point, distinctions arise between classes. Judgments of taste are shaped as hierarchical practices such as beautiful / ugly, expensive / cheap, high / low.
The symbolic distinctions that emerge in the social space and feed the habitus, bear the traces of the oppositions that structure bodily practices. In this sense, one of the most important surfaces of symbolic violence is the body. The structuring of the bodies within the understanding of taste takes place through the internalization of domination. Without any physical force, bodily practices as a result of the consent of the social agent are interwoven with the cultural and symbolic values of the ruling class. Symbolic power implants perceptions and predispositions on the bodies of those who are ruled unwittingly (Bourdieu, 2015c). Today, one of the areas where symbolic forces struggle in the digital world is social media.
Social media, when viewed from the perspective of Bourdieu, emerges as a battleground for habituses, and even though these channels have a more user-oriented view today, users can be the producers and representatives of various class relations in these areas presented to them. Youtube influencers or Youtubers are important influencers to consider in the social media field.
In this study, two Youtubers determined by purposeful sampling, based on the problematic of transferring class domination relations to the digital world, were examined within the framework of Bourdieu's sociology. According to Boomsocial data, the three videos of Danla Bilic and Merve Özkaynak, the two channels with the highest number of followers, were analyzed using netnographic analysis method. The main purpose of the study is to reveal whether Youtubers are producers and representatives of class differences, on the basis of Bourdieu’s concepts of class, taste and symbolic capital.
The study sought answers to three research questions:
Q1: Are youtubers a tool for the visibility of class differences?
Q2: Are youtubers a factor in the emergence of dualities by presenting their habitus to their followers?
Q3: Are the symbolic capital and violence owned by the ruling classes presented to the society and legitimized by the Youtubers in the axis of body and taste judgments?
As a result of the study, it was determined that both Youtubers present the symbolic forms of the ruling classes to their followers in the field of social media and they are the representatives that produce class dualities.
Anahtar Kelimeler
