In recent years, the great increase in internet access has dramatically raised the rate of children watching YouTube. As mentioned in Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, the child takes the behaviors he watches on media and transforms them into his own. Therefore, it is very crucial to investigate YouTube video content in terms of behaviors that children can imitate. This research aims to examine YouTube content in terms of potential behaviors that preschool children can take as an example and seek an answer to the question of What are the behaviors preschool children can be affected by watching Enes Batur’s YouTube channel, which has the most followers in Turkey? This research was designed as a qualitative study. With the purposeful sampling method, 20 videos in the range of 4–20 minutes, which are the most viewed on the Enes Batur YouTube channel, were selected, content analysis was made with certain codes and themes, and the findings were reached. According to these findings, it has been observed that the videos on the Enes Batur YouTube channel contain only 6.50% of positive behaviors among behaviors that can affect preschool children. The remaining part consists of abusive speech, insulting expressions, other negative behaviors (physical violence, rude behaviors), waste-oriented behaviors, sexually explicit speech, and attitudes that include gender inequality. As a result, it has been seen that most of the exemplary behaviors of children in the videos on the Enes Batur YouTube channel are negative.
Cite this article as: Özel, Ö., & Altınkaynak, H. (2023). Examination of YouTube content in terms of potential behaviors that preschool children can take as an example: The example of Enes Batur. HAYEF: Journal of Education, 20(1), 11-17.