[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1612816168127{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;background-color: #dd3333 !important;}”][vc_column width=”2/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1612817072524{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][themeum_title position=”left” title=”IPCC 2021″ size=”38″ title_weight=”900″ color=”#000000″ title_margin=”10px 0″ subtitle=”INTERDISCIPLINARY PhD COMMUNICATION CONFERENCE” subtitle_size=”24″ subtitle_weight=”400″ subtitle_color=”#000000″][vc_custom_heading text=”COLLABORATIONS” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:left|color:%23ffffff” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][themeum_title position=”left” title=”PhD in Communication Program” size=”24″ title_weight=”700″ color=”#000000″ title_margin=”10px 0″ subtitle=”7-8 MAY 2021, ISTANBUL BILGI UNIVERSITY / ONLINE” subtitle_size=”20″ subtitle_weight=”300″ subtitle_color=”#000000″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ offset=”vc_hidden-lg vc_hidden-md”][vc_single_image image=”2290″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1612816154576{margin-top: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;background-color: #dd3333 !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs” css=”.vc_custom_1612817081436{margin-top: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”2285″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title=”CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS” color=”juicy_pink”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Theresa Klinglmayr
University of Salzburg
Department of Communication Science[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Beyond ‘Integration’: An Approach to Communication in Culturally Diverse Societies

Immigration accounts for “one of the most important processes of social change in Austria” of recent past (Haller/Aschauer 2019: 2), although large parts of society have rejected this development for a long time (Bauböck/Perchinig 2003). The resulting cultural pluralization leads to new challenges for intercultural communication on various levels of society. In public discourse, the catchword of ‘integration’, primarily in the sense of a one-sided adaptation of immigrants, has been widely accepted as a solution for a bundle of very different problems. From a critical interculturalist perspective, this concept can be seen as problematic for various reasons, especially for its tendency to homogenize, culturalize, and problematize migrant others (Hess/Moser 2009). The thereby created rift between ‘Austrians’ and ‘immigrants’ is part of power-bound discourses based on an oversimplified concept of culture, which interact with cognition and communication (van Dijk 2016). I argue that in culturally diverse societies, we need greater openness to intercultural understanding that goes beyond one-sided demands for ‘integration’. Based on the assumption that complex sociocultural realities do not call for simple answers, but for equally multifaceted pathways to solutions, my research question is as follows: How can communicative resonance contribute to mutual understanding in culturally diverse societies?

As theoretical framework, I propose a multi-level approach of communicative resonance that challenges conventional disciplinary boundaries and takes into account the different levels involved in the process of intercultural communication:

  • Cognition (attitudes, concepts, values, …)
  • Communicative practices (interpersonal communication, discourses)
  • Socio-cultural context (socio-structural factors, cultural backgrounds)

In a first step, I refer to the philosopher and cognitive scientist Paul Thagard (2019, 4), who argues that “social change comes from the combination of communicative interactions among people and their individual cognitive-emotional processes”. Therefore, “[t]he social sciences and professions need to be mindful, not mind-blind and brain-blind” (ibid., 16). To meet this demand, I refer to the concept of resonance, coined by the sociologist Hartmut Rosa (2016, 281), as “a metaphor for describing relational qualities”, which contribute to understanding as an overall goal of communication (Burkart 2013) (interpersonal level). Achieving communicative resonance means overcoming misunderstandings, but also developing a mind-set of openness to others, critically reflecting one’s own belief systems and undergoing transformations in oneself. If subjects engage in resonant relationships of being affected and experiencing self-efficacy, this leads to changes in their mental representations such as concepts, images, rules, and emotions (intrapersonal level). On a sociocultural level, it is firstly different socializations, norms and values as well as discourses that influence behaviour. Secondly, changes in thinking and communicating contribute to social and cultural change (Thagard 2019). Therefore, it is assumed that if the value of interculturality is integrated onto individual cognition, communicative acts and social discourses, in the long-term this should lead to a more inclusive pluralistic society.

The construct of communicative resonance is operationalized using a triangulation of different qualitative methods. By accompanying an ‘integration’ project combined with semi-structured interviews with selected members of this group and staying in contact with them via smartphone-based methods, I examine resonance phenomena in interpersonal encounters as well as associated intrapersonal processes, like emotional evaluations of these situations. A group discussion with socioculturally diverse individuals is conducted to investigate communicative processes of understanding in relation to underlying values, norms and scopes of intercultural (or ethnocentric) attitudes. Regarding the sociocultural context, I observe an ‘integration’ course and analyse related learning material to investigate how as ‘cultural’ declared knowledge is imparted in specific social institutions. This enables me to examine resonance potentials in relation to social structures and dominant discourses.

Overall, the project aims to empathize that in socioculturally diverse environments, we not only have to tolerate manifold differences, but also strive for common grounds and establish “resonant” relationships. Otherwise, we risk that stereotypical group-thinking and ultimately discriminatory and racist practices become normalized and promoted.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Bauböck, Rainer/Perchinig, Bernhard. 2003. Migrations- und Integrationspolitik in Österreich. Link

Burkart, Roland. 2013. Normativität in der Kommunikationstheorie. In: Karmasin et al. (Ed.): Normativi-tät in der Kommunikationswissenschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien.

Haller, Max/Aschauer, Wolfgang. 2019. Was bedeutet Integration? Zentrale Begriffe, theoretische Überlegungen und Fragestellungen dieser Studie. In: Aschauer et al. (Ed.). Die Lebenssituation von Migrantinnen und Migranten in Österreich. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Hess, Sabine/Moser, Johannes. 2009. Jenseits der Integration. Kulturwissenschaftliche Betrachtungen einer Debatte. In: Hess et al. (Ed.). No integration?! Bielefeld: transcript.

Rosa, Hartmut. 2016. Resonanz. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

Thagard, Paul. 2019. Mind-Society. New York: Oxford University Press.

Van Dijk, Teun A. 2016. Critical Discourse Studies. A Sociocognitive Approach. In: Wodak/Meyer (Ed.). Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. London: Sage.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Suparna Bagchi
Plymouth Institute of Education
University of Plymouth[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Enacting and Experiencing Multiculturalism in Four Primary Schools: An Exploration of Students’, Teachers’ and Parents’ Perspectives

It is essential to answer questions about the inclusivity of the education system for children belonging to ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom. This issue is particularly pertinent in areas of historically low diversity which have more recently experienced a rise in their minority population and where inclusive growth was highlighted as a challenge in two consecutive Council Reports. Hence, it is necessary to support children from ethnic minorities by recognizing their diversity. I believe that simultaneously, there is a need to educate children across all communities on diversity as differences can be appreciated only when they have this knowledge. Isabelle Mukadi, a British BLM activist said in a BBC interview that it is high time to have a revision of the National Curriculum. This is important due to the increasing awareness among students from ethnic minorities who are interested in a curriculum, which can link to their lived experiences and identities. Multicultural education might be incorporated to facilitate the inclusion of these children. Multicultural education involves two essential elements: equity and cultural awareness, which are, fulfilling the educational requirements of ethnically diverse children and preparing all pupils for a multiracial society. While the National Curriculum today is the center point of the educational enterprise, the teachers are the curriculum framers who put the curriculum in motion inside the classroom. A revised look at the Curriculum can be the starting point in which the teachers might play a significant part. The task design is crucial where teachers can place equal importance not only on ‘how’ the task is taught but also on ‘what’ and ‘why’ it is taught as all these three are intricately interwoven. The teachers might use the curriculum as machinery to create students’ conception of a multicultural Britain breaking the stereotypes. This will help in providing a plural and hospitable dimension to national identity for the ethnic minorities, telling the national story where they see themselves as important characters as well, thus creating ” a common identity in which all can see themselves, and giving all a sense of belonging to each other”. A sense of belonging thus fostered among students of diverse backgrounds might help to boost their self-esteem and confidence building.

My research aims to explore multiculturalism in primary schools.
My research questions are:

  • How do schools implement the guidelines laid down in the National
    Curriculum concerning the promotion of multiculturalism?
  • How do school policies around multiculturalism relate to the inclusion of
    children from ethnic minority communities?
  • How is multiculturalism incorporated in the life of the school, and how
    this relates to the promotion of SMSC (spiritual, moral, social, cultural)
    development?
  • What are the experiences of parents, practitioners, and children on
    multiculturalism?

Amidst COVID-19, I have crafted a remotely conducted research study based on sensitive, respectful research methods. I will adopt a qualitative case study research design in four primary schools located in a south-western city of United Kingdom. I will draw on Mosaic and Facet methodologies while adopting the sociocultural theory. The research participants in each school include key stage 2 students, the teacher, head of key stage, headteacher, and two BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) and two non-BAME parents. Data will be collected through observation of students’ classroom activities, virtually conducted interviews, and documentary analysis. There are very few studies here. The 2013 Cotton et al. project did not study settled ethnic minority communities exclusively. Until the primary education system introduces a multicultural curriculum embracing all communities, the children from ethnic minorities will continue to live in an ‘invisible state’ in their shell, and more so, in places, where these people are comparatively fewer. The originality lies in attempting a holistic exploration of multiculturalism in the southwest, possibly for the first time and that too, through the socio-cultural theory. We are passing through a phase of alienation due to the ongoing pandemic, Brexit, and BLM movement. My research is a timely topic of study and relates to educational concerns. It can help to understand the prevailing trend on multiculturalism in other schools with similar demography and location as my research is closely linked to Europe-wide considerations of how cultural awareness can be experienced through the practice of multicultural education in educational institutions.

My research may contribute to the ongoing studies supporting a multicultural curriculum. Thus, it may have a wider appeal to a broader audience with the national interest. My findings may also guide policymakers to identify potential areas where culturally relevant intervention programs can be directed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

BBC News. (2020). BBC News Channel, 8 June.

Chetty, D. (2020) ‘A personal journey into decolonising the curriculum and addressing white fragility’ BERA, no.142, Spring issue, pp.10.

Department of Education and Science (1985) Education for All. London: HMSO.

Hargreaves, J. (2018). ‘What impact does an ethnocentric curriculum have on a child’s identity?’ Warwick Globalist, Warwick. [online] Available at

Harris, R. (2020). ‘Decolonising the history curriculum’, BERA, no.142, pp.16-17.

Lander, V. (2014). ‘Initial Teacher Education: the practice of whiteness’ in Race, R. and Lander, V. (eds) Advancing race and ethnicity in education, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.93-110.

Modood, T. (2014) ‘Multiculturalism and Integration’ in Race, R. and Lander, V. (eds) Advancing race and ethnicity in education, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.145-161.

Plymouth Report. (2019). Plymouth: Plymouth City Council. [online]. Available at

Shires, L. and Hunter, M. (2020). Exploring Task Design as an Enabler of leading Teaching in Secondary Schools, BERA, no.142, Spring issue, pp.6-7.

Troyna, B. and Edwards, V. (1993). The Educational Needs of a Multiracial Society. Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations. Coventry: University of Warwick. [online] Available at

Whitfield, Lynn. (2017). Culturally Specific Interventions to Support Adolescent Immigrant and Refugee Mental Health. School of Social Work. [online]. Retrieved from[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Athina Simatou
Department of Communication, Media and Culture
Panteion University of Social and Political Studies[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Journalistic narratives and Human Rights in Conflict Zones

The current PhD research, triggered by the writer’s particular interest in the role of journalism concerning crucial social and political issues, as well as her engagement with several human rights organizations, intends to bring together two different academic fields, Journalism and Human Rights.

These two worlds, journalism on the one hand and human rights on the other hand, do present two main points of convergence: the considerable degree of overlap between their subjects (a significant portion of the journalistic reportages concerns issues with a direct or indirect relation to the human rights) and the fact that the freedom of expression and, in particular, the freedom of press is in itself a human right guaranteed at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 3).

Moreover, the current thesis is based on the idea that if the connection between journalism and human rights is so interactive and interdependent then the connection between journalism and the abuses of human rights within the war is even tighter, since the difficulties of accessing the conflict zone and the extreme suffering of the people there, render the presence of journalists in the war as broadcasters of reality a necessity and a sine qua non.

Thus, this research inspired by the claim of Richard Rorty that the best way to defend human rights and promote the ‘human rights culture’ is through the adoption of narratives, focuses on the way narratives are used by journalists, in order to raise awareness concerning human rights abuses in war. Furthermore, through the theoretical approaches of Marie Vanoost, Erik Neveu and Kobie Van Krieken concerning the journalistic narratives, the claims of Eduardo Rabossi and Jose -Manuel Barreto concerning the philosophical dimension of human rights, as well as the conventional dimension of armed conflicts, the current dissertation investigates if journalists use narratives, in order to ‘talk’ about human rights violations ‘suffered’ by the people being in a war zone.

In order to answer the above question and approach the topic of this thesis in the best comprehensive way, the researcher applies various methodologies. In particular, she uses narrative analysis, case study, comparative analysis and quantitative registration of data. More precisely, she focuses on the ongoing conflict in Syria, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last years, in the context of which extreme crimes have been committed. In order to facilitate the comparative study of the narratives and investigate if the content of the narratives is influenced by the place where the media organization is based, she studies the narratives of three international media organizations based in different areas of the world, namely, in different cultural contexts. As such, she chooses as case studies the Al Jazeera English (Base: Doha, Qatar), the online version of New York Times (Base: New York, U.S.A.) and the online version of The Guardian (Base: London, U.K.) and she collects research material which she analyzes in three levels: Each journalistic narrative is analyzed as narrative in itself, as part of a group of narratives of a media organization and
as part of a specific cultural context.

Thus, through the in depth analysis of the research material, the writer intends to answer the main research question of this PhD dissertation: Do journalists narrate through their pieces human rights issues at stake in armed conflicts?

The relationship between journalism and human rights in war has been so little studied to date that this dissertation is not only scientifically important, but also challenging due to the limited bibliographic sources and the complexity of the research topic.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Abrar Ali Saiyed
Entrepreneurship and Management
Ozyegin University

Aparajita Basu
Humanities and Languages, School of Arts and Sciences
Ahmedabad University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Teaching Histories of Coexistence, Intersection and Conflict through Experiential Learning

With the increasing polarization of populations around the world based on identity factors such as race, religion, ethnicity and citizenship, understanding pedagogical approaches for addressing forms of conflict and dialogue has become crucial. We think positioning teaching as an important site for scholarly networking and analysis, alongside research, would be an important intervention for academic institutions to make at this turbulent time in the world. In addition to identifying the locus of structural inequalities, we as academics must also show through the various prisms of our fields of study how it may be possible to find pathways (however narrow, enmeshed and complicated) out of these.

In this workshop we would like to share our journey of developing an experimental undergraduate course (that includes experiential learning components such as site visits, video journal entries, ethnographic observation, and producing documentary style footage). We would like to discuss how we consolidated our ideas in the form of a course called Histories of Coexistence, which investigates the contentious history of Hindu-Muslim interactions in the city we are based in, Ahmedabad. Our emphasis has been to locate historic sites of cultural syncretism, highlight emergency relief during riots as well as socio-economic collaborations, whilst being attendant to the overriding reality of population segregation.

Then we would like to open a round table discussion addressing the following questions and experiences:

  • How can the study of peacebuilding (or more specifically, community strategies for resisting forces of xenophobia or hatred) be integrated into the undergraduate curriculum?
  • How can we pedagogically complicate existing mainstream assumptions about the essential rivalry of immigrants, or foreigners, or people of different racial, class or religious backgrounds and sexual orientations?
  • What are the learning and teaching methods we can use to investigate collaborations between distinct communities whilst being attendant to the overriding realities of systemic bias or prejudice?
  • What are some possible strategies for excavating previously untold histories, stories and strategies of building mutual understanding?

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Fulya Uçanok
Istanbul Bilgi University

Dilara Turan
Istanbul Bilgi University

Heya Sound Collective:

Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu
Istanbul Technical University MIAM

Nour Sokhon
Artist, Sound designer & Filmmaker

Yara Mekawei
Electronic music composer & Sound artist

Jilliene Sellner
Goldsmiths[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Collaboration Through the Lens of Three Perspectives in Musicking Practices

This panel brings together main issues of collaborative approaches to music making and research discussed through perspectives of new musicology and artistic research. The panel combines three case studies that follow strands of feminist criticism, relationality, co-authorship, new materialist and posthumanism thinking, entangled within assemblages of network practices and scene studies. By doing so, it offers perspectives of looking into how and why collaborative approach matters in our music making and knowledge production today. Critiquing some of the conventional approaches rooted in Eurogenetic Art Music tradition, the panel focuses on issues of authority of singular ‘genius’ musician, musicking based on primacy of notation and the idea of “the music itself”(1) , and the neglect of cultural contexts and social engagement. Following the practices of collaboration and co-creation, the aim is to open up a window into new ways of musicking that might potentially enable inclusion, multivalence, and ecological validity.

Within the panel, these issues would be explored through the lenses of three very specific viewpoints. Turan’s fieldwork on the new music scene in Turkey explores the ways collaborative thinking changes the processes of knowledge production on issues such as the conceptualization of musical categories, and formation of musical discourses and histories. Her study differs from the other two papers in that the collaborations occur between the researcher and the scene members, as well as among all participants of her study via collaborative writing strategies. Uçanok proposes a relational model for electroacoustic composition practice. In the practice model, relationality focuses on practices of cultivating response-ability of the composer with humans and more-than-human agents, within an entangled sympoietic musical space. Here, response-ability is built on aural and embodied practices that are usually overlooked in the bulk of today’s electroacoustic discourses. By privileging such a position, this practice revolves around resonances and potentialities of acts of listening-with-in entangled relations. This study differs from the other two practices that will be presented in the panel mainly by means of collaborating with more-than-human agents and offering a form of collaboration that is situated in the composition practice. Heya’s research project discusses co-creation as active listening, ‘playing’ and composing through ‘the network’. The purpose of this investigation is to explore the shared limitations and opportunities of live telematic collaborative performance across geographies. Differently from the other two studies presented in the panel, Heya’s approach is based on real-time improvisation within network systems where agents do not share a common physical space.

This panel aims to raise questions that are important in musicking practices which may or not have answers. Starting by asking the reasons that direct each research towards a collaborative approach, we aim to explore our common curiosity, heightened sensitivity in the other, and a desire to co-create with others to produce spaces of multivalence. Main discussion will revolve around the importance of the act of listening, in an extended sense that includes both aural and embodied performativities. In doing so, the discussion will touch upon each of the researchers’ reflections on what collaborative practices do to the self, to the practices, and the outcomes.

(1) “The music itself” is a term borrowed from Suzanne G. Cusick used to explain the conceptualization of music as an autonomous entity, referencing only to itself, without considering people, biographies, cultural context and environments.

Curb your musicology via collaborative approach: Tracing yeni müzik(2)

Dilara Turan

The present study discusses some of the theoretical assumptions and practical means of collaborative ethnography in the context of music scholarship of living traditions, in contrast to conventional musicological understanding. The theoretical framework of the study explores the parallels between Lassiter’s (2005) understanding of collaborative ethnography and Dewey’s notions of collective inquiry and moral democracy in producing knowledge (Gale, 2010). It also reflects on Becker’s (1982/2008) account of collective action in artistic production and the significance of the labor constituting the art worlds, as opposed to the artist and the artwork orientation. Drawing from an ongoing ethnography on yeni müzik community in Turkey, it offers a look into how collaborative approach in ethnography transforms fieldwork interactions, processes of documentation, and knowledge production in research, as well as how it aims to enable further collaborations among the members of the musical community.

(2) yeni müzik (new music) refers to a multivalent discourse starting from the 20th century up to 21rst century, often intended to describe a musical category based on “contemporary Western art music” canon. It is sometimes used synonymously with contemporary music, modern music, or experimental music, although case being not quite precise. In Turkey, it is mostly practiced in music education institutions while it is possible to find yeni müzik organizations within the culture industry. The phrase is commonly found in titles of events, such as Bilgi Yeni Müzik Festivali, Bilkent Yeni Müzik Günleri, Arter-Yeni ve En Yeni Müzik Festivali.

Towards a Response-able Electroacoustic Composition Practice in Search of Sympoietic Multivalence

Fulya Uçanok

The present study proposes a relational model for electroacoustic composition practice. In the model, relationality focuses on perspectives of response-ability(3) of the composer with other humans and more-than-human(4) agents, within an entangled sympoietic(5) musical space. In investigating response-abilities, the study follows Post-humanist and New-materialist strands focusing on concepts proposed by Barad and Haraway; and in doing so, it aims to re-figure some of the conventional discourses about the concepts of poietic agency, and of multivalence within the electroacoustic composition practice.

(3) Response-ability, is the ability and/or capacity of oneself to respond to others. The study takes in hand the term from a feminist, new materialist thinking that follows Barad (2007) and Haraway (1992, 1997, 2016).
(4) Today “more-than-human” points to a post-anthropocentric thinking. In this study, the term is framed to include other living beings, environments/nature and soundscapes as well as non-living things like inanimate materials/objects/instruments. Within the scope of this paper, more-than-human agents are narrowed down to only recorded sounds (fixed media sound files)2 and physical material objects.
(5) Taking in hand Donna Haraway’s definition, sympoiesis is “a simple word; it means “making-with.” Nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organizing … Sympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems. It is a word for worlding-with, in company. Sympoiesis enfolds autopoiesis and generatively unfurls and extends it” (Haraway, 2016, p.58).

Heya: Feminist networked co-creation between Europe and the Middle East

Heya Sound Collective

This paper discusses co-creation as active listening, ‘playing’ and composing through ‘the network’. The purpose of this investigation is to explore the shared limitations and opportunities of live telematic collaborative performance across geographies. Heya [heeya] (‘she’ in Arabic and also a friendly greeting in English) is a research project and experimental musiking collective facilitated by PhD researcher sound artist and composer Jilliene Sellner at Goldsmiths University, London. The project aims to bridge women in the collective who make sound and experimental music in the UK, Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey with each other and a global audience. The co-creation consists of live networked performances between Nour Sokhon (LE), Jilliene Sellner (CA/UK), Yara Mekawei (EG) and Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu (TR). Mixing and reacting to each other’s field recordings and sonic experiments, collaboration becomes a horizontal and egalitarian method of decolonizing musicological research, circumventing top down, traditional methods and conclusions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Becker, H. S. (2008 [1982]). Art worlds. 25th anniversary edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Gale, R.M. (2010). Growth, Inquiry, and Unity. In John Dewey’s Quest for Unity, Part 1, 9-89. New York: Prometheus Books.

Lassiter, L. E. (2005). The Chicago guide to collaborative ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, New York.

Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, NC.

Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist Performativity: Towards an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter. University of Chicago Press, 28(3), 801-831.

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Sushmita Pandit
Department of Film Studies
Jadavpur University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Negotiating the Ethnographic Narratives: The Disruptions and Discontinuities of the Present-ness

This article foregrounds some of the anxieties, predicaments and conflicts that I encountered while doing the ethnographic fieldwork on the state-endorsed implementation of the mandatory Digital Addressable System (DAS) in West Bengal, India. The task of the ethnographer, at one level, is simply a way of considering the relationship between entities over time. Such a proposition in the context of my study compels us to face two apparently opposite yet deeply connected modes. My study drawing particularly from the Indian context highlights fundamental changes in the television industry in the digital age, particularly the shifting relationship among the various stakeholders, who are implicated in the digitalization process. It questions in what way developmentalist-democratic rhetoric combines technology, development, governance and market under neoliberal imperatives. Within this context, on one hand, any ethnography on how the Digital Addressable System is affecting the broadcast industry is affected by an unwavering “present-ness”, replete with its disruptions and discontinuities. If I may rephrase the question posed by Foucault in response to the texts by Kant, What is this “now” of ethnography in which we all live and which is the site, the point [from which] I am writing? On the other hand, the ethnographic narratives, particularly focusing on media and communication technologies, often embrace marked futurity. The accounts are frequently interspersed with future developments, forthcoming changes and prospective threats. This in-between space of the ethnographer between the present-ness and the futurity etches its inscription on any ethnographic study related to contemporary digital media technologies. This article seeks to flag up these ontological questions to understand the challenges that the ethnographer encounters in making meaning of the shifting narratives from the field.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Eleni Pnevmatikou
Media Psychology & Technology
Panteion University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

DISTANCE & PROXIMITY. Treating trauma through VR applications: A case study in the Pontokomi community

Trauma is defined as a gap in the continuity of a material (e.g. skin) or an established condition (e.g. because of a loss). Individuals could experience trauma due to a severe gap in conditions that affect them individually or collectively, impacting their social identity. Cultural trauma, in particular, is a specific form of collective trauma, when groups of individuals feel similarly that an atrocious event (e.g. a natural disaster or changes in the environment due to human activity) threatens their collective identity by a fracturing of the existential security. For instance, when destruction threatens the landscape of a place, it also threatens to destroy the social bonds between the individuals who are emotionally connected to the specific environment and their community identity. Hence, individuals might perceive this as a traumatic experience since the disaster threatens the continuity of the well-established bonds formed in the community. Although cultural traumas are usually studied from a distant point in time, it is also possible to be studied during their occurrence. The latter is essential for developing early interventions that will prevent the negative feelings of experiencing trauma.
The current research is a case study in progress in the community of Pontokomi in Greece, a community of once 1,100 citizens that are forced to leave their land due to the Power Public Company lignite mining site’s activity near the settlement. The case is approached within the scientific field of Media Psychology and Technology. The aim of the study is twofold. Firstly, through the lens of cultural trauma theory, we were keen to understand what kind of trauma is this, what and for whom might be the possible outcomes. For this purpose, following ethnographic research, citizens aged over 50-years-old are being interviewed with semi-structured interviews. Content analysis will be applied to the data.

Secondly, we aim to design and develop activities within the community and with the community to enhance their social network connecting them in any future form of the community and to keep the proximity in the distance.We argue that the transition from a place-located community – that is being disrupted – to a new atopic online community that enables the connection between members in different locations and during different timings will facilitate the citizens to deal with their trauma. A beneficial change could be achieved by participating in a decentralized, online community, whose members will be able to visit their place virtually. In other words, we assume that new media technologies and technological innovations could contribute to built resilient (online) communities that will enable the victims to treat and mitigate their trauma.

Virtual Reality (VR) applications and platforms could be a beneficial tool that will enable the conservation of memories and information exchange. Thus, a VR platform that will sustain the shared memories, the social bonds, and the collective identity is proposed as a framework for dealing with trauma.

As the breach of life’s continuity in that place cannot be avoided, we will investigate the most effective ways of virtually representing the landscape, as well as the collective memories, from this place to confine the negative feelings caused by the loss of the place. An advantage of online mapping platforms is that users can visit the platform and interact with its features, no matter where they are, no matter the timing. A user will experience a virtual tour in the current settlement of Pontokomi, that will be far away from his current date and location, and even if this virtual settlement does not exist anymore. Besides, online media support collectivity, overpass its users’ geographical distances and boundaries and consequently facilitate social interaction.

In the current research in progress, we examine the variables that describe a cultural trauma, its specific characteristics, and the specific needs of the traumatized community, about spots and collective memories to be conserved. Then, we will examine whether a VR platform and its applications are effective in dealing with trauma. More specifically, via a VR application, we will examine how the recollection and transcription of memories can positively reinforce the individual or collective trauma management process. For that purpose, the psychological and social variables of the participants’ interaction with the VR platform will be defined and concretized.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Aslı Tosuner
Maltepe University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

End of the Conversation: Cancel Culture, Calling Out and Political Correctness in Twitter

Twitter has become a popular space where social issues can be discussed publicly not only by opinion leaders or politicians but by anyone with internet access. Many social movements, such as Arab Revolts, Occupy Movements which were carried to the streets after online discussions, or online political movements like #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo have been mobilized by people’s work of collaboration and solidarity in Twitter for enabling social justice and social change. However, in recent years, these practices of solidarity and collaboration have been subjected to a lot of criticism, especially under the name of call out culture or cancel culture. Many of these debates and criticisms focus on online feminist and anti-racist activism which uses these tactics to target racist or misogynist people and discourses.

While calling out someone “refers to the practice of using social media as a platform to criticise any action seen as morally reprehensive (Duchi, 2019, p.2)”, cancelling “can be defined broadly as attempts to ostracize someone for violating social norms (Norris, 2020, p.2)”. Both methods are used in social media as a tactic to ensure social justice by shming  the person who appears to be morally guilty. Especially in cases where legal justice is thought to be insufficient, many people come together on online platforms such as Twitter to try to operate the public conscience in order to ensure epistemic justice. But of course in Twitter, where many people participate the debates under the comfort of anonymous identities, these justice-aimed attempts can quickly transform into constantly following people’s statements and policing them, judging people without listening to them, cyberbullying, cyber-lynching and online witch hunts. These tactics are also seen as a threat to freedom of speech because calling out or cancelling attempts can also reach academic and scientific enviroments or art and literature (Kaufmann,2020; Shriver,2018).

These criticisms and debates which focus on the internet activism in many countries have reflected on Turkey, too, especially after the collaborative callouts of women who experienced sexual assults in literary community in Twitter in the last month of 2020. As in other countries, it was discussed extensively whether calling out was an effective method, the limits of cancelling people, the possibility of targeting an innocent person, and whether literature and art could be restricted in this way. In this paper, my aim is to provide a holistic account of the discussions on this subject, focusing on both the beneficial and dangerous aspects of calling out and cancelling tactics. The feminist activism which attempts to reveal and target the masculine domination in literary community is chosen as a case study but I will also draw upon similar situations and attempts within feminist community, too.

In order to create this holistic approach, I aim to center the structure of Twitter as a commercial media platform, which is not mentioned much in the discussions of these subjects. In order to understand these problems, we have to take into account not only the content but also the medium through which that content is constructed and transmitted.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Duchi, F. (2019). The ‘call-out culture’ controversy: An identity-based cultural conflict. Retrieved from 

Kaufmann, E. (2020, November 10). Academic Freedom and Cancel Culture. City Journal. Link

Norris, Pippa, Closed Minds? Is a ‘Cancel Culture’ Stifling Academic Freedom and Intellectual Debate in Political Science? (August 3, 2020). HKS Working Paper No. RWP20-025, Link

Shriver, L. (2018, February 25). Writers blocked: how the new call-out culture is killing fiction. Prospect Magazine. Link[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Özgün Eylül İşcen
ICI Berlin

Valeria Meiller
Georgetown University

Zeynep Kılıçoğlu
Florida International University

Can Koçak
Independent Scholar[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Collaborating as, with, and around the ‘other’: Methods, media and statements towards a new way of understanding

The most basic definition of ‘the other’ is everything that falls outside of ‘me’. The scope of the concept is established based on an understanding of self, while the terms being used are also defined by the self. That self needs to be among a dominant group in order to impose these categories, which may occasionally lead to the other being glorified, though this are conventionally done in a manner that promotes exoticism and reinforces stereotypes in order to comfort the self’s feeling of superiority (Stazsak, 2008).

Bauman claims (2003) that in this day and age, where the increasing individualisation makes relationships ever more fragile, we are forced to see the other as opponents; in order not to be eliminated by them, we need to rule out certain feelings related with collaboration such as trust, empathy, and compassion. Homo homini lupus, the saying goes, and we are advised to fear each other with reference to the qualities of another species.

Can collaboration be used as a framework to map out new ways of forming relationships with the other and new methods to define the concept itself? Whether they are theory or practice-based, related with art and culture or interdisciplinary studies around social sciences, or focused on humans or non-humans, this is the mutual question that the papers within this panel seeks an answer to.

The first paper delves into speculative design and offers a critical yet constructive perspective by evaluating whether practices of art can help different occupational groups and social classes unite and turn their respective efforts into mutual struggles.

The second paper has a theoretical framework in plant studies. Thinking through an environmental humanities approach, the presenter questions whether literary practices can help us form a reciprocal and situated relationship with the vegetal world and other living beings.

The third paper sets off from examples of feminist interventions by aid organisations in the UK to establish photography as a medium that can help enhance the authorship and agency of refugee women by subverting the narrative of victimhood that surrounds them.

The fourth and final presenter refers to the terminology of both semiology and performance studies to trace the following question: How does the constant rediscovery between ‘me statements’ and ‘it statements’ within a performance enables room for them to be the same with and the opposite of each other at the same time, and can this paradigm help initiate a new perspective at the rhetoric surrounding the ‘other’?

Speculative Design and Transnational Alliances in the Arabian Gulf

Özgün Eylül İşcen

Increasingly, we encounter examples of speculative design that adopt emerging technologies for addressing ever-growing urban and ecological problems with the motto of smartness and sustainability. Yet, these high-tech spectacles rely upon while obscuring deep exploitation of non-citizen, gendered, and racialized labor. Consequently, we need to attend to fragmented but linked sites through which the global supply chain operates, traversing either extreme of manual and mental labor. Indeed, alternative political commons could be enabled by redistributing socio-technical affordances and forming alliances across diverse social classes and organized efforts. This paper tackles these issues within the context of contemporary Gulf Futurism. On the one hand, there is a growing investment in the Arabian Gulf for smart cities and cultural industries; on the other hand, there is an ongoing mobilization around migrant workers’ rights across borders. Ultimately, the given context offers a critical reflection on the possibilities of collaboration within the fields of art and design on the path to radical futures.

The Aikas Herbarium: Vegetal-Human Entanglements in Plant Writing 

Valeria Meiller

The Aikas Herbarium is an ecologic project that reimagines the traditional herbarium and the place of plants within literature. Departing from an ethical recollection of plant specimens, the Aikas Herbarium subverts the cultural inscription of plants through the writing of phytographias (Patricia Vieira, 2005), a mode of literature that seeks to represent the worldview of plants offering a non-hierarchical perspective of the world. Traditional herbariums have always been accompanied by journals that gather details and observations about the plant recollection, contributing to an instrumental relationship with the vegetal world historically related to colonial and extractivist practices. The Aikas Herbarium subverts this tradition by proposing being-in-nature as an open practice, where the challenge of the poet is capturing reciprocal and situated relationships between plants and other living beings.

Alternative Media Representations of Women Refugees in the UK

Zeynep Kılıçoğlu

The current refugee system reproduces gender hierarchies by representing women refugees as helpless victims, which undermines their representation and disrupts integration processes in reception societies. Many actors, including the mainstream media, put vulnerability at the center when articulating images of women refugees to provoke public attention. Yet, these figures also serve a political purpose. Representing women as silenced visual bodies is an act of power, in which a white Western masculine subjectivity could reinforce its political limits and communicate its identity (Rajaram, 2002). In light of such issues, this paper aims to investigate feminist interventions by aid organizations in the UK that challenge the dominant media representations of refugee women as victimized individuals. Alternatively, using different mediums such as photography, refugee women tell their own stories without being dependent on external actors and therefore enhance their authorship and agency.

Performance as a way of discovering oneself within the other

Can Koçak

Lilo Nein imagines (2009) a dialogue between a text and a performance, taking place after the text sees itself being performed. What text mistakes for self-recognition at first is eventually revealed to be a way of existing side by side, a constant state of self-discovery. Even though there is a text, the ontological nature of performance can only be observed in the moment of enactment, not before or after it. Similarly, for a performer to find a ‘me statement’ within a given role would indicate their ability to come up with a definition that is beyond the limits of a conventional understanding of ‘me’; one that is integrated with an ‘it statement’. So, both ‘me’ and ‘the other’ depend on finding their presence within one another as they co-exist in a performance. This paper suggests using the rhetoric of performance studies in order to approach the relationship ‘me’ has with ‘the other’ as a form of territorialization.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Dilek Gürsoy
Visual Communication Design
Istanbul Bilgi University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Transmedia charity movements in Turkey: The case of Adım Adım

Charity is a notion that is deeply-rooted in Turkish society. Referenced all the way back to the Ottoman period, helping a neighbor when they are in need has always been one of the callings of Islamic belief. However, although the concept of philanthropy in this country has a centuries-old history, the reports of the last two decades show a decline in desire to donate.(1) On the way to seek ways to reduce mentioned reluctance, this research aims to concentrate on the inclusivity, transparency, and accessibility concepts of philanthropy in Turkey. In this context, the study aims to examine transmedia charity movements within the donation culture through a case study. Perhaps at this point it is necessary to remember why giving as a culture should be kept alive. Primarily, donating to people in need helps create a stronger community. What is more is that giving back to society helps one receive personal satisfaction for contributing to a greater good. Additionally, it goes without saying that, not all communities follow the same charitable giving trend. This research solely holds the Turkish charity community under the microscope. This specific focus entails to consider the callings of Islamic belief, which is compulsively appealing to the majority of the population. One of the most cited quotes of Prophet Muhammad also makes this point very clear: “A man is not a believer who fills his stomach while his neighbour is hungry”. This research arises from the problems observed in Turkey’s donation culture. Donations from religious obligations do not meet the complex needs of social and economic change.(2)

In fact, these donations reinforce the polarization between religious conservative and modern secular segments of Turkish society.(3) The society has also lost its motivation and influence to give others due to lack of transparency and accountability of intermediate charity organizations.(4) Moreover, civil society organizations (CSOs) struggle to make their stories reach large masses in today’s chaotic media environment, leaving potential donors unaware of their existence. When we take all these issues into consideration, it is evident that Turkey is in urgent need of a new perspective. This perspective should embrace a universal and inclusive approach that follows a cause above any ideological or partisan stance and engages individuals from every part of the society. Additionally, the new system should provide a sense of trust to the individuals who feel close to a cause and want to be the part of a change but at the same time be open to help not only their immediate surroundings but to the general society. Lastly, CSOs need to make better use of contemporary media technologies to get their voices heard by masses. They need to expand their stories among multiple platforms to reach individuals from every age, gender, religious or economical background.

This study analyzes what methods CSOs try to develop against these challenges from the perspective of non-fiction transmediality, mainly delving into the scarcely studied field of transmedia charity. (5) The scholarly works relating to transmediality mainly define it as a participatory storytelling approach that constructs an immersive storyworld by expanding its fragments among multiple media channels.(6) Further studies indicate that despite the content, audiences can also gather around shared beliefs and values that encourage them to navigate from one story to another while interacting as a community.(7) This value-laden perspective of transmediality is defined as transmedia ethos. With its immersive, participative and community-building nature, transmediality can be seen as a sustainable system that inspires trust, belonging, and engagement. Transmedia charity has been briefly touched upon for its non-fictional application as a social enterprise.(8) However, this study holds a unique perspective due to its specific focus on the giving culture of Turkey. In 2008, a civil society development, Adım Adım (Step by Step), launched a collective charity run initiative in Turkey, which acts as a network among CSOs (NGOs), donors and volunteers. As of January 9th, 2021, Adım Adım was able to reach a total of 93,579 volunteers and 773,401 donors. With the amount of donations collected—around 90 million Turkish liras ($12 million)—, Adım Adım became an intermediary force that touched the lives of 259,290 individuals.(9) With the values on which it is built—trust, solidarity, belonging, goodness, diversity, entertainment, and success—Adım Adım constitutes a suitable model for this research. This study analyzes the operational structure of the Adım Adım initiative to highlight its transmedial structure. Additionally, in-depth interviews with volunteers, donors and founders are conducted to peel deeper into the layer of transmedia ethos.

(1) Bikmen, F., & Meydanoğlu, Z. (2006). Sivil Toplum ve Hayırseverlik Araştırmaları 2004-2006. TÜSEV.
Çarkoğlu, A., & Erdem Aytaç, S. (2016). Individual Giving and Philanthropy in Turkey 2015. TÜSEV.
Erdem Aytaç, S., & Çolakoğlu, A. (2020). Individual Giving and Philanthropy in Turkey 2019. TÜSEV.

(2) Bikmen, F. (2003). Yayın: Türkiye’de Kurumsal Filantropi. TÜSEV. Link

(3) Uncu, B. A. (2019). Polarization in Turkey. KONDA.

(4) Erdem Aytaç, S., & Çolakoğlu, A. (2020). Individual Giving and Philanthropy in Turkey 2019. TÜSEV.

(5) Freeman, M. (2018). Transmedia charity: constructing the ethos of the BBC’s Red Nose Day across media. In M. Freeman & R. R. Gambarato (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies (pp. 306–313). Routledge. Link

(6) Jenkins, H. (2007, March 21). Transmedia Storytelling 101. Confessions of an Aca-Fan. Link

(7) Freeman, M. (2018). Transmedia charity: constructing the ethos of the BBC’s Red Nose Day across media. In M. Freeman & R. R. Gambarato (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies (pp. 306–313). Routledge. Link
Freeman, M., & Taylor-Ashfield, C. (2017). “I read comics from a feministic point of view”: Conceptualizing the transmedia ethos of the Captain Marvel fan community. In The Journal of Fandom Studies (Vol. 5, Issue 3, pp. 317–335). Link

(8) Freeman, M. (2018). Transmedia charity: constructing the ethos of the BBC’s Red Nose Day across media. In M. Freeman & R. R. Gambarato (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies (pp. 306–313). Routledge. Link

(9) Home Page. (2019). Adım Adım. Link[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Marinescu Cosmin
Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences
University of Bucharest[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Trends in Visual Communication of the European Capitals of Culture in 2018 and 2019: generic vs. national elements

The European Union flag, the design of an EU logo, simple and repetitive symbols or projects such as European Capitals of Culture (ECC), European Years or Creative Europe, facilitated the transition of the European integration discourse towards the idea of symbolic identity, especially in the last three decades. (Aiello, 2007)

Born from the same desire to express the idea of “unity in diversity” and reaching a popularity that has secured its place in the global calendar of cultural events, the European Capitals of Culture program promotes the cultural riches of Europe and allows citizens to share and celebrate diversity, together. Therefore, European Capitals of Culture are a place where diversity and togetherness, two values promoted intensively by EU, are at home. Diversity means exploring the uniqueness, the history and particularities of that city (art, gastronomy, architecture, etc.). Togetherness could mean the fact that capitals of culture are global cities, a common ground for Europeans. This multicultural and international character of the togetherness is aimed to increase Europeans’ sense of belonging to the same cultural space. Familiar settings could mean, at a visual level, a more homogenized, less descriptive and standardized communication. No matter the place, individuals are at home, because the visuals transport the viewer into a familiar setting, regardless of their culture. Thus, this desired trend of internationalization and globalization could also have an impact at a visual communication level, ultimately leading to standardization, genericity and a more corporate feel of the communication campaign of each city (Aiello & Thurlow, 2006; Aiello, 2007; Machin, van Leeuwen, 2007; Aiello, 2012; C. Cmeciu, D. Cmeciu, 2014)

At the same time, the cities that hold the title of ECC have the opportunity, for a year, to promote all the local particularities and to promote cultural events that differentiate them from other cities. This is a tactic derived from city branding, which aims to attract touristic capital through individualization. (Koller, 2008). Thus, as in the case of a brand, semiotic and cognitive production should gravitate towards local particularities. But do they highlight the cities uniqueness or do they comply to the idea of internationalization? This research is aimed to answer this question and to identify the visual modality achieved across four European Capitals of Culture, from a top-down perspective. Moreover, the research is aimed to identify the most prominent visual resources in the official promotional images, used by four ECCs (Valetta, Leeuwarden, Matera and Plovdiv). To achieve this, I conducted a multimodal analysis of the images used by the local authorities of these four cities chosen to be European Capitals of Culture in 2018 and 2019 on their official websites. The data will contain 400 images which I imported in the QDA miner qualitative software. The analysis will focus on the identification of three layers of meaning: experiential, interpersonal and textual (Halliday, 2004; Kress, van Leeuwen, 2006; Machin & van Leeuwen, 2007; Machin, Mayr, 2012; Jewitt et al., 2016). For each layer of meaning, the following categories will be analyzed: narrative representation, conceptual representation, participants, settings, thematic groups, props (experiential meaning), focus, framing (interpersonal meaning) and modality (textual meaning).

This study intends to obtain an overview of the current trends in visual communication of the capitals of culture cities and to provide a clearer picture of what local authorities consider to be a desirable image of a city, an image capable of attracting tourist potential and cultural capital.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Aiello, G., & Thurlow, C. (2006). Symbolic capitals: Visual discourse and intercultural exchange in the European Capital of Culture scheme. Language and Intercultural Communication, 6(2), 148-162.

Aiello, G. (2007). The appearance of diversity: Visual design and the public communication of EU identity.  European Union Identity, 145-182. 

Cmeciu, C., Cmeciu, D. (2014). (De)coding the Fabric of the European Years’ Visual Representations. In E. Zantides (coord.), Semiotics and Visual Communication: Concepts and Practices (pp. 56-71). Cambridge: Cambridge Publishing Scholars.

Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J., O`Halloran, K. (2016). Introducing Multimodality. New York: Routledge. 

Jewitt, C., Henriksen, B. (2016). Social Semiotic Multimodality. In Nina-Maria Klug and Hartmut Stöckl (Eds.), Handbuch Sprache im multimodalen Kontext (pp. 145-164). De Gruyter: Berlin.

Kress, G., (2010). Multimodality: a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. New York: Routledge.  

Machin, D., van Leeuwen, T. (2007). Global media discourse: a critical introduction. New York: Routledge.

Machin, D., Mayr, A. (2012). How to do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. London: Sage.

van Leeuwen, T. (2005), Social Semiotics. Great Britain: Taylor & Francis.

van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Semiotics and Iconography. In Theo Van Leeuwen and Carey Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Melike Özmen
Visual Communication Design
Istanbul Bilgi University

Zeynep Beler
Interdisciplinary artist[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Working Towards a Collaborative Methodology in Art and Design: The Artist’s Book

The working methodologies of the visual artist and the visual communication designer are individualistic even though these disciplines are characterized by a proximity to one another. This research focuses on the relationship between the visual artist and visual designer in the context of exhibiting and promoting the artwork.

It is possible to examine the interdisciplinary within visual arts and visual communication design through a conventional exhibition production scenario. This scenario emphasizes the collaboration between four separate disciplines and specifies four accounts which are the visual artist, the curator, the visual communication designer, and the printing operator. Although, these accounts contribute to the process with their knowledge regarding their own fields they also have a hierarchical relationship in terms of the debate of the separation between the fine arts and applied arts.

The hierarchical relationship between these four accounts do not stem from any respective intellectual superiority but from the roles that have been associated with these accounts throughout history. The distinction of art as fine arts and applied arts arose as a result of mechanization and mass production, leading to a historical transformation that separated art from its basis in cult and changing its function so that it surpassed the perspective of the 19th century (Benjamin 1999). As the mechanical reproduction of the work of art became possible, the hierarchy of the arts also led to a form social hierarchy amongst the actors, who were the creator of the original artwork, the reproducer, or one who created artworks in reproducible forms such as posters or books etc.

Meanwhile there were attempts to deconstruct the conceptual and social segregation and hierarchy between fine arts, applied arts and their actors. One of the leading examples of this approach was Bauhaus School, which eliminated the divisions between fine arts and applied arts by integrating their curriculum and training the students equally in art and in technically expert craftsmanship (Britannica 2021). This approach indicates an interdisciplinary method apart from the social and the economic factors that created the segregation in the first place.

The contemporary segregation between fine arts and applied arts is one angle of the greater discussion about whether creatives can overcome the issues of specialization and lack of impartiality for one’s own output without some form of collaboration with others. In his book The Craftsman, Richard Sennett discusses the kind of lateral thinking necessary for creating successful structures, institutions and devices that allows technicians to benefit from the bearers of embodied knowledge, but mere manual laborers; and he states that the distinction between the head and the hand is not intellectual but social (Sennett 2008). As stated above, the process of materializing an exhibition involves the knowledge of four different actors that is specific to their own disciplines, their collaborative experience playing an important role in the process. Thus, the hierarchical relationship between them is not related to the amount of knowledge they have but to how these actors are situated in the social structure.

This research initially aims to deconstruct the social roles given to the visual artist and the visual communication designer and to propose a more flexible and interdisciplinary relationship between these actors. The conventional exhibition production process multiplies the number of the actors and disciplines involved. The second aim of this research is to propose a different exhibition medium for artwork, such as an artist’s book, to alter the hierarchical relationship between the visual artist and the visual designer and to encourage an interdisciplinary collaboration between these two actors.

As a platform that procedurally preserves the efforts of the collaborators, the artist book is a compelling study object to examine how these predicaments might also work in reverse, as in what ways the artist and the designer’s particular areas of expertise overlap and/or diverge. The origins of artist’s books are generally considered to be based in the Avantgarde movement, as a way to both more democratically disseminate one’s works in a print-dominated world and showcase them in a format independent of the gallery and the conventional exhibition. Moreover, the term Artist’s Book depicts two different traditions, which are the monograph and zines/self-published books that differ in terms of authorship and form. The artist monograph is either in the form of retrospective assessment of an artist’s work or survey of a living artist’s career (Adamowicz 2009). On the other hand, zines and self-published artist’s books have been a way to disseminate ideas and decentralize the art system instead of concentrating on merely the artist and their artworks. Both formats preserve the haptic experience that is a necessary component of experiencing art, which is a privilege traditionally monopolized by museums and galleries. This research aims to examine these formats through selected artist’s book examples and to explore a multifocal approach to bookmaking and the presentation of content in the determined form via the case study of the production of an artist’s book.

The case study aims to focus on the collaborative efforts of the visual artist Zeynep Beler and the visual communication designer Melike Özmen to produce an artist’s book. The actors will first examine different examples of artist’s books that indicate different relationships amongst the visual artists and the visual communication designers, different visual and literal formats, and various visual languages. These examples will also include books previously produced by Zeynep Beler. The artist’s book will feature new digital works produced by the visual artist. Although the resulting artist’s book will not refer Zeynep Beler as their author. Instead, the book will refer to a semi-fictional subject named Z as the visual artist, fabricated by Zeynep Beler via cut-up method texts “borrowed” from an array of artist biographies. In the process of producing the artist’s book the visual artist and the visual communication designer will select a number of concepts together as keywords that is related to the main theme to create a visual language. During the case study the visual artist and the visual communication designer will create a context within which to position the work and to create a semantic relationship between the artist’s book and the viewer. The steps of the production of the artist’s book will be documented by the actors. As a result of the case study, this research aims to provide a methodology for the collaborative production of an artist’s book by positioning the book as an interface in and of itself and creating a visual language for the viewer to interact with the artist’s book as an object.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Adamowicz, E. “The Livre D’artiste In Twentieth-Century France.” French Studies 63.2 (2009): 189-198. Web. 1 Apr. 2021.

“Bauhaus.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Apr. 2021. Link 

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Translated by J. A. Underwood, Penguin Books, 2008.

Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2008. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Dağhan Gökdel
Electrical & Electronics Engineering
Istanbul Bilgi University

Tuğba Dalyan
Computer Engineering
Istanbul Bilgi University

Aslı Tunç
New Media and Communication
Istanbul Bilgi University

Ayşe Uyduranoğlu
Economics
Istanbul Bilgi University

Selin Öztürk
Economics
Istanbul Bilgi University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Researchers as Collaborators in a Large Scale (RDI) Project

Our project, titled “Towards Sustainable Cities: Smart Parking System and Policy Development in Istanbul” has been selected after a rigorous blind review process as one of the four projects that received BİLGİ Research Development Innovation (RDI) Fund worth of 500.000 T.L. The RDI projects were expected to be truly interdisciplinary embracing all corners of different research areas. In our project, we aimed to bring sustainable communities and cities to the agenda of local policymakers in order to offer improved quality of life for the residents of Istanbul. We believed that as the need for commuting increased in line with urbanization, an integrated and more environmentally friendly transport system would be critical in reaching sustainability goals in relation to mobility. In this project, we decided to develop a smart parking system, including a park and ride scheme, which will mitigate the congestion problem resulting from the inefficient use of existing park spaces in Istanbul, one of the most congested cities in the world. The developed scheme aims to be of help for municipalities to create better parking facilities and serve as a policy tool to promote transport systems in favor of the environment and community. The goals of this project can be stated as (1) drastically alleviating traffic congestion stemming from a prolonged search for parking; (2) reducing air pollution in city centers, especially in areas where parking facilities are not sufficient; (3) automating and optimizing the parking management, reducing the human cost and time-loss and generating more parking revenue; (4) sensing, collecting, and recording multiple features and behavior of vehicles and their drivers to form and process big data; (5) offering a comfortable city excursion especially for disabled and elderly citizens; (6) drastically improving the well-being of the residents of Istanbul through the smart parking scheme and finally (7) promoting transport systems in favor of the environment and community. Apart from the content of the project, this roundtable aims to share an inspiring collaborative experience as a diverse research team with young scholars. In our project, Dr. Dağhan Gökdel, as a computer scientist, works on implementation of the required sensor network and embedded system for vehicle detection, data collection and control & actuation of various mechanical systems in the proposed parking unit, Dr. Tuğba Dalyan, as a computer engineer focuses on database design such as admin, user, parking space giving support for monitoring parking space using deep learning and connection of mobile application and cloud server, Assoc. Prof. Ayşe Uyduranoğlu as an economist and the director of the Research Centre for Environmental Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University takes part in the sustainable transport and energy, and policy side,  Dr. Selin Öztürk as an economics and business administration scholar is responsible for interpretation of the survey results and also modeling the determinants of people’s support for smart car parking and finally Prof. Aslı Tunç as a communication scholar is in charge of the project’s media strategy, its public relations campaigns and dissemination plans. In addition to the core research team, we have a number of working students who also are indispensable parts of the project adding an educational component to the process.

This roundtable will offer a forum for discussion on how a group of researchers from different disciplines can come together in a 30-month long research, for sharing experiences stemming from our RDI project, the challenges the researchers might face along the way, how young scholars can apply for large scale research funds and grants and come together in a collaborative working environment.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Maren Hartmann
Berlin University of Arts (UdK)

David Lowis
Berlin University of Arts (UdK)

Işıl Eğrikavuk
Berlin University of Arts (UdK)

Mirjana Mitrović
Berlin University of Arts (UdK)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Diversifying Research Methodologies: Researcher as Collaborator

This panel group presents four young academics from Berlin University of Arts (UdK), who are working in the communication department together with Prof. Maren Hartmann. Even though their research projects differ from one another in content, each project involves a methodology that brings the researcher together with involved collaborators/participants. According to Brad Haseman, recently there has been a radical interest to not only place practice within the research process, but to lead research through practice. “Originally proposed by artists/researchers and researchers in the creative community these new strategies are known as creative practice as research, performance as research, research through practice, studio research, practice as research or practice-led research” (Haseman, 2006, p.100). In this panel, the four panelists will each present their practice-led methodology, highlighting alternative forms of knowledge production through collective action. From a collective feminist flaneur walk to working with homeless people though mobile phone technologies, and from socially engaged work to a collaborative and participatory artistic research, these four research papers will invite the audience to think together certain topics and issues raised through collaborative research. “How are the roles and experiences of all partakers distributed in a democratic research process?” “What are issues related to ownership in a collaborative process?” “How can one position their role between being both the leader and learner of a project, and at the same time remain open to more roles such as negotiator, confronter, conflict manager and peace-maker?” Another goal of the panel is to challenge and contribute to methodological diversity in the institution. This is closely associated with “methodological abundance”, a concept described in the writings of philosopher Paul Feyerabend, who defends against a single philosophy of scientific viewpoint, saying that the world is too diverse to be reduced to a single method. In his seminal work, Against Method (1975), Feyerabend writes that the essence of science is to be anarchic. “Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives” (Feyerabend, 1975, p.5). Following Feyeraband’s footsteps, this panel will underline the significance of co-creation in the production of knowledge and also ask how one can contribute to the academic institution by diversifying its production mechanisms.

Researcher-Practitioner: Negotiating Roles in Doing Research with an NGO for the Homeless

David Lowis

In researching the intersection of homelessness and digital media, I came into contact with an NGO doing work with the homeless, which had managed to secure a large donation of mobile phones to hand out among homeless people in Berlin. They were struggling with the distribution of these phones, so I offered to support the process while simultaneously using the opportunity conduct research. A partial “role transition” (Allen and Van de Vliert, 1984) soon started occurring, as my focus shifted from conducting research about the homeless towards working to provide a service for and with the homeless. Yet, this transition cannot be a complete one; instead, my location in the field requires me to oscillate between inhabiting my role as a researcher and my newfound role as a practitioner. In this presentation, I will aim to reflect on this process and the challenges and opportunities that arise from it.

From A Political Protest To An Art Exhibition: Building Interconnectedness Through Dialogue- Based Art

Işıl Eğrikavuk

In my collaborative and participatory artistic research, I extract certain qualities of the Gezi Park protests that took place in 2013 in Istanbul and invite the reader re-think them in the light of topics discussed under the community art practices (new genre public art). I identify these qualities as critical dialogue, agonistic community and performative expression. Taking these three key issues as my criteria, I then search for ways to redevelop them through collaborative and participatory artistic research, in which I collaborate with six collectives (five artist collectives and one ecology collective) from Turkey. Our collaborative and participatory artistic research constitutes our dialogical process and its outcomes, which we presented as an exhibition in Istanbul in 2017, and the follow up phase of the whole process. I argue that, in an atmosphere where there is extremely limited freedom of speech, art, which is made through and for dialogue, holds the potential to connect people with one another, and thus transform the society.

Third Space Walks. Collaborating with flaneuses in virtual and material spaces of cities.

Mirjana Mitrović 

The interaction between technologies and societies shape everyday life in urban spaces as the boundaries between virtual and analog worlds seem to dissolve. Concepts like “hybridity” applied by Haraway and “Third Space” according to Bhabha create a possibility to understand, influence and debate current and future dynamics of digitalization. To walk this new space, this paper presents a new method of flanerie, based on Benjamin and established theories of walking, such as psychogeography or strollology, but including feminist, intersectional and postcolonial perspectives. It understands flanerie not only as walking, but also as collecting impressions from different perspectives and presenting – perhaps fragmented – conclusions. Applied by various persons whom are not included in the prevalent image of the flaneur as a white man, this method challenges the status quo of how and by whom academic knowledge is created and represented. Through this method and a focus on the trinity of digital technologies, bodies and spaces, the third space and what it means to those who walk it can be analyzed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Feyerabend, P. K. (1975). Against Method. London: Verso.

Haseman, B. (2006). A Manifesto for Performative Research. Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, No. 118. pp. 98-106.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Onur Sesigür
New Media and Communication
Istanbul Bilgi University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

“Alone Together”: Reconnecting Death Stranding’s Broken Sense of Community

Death Stranding (DS) is a video game, produced by Kojima Productions in 2019, which puts loneliness, community, communication, transportation and connectivity in a post-apocalyptic world to the centre of its narrative structure. The main purpose of the player in the game is to reconnect what is left of a country and possibly humanity to remedy the social disconnect caused by a natural disaster of apocalyptic proportions, the “Death Stranding”. This is offered to be achieved by the game’s main character Sam Porter Bridges, delivering cargo and establishing communication network connections between small doomsday prepper shelters and slightly larger cities. The general atmosphere and the main story of DS provides an opportunity to discuss community and society through connectivity as well as social isolation and loneliness or even the limits of individuality and globalisation in distressful times. To do so from a media studies perspective, two main approaches can be used in tandem to offer insight: Mediatization and being “Alone Together”. Considering the world has been experiencing a heightened level of sociality through connectivity in the current days of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is plausible to utilise a discussion of mediatized worlds and how culture and society are saturated with mediated communicative experiences (Hepp & Krotz, 2014) as the first approach. For the second approach, a consideration of the creator of DS, Hideo Kojima’s vocal statements about his motivation to design this particular video game is useful. Throughout the marketing process of the game before the launch, Kojima consistently stated that the main purpose of DS is to simply connect (PlayStation, 2019; PlayStation France, 2019). He explains his motivation to create such a game as “[he is] very prone to loneliness. [He thinks] there are similar people around the world, especially gamers. Even though they are having fun with others outside, when they are alone playing video games in their living room they do not feel like they fit into society or their community. So when people play this game, they realise people like them exist all over the world. Knowing that even though I am lonely, there are other people like me, makes you feel at ease” (BBC Newsbeat, 2019). To accommodate this proclaimed subtext of the game narrative, this study offers Sherry Turkle’s extensive analysis of networked relationships in her book titled “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other” and the concept of being “Alone Together” through connectivity in parallel to the concept of mediatization to close-read the DS narrative. In addition to the emphasis on community in the narrative, the fact that DS’s gameplay mechanics incentivise a collaborative mode of play and force constructive communication through restricting the multiplayer aspect to sharing of in-game assets and information and not allowing any sort of written, sonic or visual direct communication richens the discussion of what it means to be alone together in a mediatised world. This analysis hopes to understand our current social circumstances in an aggressively mediatised world, always together, always alone; utilising DS’s narrative, its toxicity-free yet limited mode of collaboration mechanics, it’s post-apocalyptic, disconnected world and the journey to reconnect society, reform community and re-establish the feeling of being together through physical and communicative connectivity by delivering packages and setting up communicative networks.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

BBC Newsbeat. (2019, November 4). Death Stranding: Inside Kojima Productions | Newsbeat Documentaries. Retrieved from

Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (2014). Mediatized Worlds – Understanding Everyday Mediatization. In A. Hepp, & F. Krotz (Eds.), Mediatized Worlds Culture and Society in a Media Age (pp. 1-18). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

PlayStation. (2019, November 7). Countdown to Death Stranding. Retrieved from

PlayStation France. (2019, November 9). Death Stranding | Interview with Hideo Kojima in PlayZONE – EN subtitles. Retrieved from

Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Yasin Yeşilyurt
Department of Radio-TV-Cinema
Yeni Yuzyil University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Artificial Intelligence Between Remaining as a Tool of Knowledge Production and Becoming a Subject

We live in an era which the apperance of the world has been changing dramatically like in the 19th century. 1980’s technological revolution has reshaped the material basis of societies and economies became global and connected to each other. On the other hand, information technologies changed social life radically by articulating to the neoliberal economic model and revealed new forms of production (Castells, 2010). Thus, while the world is moving towards a digital technocracy, power relations have begun to take shape in the decision-making of information that is filtered out of mass data such as information technologies and big data analyses. Present and possible future social life is undergoing a transformation with these new rationalized systems which is more flexible than before. Although the bad conditions created by the anthropocene are being questioned, internet, artificial intelligence researches, digitized data and algorithms are becoming a factor in determining our accessing the knowledge styles, next strategies, as well as our social life are becoming shaped by a more data-centered world. Information technologies, industry 4.0 and beyond or AI researches have been leading to occur new ideas and imaginations about the future society. These transformations also led to the emergence of new discussions about accessing, controlling and political usage of knowledge. Today’s technological environment access to knowledge is much easier than in the past but accessing the correct one has become much more complex. Because of the internet a lot of unreliable information can be spread very fast in various ways. This situation causes both disinformations as well as misinformations. On the other hand, collecting private data by companies began to cause much more negative consequences. Actors of these processes are artificial intelligence, algorithms and governments/companies that control them. Artificial intelligence has a key role in this issue.

This paper focuses on two different perspectives on artificial intelligence. The first point of view is on the increasing importance of artificial intelligence in the production and circulation of knowledge and its relation to political economy. The second one is the posthumanism’s ethical debate about consideration of a possible advanced artificial intelligence (which is named Artificial General Intelligence) not as a tool but as a self-conscious subject.

METHOD

Document review will be the method of this paper. Existing documents will be collected and evaluated to clearify the role of artificial intelligence in knowledge production. In addition, perspectives of posthumanist thought on artificial intelligence will be analysed through books and articles to compare these different points of view.

OBJECTIVES

By the help of this research we may have an idea about how AI impact society as a tool by collecting/producing knowledge and how it might have a different role in our life if it considered as a subject by posthuman ethic.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. Cornwall: Polity Press.

Butler, Samuel. 1917. «Darwin Among the Machines.» in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones, 42-46. New York: E.P. Dutton & CO.

Good, Irving John. 1965. «Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine.» Edt: Franz L.Alt ve Morris Rubinoff. Advences in Computers (Academic Press) (6): 31-88.

Gorz, André. 2011. Maddesiz. Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları.

Granrath, Lorenz. 2017. Japan’s Society 5.0: Going Beyond Industry 4.0. 29 August. 

Hayles, N. Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Kakoudaki, Despina. 2014. Anatomy of a Robot. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Kaku, Michio. 2015. Zihnin Geleceği. Ankara: ODTÜ Press.

Ranisch, Robert, ve Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. 2014. «Introducing Post- and Transhumanism.» in Post- and Transhumanism: An Introduction, Robert Ranisch ve Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Edition.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Nurgül Yardım
Istanbul Bilgi University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

On Makers, Podcasts and Discovering Techniques

In terms of a disciplinary position, I am holding an undergraduate degree in architecture and a master’s degree in urban design. I’ve worked as an architect and also lead architectural communications in global architectural firms. Moreover, I have been both producing and hosting a podcast; interviews with designers, architects and makers since 2019. My interest in community and communication guided me to study ‘makerspaces’ in my PhD research in communication studies. Makerspace is a typology that can be considered as a (creative) space, which is essentially fuelled by people, generally called ‘makers’. Makers interested in design and manufacture or honing their skills by taking classes in well-equipped makerspaces (Morozov, 2014). Browder et. al argues that makers are more collaborative than typical entrepreneurs and they “share tools, expertise and ideas in a very practical way” in makerspaces. (2017, p. 17). On the other hand, in his book Makers, Chris Anderson claimed “We are all Makers. We are born Makers…” (p.13, 2012). When I began the thesis, I questioned how makers work collaboratively in makerspaces. As my thesis journey narrates my search for being a multi-disciplinary researcher; I would like to discover new techniques to diversify my research methodology for combining academic and everyday knowledge. Therefore, I observed that the podcast medium allowed me to approach this study in innovative ways. The podcast medium was identified as an early expression of do-it-yourself media in the digital world allowing people to communicate with each other (Meserko, 2015) and to establish new social connections (McClung and Johnson, 2010). According to Castells, new media are becoming “the new, and most effective, frontier for the exercise of power on the world stage” (2001, p.161). I believe that digital audio technologies have expanded methodological possibilities as a research method. In their book; Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media, Llinares, et.al offer an interdisciplinary collection exploring podcasting through a media and cultural studies lens. Using podcasting as a method in between disciplines; specifically for semi-structured interviews, adds a layer to regular interviews. Not only using thematic coding of interview transcripts but also sharing the audio in a podcast format, make the process engaging. The question here is that “How is this method making sense in the research process?” I have been inviting makers to my PhD research for making an interview as most of them kindly declined. This resonates with my approach through creative practice, and with my interests in production while research has its own pace in the academy. Therefore, I invited them to be on the podcast as a part of PhD research. And most of the makers kindly accepted these public interviews. “What podcasting offers is a classic ‘horizontal’ media form: producers are consumers and consumers become producers and engage in conversations with each other” (Berry, 2006, p.146). Indeed, I try to examine the potentials of a podcast as a research method by reflecting upon my research process. As podcasts also raise methodological challenges such as limited time, technical expertise and distribution; they empower researchers to engage in academic and public debates in new ways, providing more accessible forms of knowledge. According to Llinares, et.al; podcasting’s open source is a new way of exchanging ideas outside of the written form of the academic journal and academic publishing. Notably, I hope this experience encourages both researchers, participant and audience from both public and academia to come together.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Berry, R. (2006) ‘Will the iPod kill the radio star? Profiling podcasting as radio’, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 143-162.

Castells, M. (2001) The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society, Oxford University Press.

McClung, S. and Johnson, K. (2010) ‘Examining the motives of podcast users’. Journal of Radio & Audio Media, vol. 17, pp. 82–95.

Meserko, V. (2015) ‘Standing Upright: Podcasting, Performance, and Alternative Comedy’, Studies in American Humor, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 20-40.

Llinares, D., Fox, N., Berry, R. (2018) Podcasting New Aural Cultures and Digital Media.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619799164436{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619780741532{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Begüm Irmak
Istanbul Bilgi University

Ayça Ulutaş
Istanbul Bilgi University[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/4″][vc_column_text]

Peer to Peer Collaborative Journey in Doctoral Study Programs

This discussion evidences the collaborative work between two doctoral students, transforming an often solitary learning experience through interactions and collaboration with each other. Coming together as qualitative researchers, we have developed a peer support system initiated at the beginning of the doctoral program and continued throughout to this day in thesis writing phase. The peer authors experienced a unique type of collaboration during their doctoral program at Bilgi University, which occurred in a naturally evolving, rather organic way. Consequently, the purpose of this discussion is to define and observe the role of organic collaboration and peer to peer support on doctoral student completion. Throughout this experience, the peers contributed to these collaborative efforts by forming intentional peer relationships during the classroom requirements, comprehensive exam preparation, dissertation process and scholarly practices. This discussion is the story of an organic collaboration among two peers who were united by their thesis advisor in one course yet remained intact to this day by choice.

Whilst searching on assistance and support available on doctoral study programs, we found that most of the studies often focus on the research relationships between supervisor and the student (Littlefield, et al, 2015). Accordingly, we note that there is much less emphasis on the value of collaborative relationships between doctoral students. Furthermore, the individualized nature of working up within self-paced models dominating scholarly environments culminates in a social isolation and limited opportunities for engagement necessitates self-motivation that feels like an everyday uphill battle of many doctoral students. Hence, our aim in this discussion is to concentrate on how collaborations with each other facilitated our learning journeys through supportive relationships with each other and explore the possibilities of forming supportive environments conducive to dialogue about research, our experiences and ideas of it.

We hope that the participants will join us in sharing their experiences of collaborations and working with other doctoral students. Whether supportive or otherwise, disseminating narratives about our relationships with other doctoral students contributes to the debates about relationships in the research process not only at the individual level but at the scale of educational structures. We believe this in itself provoke another way of understanding related to a reflexive practice for qualitative researchers.

With mutual agreement, this discussion will center around the notions of pedagogical use of peer collaboration, organic collaboration teams, reflexivity and creating a culture of shared/external accountability. Concurring on the idea that peer collaboration is a key component in academic success and student performance, especially within higher educational doctoral programs and improvement of completion rates in doctoral programs (Anderson, 1996), peer authors will visit the meanings and boundaries of the listed conceptual frameworks, driving from their own experiences. In an effort to create a collaborative discussion environment, related questions will be posed to the audience in relation to the provided concepts.

Examples of the questions:

  • Describe examples of peer-to-peer support that you experienced during your doctoral studies?
  • What impact, if any, did your team members have on your doctoral completion?
  • What does reflexivity mean to you? And how is it embedded in your individual research process?
  • What suggestions do you have for the institution, faculty, or other doctoral students regarding organic collaboration?

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]References

Anderson, M. S. (1996). Collaboration, the doctoral experience, and the departmental environment. The Review of Higher Education, 19(3), 305-326. 

Littlefield, C. M., Taddei, L. M., & Radosh, M. E. (2015). Organic collaborative teams: The role of collaboration and peer to peer support for part-time doctoral completion. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 10, 129-142.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1619942788893{background-image: url(https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/collaborations_bg4.png?id=2294) !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_column][vc_text_separator title=”SPEAKERS” color=”juicy_pink” css=”.vc_custom_1605096541618{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][themeum_speaker_page_listing speaker_cat=”2021″ count_post=”40″ column=”3″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column]

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İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi
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Eski Silahtarağa Elektrik Santralı
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