Türkiye’de K-Pop Hayranlığı ve Dijital Emek: Twitter Hayran Hesapları
K-Pop Fandom and Digital Labor in Turkey: Twitter Fan Accounts
Yazar: Atikaslan, Hasan Ozan
Dergi: Intermedia International E-journal, Vol. 9 No. 17, 2022
Anahtar kelimeler: Communication and Media Studies ; İletişim ve Medya Çalışmaları ; Kültürötesi hayranlık,Hayran Kültürü,Hallyu,Güney Kore dalgası,K-pop ; Transcultural fandom,Fan culture,Hallyu,Korean Wave,K-pop

Hallyu ya da diğer adıyla Güney Kore dalgası 1990’lı yıllardan itibaren etkisini küresel düzeyde göstermeye başlamıştır. Yaratıcı kültür endüstrisinin bir öğesi olan Hallyu Güney Kore hükümetinin de destekleriyle ülkenin temel ekonomik yapı taşlarından birini oluşturmaktadır. Bu endüstrinin en popüler görünümü olan K-pop yarattığı müzik grupları ile dünyanın birçok yerinde kendilerine hayran toplulukları bulmuştur. Özellikle genç bireylerden oluşan bu hayran toplulukları aynı zamanda dijital yerliler oldukları için hayran etkinliklerini de büyük ölçüde dijital uzamda gerçekleştirmektedir. Bu nedenle yeni medya ekosistemlerinde kültür ötesi hayranlık olgusunun nasıl gerçekleştiğini ve yeniden üretildiğini bu örnekler üzerinden okumak mümkündür. Bu araştırma da netnografi yöntemi ile BTS, Blackpink ve Stray Kids isimli K-pop gruplarının Twitter’da en yüksek takipçiye sahip olan Türkçe hayran hesaplarını incelemiş ve elde ettiği veriler ile bu hayran topluluklarının dijital emeklerini tartışmıştır. Araştırmaya dahil edilen bu Twitter hayran hesaplarının dört farklı dijital emek ortaya koyduğu gözlenmiş ve bunlar platform bildirisi, çeviri, haber ve algoritmaya yönelik eylemler başlıkları altında toplanarak yorumlanmıştır. Araştırma Türkiye’deki kültür ötesi hayran topluluklarının etkinliklerine dair eleştirel bir kesit geliştirmeyi hedeflemiştir.

The phenomenon of transcultural fan communities emerges as an increasingly spoken concept due to the effective use of social media platforms by fan communities. Digital activities of those fan communities are discussed by communication scholars with the concepts of digital labor. The most current and active examples of digital fan communities are Hallyu fan communities. The cultural products of Hallyu, that is, the South Korean Wave, which have developed especially in the last 10 years in Turkey as in the world, have created their own fan communities. The fact that the field where Hallyu is most prominent is South Korean pop music called K-pop makes this cultural product an important example for the conduct of these discussions. K-pop music bands BTS, Blackpink, and Stray Kids are currently very popular on lists. Because of that within the scope of this research, the Turkish fan accounts of those K-pop bands on Twitter were examined.  Netnography was determined as the method of the study. Netnography refers to a qualitative research method conducted in digital space, using data from public forums. Netnography being a cheaper, faster and simpler method than ethnography is seen as its advantages  (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018, s. 229-230).The data obtained between 13 June 2022 and 19 June 2022 with the netnography method were discussed within the framework of the concept of digital labor. The research revealed that these fan accounts show four different types of digital labor; platform notifications, translation, news and algorithmic actions. The obtained data were analyzed by coding and hermeneutic interpretation. Because, as Kozinets, Dolbec and Early (2014) stated, in netnography, the researcher is not only an observer but also a participant. According to them, the researcher creates cultural codes to make sense of virtual social spaces and then interprets communities (s. 270).Mostly the digital fan communities show translation effort as digital labor. In this type of digital labor, fans offer their foreign language knowledge as a cultural capital. In addition, the fans undertake tasks according to their different skills for video editing while translating videos. In these video translations, fans take on video timing, video editing and design tasks. Letters from idols to fans, Wattpad fan fictions, interviews, music videos, live streams of idols, Tweets from other English speaking fans are translating to Turkish by fans.The second most popular type of digital labor is the notifying other fans about platform notifications. In this type of digital labor, those Twitter fan accounts function as a single channel for all other social medias' updates and contents. Like the number of views, streams, clicks and rankings on music and music video sites such as Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music and Youtube are regularly shared from these fan accounts. They also follow and share content about their idols on Instagram, Twitter and V-live platforms. At this point, they provide a kind of media monitoring service to other fans in digital space free of charge. This type of digital labor also requires a capital and usage knowledge of technological equipment. The third most performed type of digital labor was determined as news. The album sales of K-pop bands, the ranking of the songs in the lists they entered in various countries, the daily lives of the idols and their advertising collaborations with some trademarks were evaluated under this digital labor theme. Fan accounts thus maintain the popularity of idols by keeping fans' interactions with their idols up-to-date, and this popularity also provides an economic income, especially for K-pop bands and their companies, such as advertising deals. However, sometimes these Tweets may not contain a direct and explicit advertisement, but brand visibility can be achieved through idols. Sometimes, instead of such official collaborations, the products that idols use in daily life are shared by fan accounts without information that they are an advertisement, and these products are indirectly advertised to fans through idols. As the Tweets collected under this digital labor theme show, fan accounts can contribute to the building and actuality of the idol-fan relationship with their digital effort, as well as advertise brands and products directly or indirectly for free.Actions for the algorithm, which is the least intense type of digital labor, are suggestions to increase views and listening on video and music platforms, the tags to be used in Tweets for idols to enter the Top Tweets list and the information of when these tags will be used, digital voting for idols on some platforms and voting guides have been evaluated.