Distributed Solidarity and Emotional Labour: Rethinking Leadership, Care and Digital Unionism in the Turkish Film Industry

This qualitative research examines the transformation of leadership, solidarity and organisational forms among creative workers in the film industry in Turkey. The phenomena of precariousness, emotional labour, and digitalisation, frequently discussed in the global creative industries literature, are reproduced in different forms in the Turkish context. The study argues that creative labour is shaped not only by aesthetic production processes but also by care, solidarity, and digital mediation practices. The research is based on in-depth interviews with ten film workers from different professional groups. The interviews were analysed using the reflexive thematic analysis method via NVivo 14 software, revealing four main themes: distributed leadership, care leadership, collective voice, and digital unionism. The findings show that a leadership culture based on trust rather than hierarchical authority prevails on sets. Care labour emerges as an invisible form of emotional governance, particularly sustained by female workers. Participants find traditional trade union organisations ineffective; they build solidarity through digital networks, online platforms, and temporary communities. Consequently, digitalisation is producing both new forms of control and alternative solidarity practices in the film industry. The Turkish example proposes an alternative organisational model to the creative industries literature, incorporating emotional, cultural, and digital components, and it highlights the concept of ‘distributed solidarity’ as a theoretical framework.