Abstract:

The position of children as content producers among the possibilities offered by technological developments on social media platforms is the starting point of this study. In recent years, children, who have become effective members of the advertising market on social media especially on YouTube platform with their parentally-managed channels, are called kidfluencers. However, as a matter of fact, kidfluencer brings along some issues related to the right to be a child, especially the commodification of child labor and the violation of privacy, inherent in digitalization and ethical relationality. In this study, our aim is to analyze the production practices of kidfluencers on YouTube from the perspective of the concept of sharenting, which is a concept that conveys the digital labor of the child and the role of parents as the sustaining power of kidfluencer. Accordingly, in order to present a versatile view, channels of two YouTube kidfluencers who have earned the most financial gain on an international and national scale were analyzed comparatively by being subjected to content analysis. Within the framework of the findings obtained in the study, differences were determined in the subject and production styles of the video contents of the two channels; it was determined that similar sharenting practices were carried out in the channels, it was concluded that children participated in the production process passively as full-time workers and their privacy was violated.