Abstract:

In the new media where there are many presentations and representations, the audience who are increasingly fragmented, are integrated around different thematic areas, and more specific interests that affect their mass characteristics. In this study, ASMR the phenomenon, which is among the popular contents of YouTube, and has begun to gain a place in the mainstream media, is discussed as a new contextual category that corresponds to the more specific interests of the audience and within the scope of narrowcasting. The expansions that ASMR brings to both narrowcasting and fragmented audience are presented. In this context, ASMR videos were observed by the netnography method during a year on YouTube, 8 Turkish ASMR content creators/ASMRtists were interviewed with, and the audience comments in the three most watched videos of these ASMRtists on YouTube were examined. Among the more significant findings of the study are that the ASMR has 14 content categories in the context of narrowcasting, that the audience who expect relaxation/therapy with ASMR make requests like an active content producer/prosumer, and they need media mediation even so as to fall asleep.

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