Professional success on display: Linkedin discourses, emotional capitalism, and digital communities in Türkiye

In the digitalizing corporate world, professional identity is increasingly reconstructed through representations crafted on platforms such as LinkedIn. Building on Eva Illouz’s notion of “emotional capitalism”, this study examines how LinkedIn’s structural logic pushes users into ongoing performative display and the search for community approval. Because the platform’s algorithm foregrounds similar occupational groups, professional emotions are turned into social capital, creating a lasting tension between the user’s actual emotional life and the curated digital self. Using MAXQda-assisted qualitative content analysis, the study examines 100 LinkedIn posts from 20 high-engagement Turkish professional accounts (five per participant), focusing on success presentations, congratulatory rituals, and crisis discourses. Three research questions guide the analysis: (RQ1) are structural problems reframed as systemic critique or as tests of individual “resilience”?; (RQ2) how does the platform’s interaction loop transform emotional expressions into market-compatible “communication units”?; (RQ3) how do romantic discourses such as “chivalrous leadership” mask organizational failures and impose ideal-character pressure? The study aims to expose the emotional fatigue produced by constant visibility and to inform a more reflective ground for professional communication. As the research method, 100 posts drawn from 20 LinkedIn profiles in Turkey — five posts per participant — that have high interaction rates and large follower bases were analyzed using MAXQda qualitative analysis software; these profiles’ modes of presenting success, congratulatory rituals, and crisis discourses were subjected to qualitative content analysis. The study is guided by three core research questions: RQ1 asks how structural problems such as job loss or economic instability are reframed on the platform — whether they are presented as subjects of systemic critique or as tests of the individual’s “resilience”. RQ2 asks in what ways the platform’s continuous interaction loop (congratulatory messages, likes, and appreciation metrics) transforms emotional expressions into market-compatible “communication units”. RQ3 asks how romantic discourses, such as “chivalrous leadership”, affect the visibility of organizational failures and shape pressure toward an ideal character model. The primary aim of this study is to expose the emotional fatigue produced by the compulsion to remain “engaged and visible” in the digital world, and to raise awareness toward a healthier professional communication foundation in the age of artificial intelligence.