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Platform Infotainment and the Performance of Depoliticization - Apolitical Positioning and Trust Capital on the YouTube Channel Shukaworld

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2026, 32(2), pp.109~157
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2026.32.2.004
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : April 29, 2026
  • Accepted : June 15, 2026
  • Published : June 30, 2026

Sueahn Kim 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article examines how political issues are depoliticized in platform infotainment channels that explicitly foreground an apolitical stance. Taking the YouTube channel Shukaworld as a representative case, the study analyzes the topic distribution and thumbnail composition of 1,724 videos uploaded between 2019 and 2025, and conducts a close reading of the speech structure and editing practices in the “LA Protests” segment from a live stream broadcast on June 15, 2025. The analysis shows that Shukaworld’s apolitical positioning is not constituted by excluding political issues, but by transposing the language of political judgment into other problem frames through economic interpretive codes, the semiotic figuration of public figures, and memetic play. Across the channel, war is recoded as a question of economic sustainability, elections as matters of market volatility and investment opportunity, and diplomatic and trade conflicts as issues of responding to external variables. Donald Trump, in particular, functions as a sign that simultaneously mediates economic variables, international conflicts, and character-based memetic play, becoming a node through which political tension is converted into consumable spectacle. The “LA Protests” episode further reveals that this depoliticizing arrangement is not always stably maintained in live broadcast environments. When Trump’s dehumanizing speech converges with scenes of state violence, the channel’s playful and economic translation devices reach their ethical limits. The YouTube edited version subsequently erases the speaker’s hesitations and the potential for political recontextualization that surfaced during the live broadcast. Through the case of Shukaworld, this article elucidates how trust capital in platform media environments can be accumulated at the cost of suspending political responsibility and eroding ethical sensibility, and clarifies the specific ways in which depoliticization is performed.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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