Dance with algorithms: How do platforms and influencers shape the visibility game in Turkey’s popular culture

This article aims to open a discussion on the platformization of cultural content and the mutual relationships of Turkish YouTubers within the contemporary conditions of capitalism in Turkey. Under the hegemony of platforms, content producers, specifically YouTubers, are grappling with platforms’ oppressive interventions in cultural content. Platforms’ distinct architecture and their authoritative apparatus, such as algorithms, recommendation systems and AI-mediated cultural flows, as major players in new media ecosystems, have created a challenging field for the visibility of cultural content. To explore these reciprocal relationships, this article first analyses 214,127 videos created by Turkish young social media influencers on YouTube channels between March 2019 and March 2025. Then, the article examines Turkish YouTubers’ distinctive communication strategies to overcome the emerging algorithmic culture in Turkey’s new media ecosystem. In this context, my study concludes that the impact of the emerging algorithmic culture has enabled social media influencers to acquire new identities as gatekeepers in the new media ecosystem or prosumers. Therefore, the reciprocal relationships between algorithms and social media influencers must be considered multi-dimensionally, rather than as a simple hegemony of contemporary capitalism.