The History of New Media in Turkey: Radio, Television, and Mobile Devices

Project Information

HNMT

Grant agreement ID: 101003389

DOI

10.3030/101003389

Project closed

EC signature date 9 April 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2022

Funded under

• SPREADING EXCELLENCE AND WIDENING PARTICIPATION

Total cost

€ 157 355,52

EU contribution

€ 157 355,52

Coordinated by

KOC UNIVERSITY
Türkiye

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HNMT (The History of New Media in Turkey: Radio, Television, and Mobile Devices)

Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

When radio was first introduced in Turkey in the 1920s, people considered this new medium an alien technology that promoted Western imperialism. In the 2000s, however, the Western origins of digital technologies—as the new media of the present—went unnoticed and they were mostly welcomed as new venues for expressing upward mobility, class distinction, and alternative political opinions. These shifting public responses to new media forms in countries such as Turkey—that are never fully “Western”—have received little attention from media scholars, who mostly trace similar histories in Western contexts. Filling this lacuna in interdisciplinary media studies, this project examines the changing relationship of technology to global, class, and gender inequalities since Turkey’s foundation as a nation-state in the 1920s to the current era. By specifically analyzing the country’s course from a nationalist and developmentalist economy to neoliberalization, the project addresses two particular questions: 1) As new political economic conditions transform gender, class based, and global inequalities, how do these newly reframed hierarchies make visible a medium’s novelty? 2) How does this perceived novelty inform the ways that lower and middle classes, different gender groups, and state officials use new technologies to challenge or reproduce inequalities? The study addresses these questions by focusing on three major periods that match with three new media technologies: radio in the 1920-30s; television in the 1950-60s; and mobile devices have in the 2000s.
As the first comprehensive study on the history of new media forms in a nation-state such as Turkey— that is at the intersection of Europe and the Middle East—examining new media from historical perspective improves our approach to technology use by showing how technological novelty is constructed in relation to global and national hierarchies. My archival study about radio’s early days revealed that Turkish state officials considered radio a dangerous novelty since early radio technology allowed people to both receive and send signals. Named as wireless telephone at the time, people could engage in two-way communication by using early radio technology. As a young nation-state at the intersection of European nation-states and the colonized Middle East, Turkish state wanted to control who could send messages via radio to deepen its control over its newly independent territory.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

I developed my answers to the research questions with the following research trajectory. To understand the constructions of media novelty during the period of radio and television, I collected the periodicals, news articles, and advertisements about radio (1929 – 1934) and television (1950 – 1970). I also collected radio programs about the early days of the radio from the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation archive and did oral history interviews with people who witnessed the early days of television. To explore how the novelty of digital media was constructed, I conducted digital ethnography and oral history interviews with 20 women who have Instagram accounts with 10K to 110K followers. During six months, I closely observed and collected their Instagram posts and stories and asked questions about the meanings of their digital activities.

I publicized the results of this data collection process through 5 publications, 4 recorded online presentations, and 4 in-person and online talks. I also launched a project website and organized a workshop at Koç University. I published a journal article with the leading communication journal, Media, Culture & Society and another journal article is accepted for publication with the eminent Journal of Computer Mediated Communication. I also published a short piece on the TRAFO Blog for Transregional Research, and two conference proceedings. Finally, I recorded a podcast which will be published with AnthroPod in June 2023.

My Media, Culture & Society article suggests that Turkish state officials approached radio as a technical object that needs to be under the state control mostly because they felt insecure as a newly established nation-state caught up between Europe and the Middle East. In young Turkey’s war-torn economy, the only affordable way to listen to radio was learning how to assemble a receiver. Few owners of manufactured radios also learnt how to fix frequent problems. To form a passive national auditory, the state monitored the cultivation of these technical skills by banning transmitter-construction while encouraging assembling/fixing receivers. The major result of this analysis is that in addition to the content of the radio broadcasts, nation-states also discipline technical skills of their citizens while forming a national auditory. I presented these findings at the EASA and SCMS conferences and at two local conferences in Mardin and Adana in Turkey.

My forthcoming publication with the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication highlights that women working from home feel a home-workplace separation that renders invisible their labor. Women frequently share on Instagram the photographs of smartwatch numbers displaying, for example, 7,000 steps reached while working at home. In so doing, they aim to put on public display normally invisible gendered labor in ways that challenge gender inequalities. I also shared these results with a short piece on the TRAFO Blog and a presentation at the Oxford Digital Ethnography Group Seminar Series (OxDEG).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Two findings of the study improve the state of the art while also having potential to contribute to two societal causes: Wages for Housework Movement and the Right to Repair Movement. First, my project concludes that technical knowledge about new technologies was more publicly accessible during the popular years of radio compared to the period of digital media. Radio magazines in the 1920s and the 1930s included detailed instructions about how to assemble and repair radio receivers at home. Technical knowledge about digital devices, however, is not very accessible today. Today, this scarcity is intentional as it aims to prevent users from repairing and reusing the same device--a situation that benefits high tech companies. This finding is useful for the “Right to Repair” movement that aims to pass legislations especially in the European countries preventing high tech companies from limiting users’ modification and repair of digital devices. Second my study concludes that smartwatches help women to quantify housework in ways that challenge the home-workplace boundary, which renders housework invisible. The number of calories burnt and distances walked while doing housework render visible the normally invisible gendered labor in numerical terms. My work shows that smartwatch numbers provide data that justifies the demands of the Wages for Housework Campaign by highlighting the effort intensive nature of housework.

A caricature on the Ses Periodical, making fun of the early radio noises (Ses, August 28, 1932)

A radio schema on the Telsiz Periodical (Telsiz No.8, August 18, 1927)