YouTube flow and the transmission of heritage: The interplay of users, content, and algorithms

YouTube’s increasing convergence with television extends to the notion of flow. The platform’s revising and reshaping of television flow theorized by Raymond Williams ((1974) Television. London: Routledge.), which is produced through the combined work of users and algorithms, enables diverse cultural representations to come into contact. This diversity creates relational juxtapositions that become meaningful through human interpretation. The algorithms that are entrenched in YouTube’s business models and designed to monetize the work of users may also circulate divergent versions of a cultural practice. That YouTube flow can produce diverse cultural representations is demonstrated by a case study of the Mevlevi Sema ceremony, a Turkish intangible heritage practice safeguarded by UNESCO; official heritage narratives put forward by the nation-state of Turkey through UNESCO are challenged by other narratives on the platform.