This is an initiative to launch a sustainable platform for media ethnographers of Turkey where they can delve into theoretical issues, methodological discussions, and eld experiences that are specic to the Turkish context. As a dynamic and complex cultural eld, the Turkish context makes it a challenging task for media ethnographers to dene their researcher identity and to designate their theoretical approach. The current media environment marked by censorship, political pressure, and deepening polarization further complicates the picture for ethnographers of Turkish media and renders it difcult for them to nd safe entry points for participant observation. With these issues in mind, Suncem, Burak, and Ozan got together in 2016 and imagined a platform for media ethnographers of Turkey to share with each other, learn from one another, and yield research ideas together. This website is an outcome of those contemplations.
Suncem Koçer received her double PhD in Anthropology and Communication & Culture from Indiana University in 2012. Her research interests revolve around anthropological understanding of publics, identity, and media discourses. Currently a member of the Communication Faculty at Kadir Has University, she has been teaching media anthropology, lm and ethnography, persuasion and propaganda, interpersonal communication, news culture, and communication campaigns since 2005. Koçer has also worked as a TV editor and anchor between 2011 and 2016.
Ozan Aşık is a lecturer-researcher in the Department of Sociology at Uludag University, Bursa Turkey. He completed his MSc in Middle East Studies at Middle East Technical University and received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. His current research focuses on television journalists in Turkish mainstream news media and how they imagine, dene and categorize the Kurds and Arabs –Turkey’s two signicant national ‘Others’– in the news production process.