Digital capitalism and the surveillance culture: An analysis of the self-formation in the social media via Youtube

Today, with the postmodern consumer society, the traditional surveillance for defense and protection has been replaced by individual curiosity and interests. This curiosity and interest have turned into watching the lives of others through social media, as it can be in any subject. The change in surveillance motivation via social media has brought the concept of "peep culture" with it. In this context, peep culture has been analyzed with a focus on its relation to capitalism and controlling practices. The digitalization of capitalism has brought along immaterial user labor in social media. Alienation emerging in the capitalist labor process appears as an aspect of digital capitalism in social media platforms such as YouTube. In this thesis, the focus is on YouTube, which is a platform where the audience and user labor does not have a material correspondence and individuals can build a self and perform this self in addition to connecting with content producers (YouTubers). In-depth interview method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used to analyze in detail the processes of alienation, self-building and self-presentation in the context of YouTube use. In the study, the motivations of users to use YouTube, how and how they are included in the consumer society, how they position themselves in the process of surveillance and peep culture, and whether they experience an alienation in their self-constructions and presentations were analyzed.