Exploring the Political Pulse of Live Streaming: The Case of Turkish Twitch and Kick

Wednesday, October 1st | 2PM | AQ 5067 + Zoom

Abstract:
During the 2023 Turkish presidential and general elections, Turkish political streamer PurpleBixi’s coverage, together with examples such as HasanAbi’s special election streams during the 2020 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections, broke records by making it onto Twitch’s all-time peak viewers lists and drew the attention of journalists and researchers to political streaming on the platform (Kostantinovic, 2020; Murko, 2023; Rudenshiold, 2022). This study uses netnography, a qualitative research method coined by Robert Kozinets (2002), combining observation of political streams with semi-structured interviews to explore the regular viewership of political streamers on Turkish Twitch and Kick. Regular viewers are defined as those who frequently visit channels of streamers and actively engage in conversations with streamers and other viewers (Suganuma, 2018). I examine their experiences and motivations, the dynamics of political streaming culture, the role of platform features and the media control enforced by the AKP government in shaping this practice.

Keywords: Twitch; live streaming viewership; political streaming; media control

Examining Committee:
Chair: Dr. Amanda Watson, Assistant Professor, Sociology & Anthropology, SFU
Supervisor: Dr. Lindsey Freeman Associate Professor, Sociology & Anthropology, SFU
Committee Member: Dr. Siyuan Yin, Assistant Professor, School of Communication,  SFU
External Examiner: Dr. Daniel Ahadi, Senior Lecturer, School of Communication, SFU

This event will be hosted via hybrid, in person at AQ5067 and Zoom. Anyone wishing to attend should contact gradsecsa@sfu.ca before September 29th 4:30PM to request to be added to the attendee list.