"Comprising 41 chapters by a team of international contributors, the companion is divided into three parts: histories; approaches; thematic considerations. The chapters offer wide-ranging explorations of how forms of mediation influence communication, social relationships, cultural practices, partic
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ipation, and social change, as well as production and access to information and knowledge. This volume considers new developments, and highlights the ways in which anthropology can contribute to the study of the human condition and the social processes in which media are entangled." (Publisher description)
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"This edited volume presents ground-breaking empirical research on the media in political transition in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. Focusing on developments in the wake of the region’s upheavals in 2011, it offers a new theoretical framework for understanding mediascapes in the confessional and h
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ybrid-authoritarian systems of the Middle East. In this book, media scholars focus on three themes: the media’s structure as an expression of governance, the media’s function as a reflection of the market, and the media’s agency in communicating between power and the public. The result is a unique addition to the literature on two counts. Firstly, analysis of similar players, issues and processes in each country produces a thematically consistent comparative assessment of the media’s role across the southern Mediterranean region. The first cross-country comparison of specific media practices in the Middle East, it covers issues such as women in talk shows, media’s relationship with surveillance, and comparative practices of media regulation. Secondly, actualising the idea that media reflects the society that produces it, the studies here draw on field data to lay the foundations for a new theory of media, Values and Status Negotiation (VSN), which evolved from the region’s unique characteristics and practices, and offers an alternative to prevailing Western-centric approaches to media analysis." (Publisher description)
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"The euphoria that has accompanied the birth and expansion of the internet as a "liberation technology" is increasingly eclipsed by an explosion of vitriolic language on a global scale. Digital Hate: The Global Conjuncture of Extreme Speech provides the first distinctly global and interdisciplinary
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perspective on hateful language online. Moving beyond Euro-American allegations of 'fake news,' contributors draw attention to local idioms and practices and explore the profound implications for how community is imagined, enacted, and brutally enforced around the world. With a cross-cultural framework nuanced by ethnography and field-based research, the volume investigates a wide range of cases-from anti-immigrant memes targeted at Bolivians in Chile to trolls serving the ruling AK Party in Turkey - to ask how the potential of extreme speech to talk back to authorities has come under attack by diverse forms of digital hate cultures." (Publisher description)
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"This article focuses on AKTrolls, defined as pro-government political trolls in Turkey, while attempting to draw implications about political trolling in the country in general. It examines their methods and effects, and it interrogates whether (and how) Turkish authorities have attempted to shape
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or counter politically motivated social media content production through trolling after the Gezi Park Protests that took place in 2013. My findings are based on an ethnographic study that included participant observation and in-depth interviews in a setting that is under-studied and about which reliable sources are difficult to find. The study demonstrates political trolling activity in Turkey is more decentralized and less institutionalized than generally thought, and is based more on ad hoc decisions by a larger public. However, I argue here that AKTrolls do have impact on reducing discourses on social media that are critical of the government, by engaging in surveillance, among other practices." (Abstract)
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"This article focuses on AKTrolls, defined as pro-government political trolls in Turkey, while attempting to draw implications about political trolling in the country in general. It examines their methods and effects, and it interrogates whether (and how) Turkish authorities have attempted to shape
...
or counter politically motivated social media content production through trolling after the Gezi Park Protests that took place in 2013. My findings are based on an ethnographic study that included participant observation and in-depth interviews in a setting that is under-studied and about which reliable sources are difficult to find. The study demonstrates political trolling activity in Turkey is more decentralized and less institutionalized than generally thought, and is based more on ad hoc decisions by a larger public. However, I argue here that AKTrolls do have impact on reducing discourses on social media that are critical of the government, by engaging in surveillance, among other practices." (Abstract)
more