From selection to first music release: Platformized artist development in the Big5–Manifest case

This study examined how digital platforms participate in the organization of artist development before a group’s first music release. Its case was Big5, a YouTube-centered talent program that publicly presented the selection, training, evaluation, and performance processes leading to the formation of the Turkish girl group Manifest. Using an embedded mixed-methods single-case design, the study integrated documentary sources, a complete inventory of 832 eligible official uploads within a predefined observation window, a blind secondary check of 132 content records, two Google Trends comparisons screened for semantic fit, and multi-label analysis of 1,200 public YouTube comments. The inventory and descriptive content coding showed that 545 uploads (65.5%) appeared before Manifest’s first release and that the group entered the market within a pre-existing content architecture linking formation, performance, participation, and promotion. Official publishing displayed structural continuity, relative search interest aligned with transition and release events, and the exploratory comment analysis identified limited explicit retrospective continuity. The article conceptualizes this arrangement as platformized artist development: selected developmental functions become recurring public content before and across first release, creating conditions for audience familiarization without demonstrating individual audience transfer or established fandom.