Özet:

Social media is widely used today as a digital communication tool where users create, share and interact with content through internet-based platforms. While social media platforms bring new digital habits to individuals' lives, children acquire different digital skills as active participants in this transforming world. One of these skills is producing and publishing content on the social media platform YouTube. These published contents turn into earnings for some children. Thus, unlike the conventional concept of child labor, a brand new field of work supported by technology and involving the digital labor of children emerges. The main starting point here is the digitalization of traditional child labor. In this context, this study aims to understand how YouTuber children are interpreted by the children who watch them and whether they are aware that they are actually child laborers. When the studies were examined, it was noticed that there was a lack of studies on the understanding of digital child labor by the direct audience children and it was thought that the research would contribute to the literature in this respect. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 children between the ages of 5-13 who follow YouTube children's channels, and the interviews were coded and analyzed using MAXQDA data analysis software. It was concluded that the participant children did not see such digital activities as labor or work activities in the traditional sense, and therefore did not understand YouTuber children as child laborers, on the contrary, they thought that they were having fun with their family and earning money from this entertainment.

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