Papers by Kumru Berfin Emre
Media, Culture & Society, 2018
The attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016 provided a justification for the Turkish government to ... more The attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016 provided a justification for the Turkish government to silence oppositional voices in the media and close down many television stations. Though the stated aim was to clamp down on the pro-coup Gulenist movement, the closure of TV channels has resulted in what I call a ‘communicative ethnocide’ silencing Alevi television in particular. Following Yalcinkaya, who builds on Clastres concept of ethnocide, I define ‘communicative ethnocide’ as the annihilation of the communicative capacity of a particular community by the state with the aim of destroying that community’s cultural identity. Although the closure of TV stations was not confined to Alevi channels, it has particular implications for the Alevi community by destroying its communicative capacity, infrastructure, relations with the viewers, and representation regime which are driven by the community’s political ambitions and attempts to sustain transnational connections. Parallels are drawn between Alevi and Kurdish TV to illustrate the Turkish context.
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National Identities , 2018
Satellite broadcasting technologies contribute a great deal to interaction across national bounda... more Satellite broadcasting technologies contribute a great deal to interaction across national boundaries, and in this regard satellite television is significant in the construction of a transnational public sphere for the Alevi community in Turkey and abroad. This paper addresses the role of television in the making of that transnational Alevi identity. In particular, it focuses on the flow and the programme contents of Cem TV and Yol TV, two leading Alevi channels, to demonstrate how the transnational imagination of Alevi identity corresponds to different political understandings of Aleviness.
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European Journal of Communication, 2016
This article discusses the shift in the representation of the family through a case study of Lost... more This article discusses the shift in the representation of the family through a case study of Lost City (2012–2013). The programme challenges the dominant representations of the family on Turkish television that are mostly framed by a particular neighbourhood culture and are characterized by organic solidarity. As outsiders in Turkish society, a prostitute, a Kurdish family and a Black illegal immigrant challenge the unity of the Toptas family that has moved to Istanbul from the Black Sea region of Turkey and who are trying hard to survive against poverty and the ‘cosmopolitan culture’ of the city. The series problematizes the borders of the family as different members of the Toptas family develop new relationships extending the family to include the outsiders of Turkish society. Drawing on Turkish family dramas such as Super Dad (1993–1997), Father’s Home (1997–2002), The Falling Leaves (2005–2010) and Lost City, this article examines the discursive shift in the representation of the family on Turkish television.
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Moment Dergi , 2016
Currently, religious broadcasting in Turkey is flourishing. Despite the variety it offers, religi... more Currently, religious broadcasting in Turkey is flourishing. Despite the variety it offers, religious broadcasting remains an under-investigated topic compared to other religious media. This paper analyses a particular form of religious broadcasting, televangelism, with particular reference to Adnan Oktar's television channel A9 TV. I argue that Adnan Oktar's televangelist practice stands at the margins of religious broadcasting and differs from other Islamic televangelists in various ways. I analyse both the visual and discursive characteristics of Oktar's televangelist practice.
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Journal for Women's Studies , 2016
This paper aims to provide a critique of food cultures in the neoliberal era. I argue that neolib... more This paper aims to provide a critique of food cultures in the neoliberal era. I argue that neoliberalism has transformed the ways in which people consume food and the cultural meanings of food and eating. Food and eating have become sources of narcissistic pleasure that are usually accompanied by feelings of guilt and anxiety towards oneself and nature. Middle-class women in particular are engaged in this neoliberal food culture through the discourses of ‘healthy bodies’, ‘organic lifestyles’ as well as the ‘domestic pleasure of cooking’.
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European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2017
Turkish television has seen the diversification of themes and genres in both fictional and factua... more Turkish television has seen the diversification of themes and genres in both fictional and factual programmes reflecting the expansion of the television market in the 2000s. As well as thematic television channels, various television shows on cooking and food are currently on air in Turkey. These cookery programmes not only introduce and ‘re-invent’ local recipes from different regions of Turkey but also promote particular lifestyles and consumption patterns for the audience. However, in the case of Turkey, cookery programmes draw comparisons between Islamic and secular lifestyles through combining religious tales with personal stories, local ingredients with global recipes and suggested housework strategies for producing tasteful food. This article examines Kitchen Love, a cookery programme presented by Emine Beder, one of the pioneers of culinary consumption as a form of popular culture. Both Emine Beder’s public persona and her show frame food and cooking as part of an Islamic identity that negotiates Islamic values in relation to modern lifestyles and patterns of consumption.
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International Journal of Communication, 2014
Turkish television has undergone a distinctive transformation since the early 2000s in which new ... more Turkish television has undergone a distinctive transformation since the early 2000s in which new regulations, rapid market growth, and political pressures have interacted with and transformed each other. As Turkey set new records in 2013 for the highest number of journalists arrested worldwide, television dramas have suffered from their fair share of political pressures, while the contemporary political agenda has, in turn, infiltrated the content of television dramas. This article analyzes the ways in which Turkish television dramas appear as a sphere of political contest.
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Books by Kumru Berfin Emre
Oxford University Press, 2023
This book is about Alevi media and the ways in which it has generated a particular form of citize... more This book is about Alevi media and the ways in which it has generated a particular form of citizenship that I call transversal citizenship. Alevis have been struggling for the right of recognition and equal citizenship in Turkey for decades. Despite this political struggle and its acknowledgement in the field of Alevi studies, their rights claims, with a few exceptions, have not been considered as acts of citizenship. Instead, their demands for equal citizenship have been situated within the framework of ‘identity politics’ in the post-Cold War context usually with pejorative undertones. This book examines the contemporary Alevi movement through Isin’s (2008, 2009, 2012, 2013) theory of citizenship enactment and argues that Alevi media paves the way for transversal imaginaries and rights claims that embed different spatial levels into Alevi politics.
In this book I also argue that in order to unpack the socio-political dynamics of Alevi television we must adopt a community-centred approach and make sense of Alevis’ boundary-making practices, political divisions and ethnic diversity. This community-centred approach is mainly influenced by contemporary debates on decolonising which took place in South Africa more than a decade ago and have been increasingly influential in the Global North more recently (Nigam, 2020; Meghji, 2021; Reiter, 2021). We need a community-centred approach not only for an understanding of Alevi media in detail but also for the decolonising of media studies which has a great deal to learn from marginalised community media and communications. Umbrella terms such as community media are useful for understanding social conceptions and patterns in relation to media communications but they pose limitations on distinguishing different types of communities (e.g. ethno-religious minorities). They also do not guarantee a critical understanding of colonial legacies that underpin media studies. For this reason decolonial media studies is not simply about researching marginalised communities or oppressed or under-represented groups; it is rather a theoretical orientation towards unpacking the legacies of colonialism while developing a critical dialogue with media studies. A productive approach to this can be found by examining the history of these groups and exploring their emic perspectives which this research also endeavours to do. A prominent example of this is Richardson’s (2020) work on African-American citizen journalism. Instead of examining the uses of smartphones by the Black community in recording, disseminating and protesting police violence in the United States of America (USA) through focusing on devices or platforms, Richardson rightfully situates it within the long history of Black witnessing of racist violence. Another call for cultural specificity comes from Florini (2019) who investigates Black digital networks by grounding her analysis in histories of Black communication and media production. In this book I adopt a similar approach in looking at the history of Alevis and the Alevi movement to understand how Alevi media has engendered a particular form of citizenship.
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Cambridge Scholars, 2015
The Paramilitary Hero on Turkish Television: A Case Study on Valley of the Wolves explores the re... more The Paramilitary Hero on Turkish Television: A Case Study on Valley of the Wolves explores the representation and reception of nationalism and masculinity in Turkey through an examination of the popular television serial, Valley of the Wolves which has been aired on Turkish television since 2003. This detailed examination of the show demonstrates a particular discourse of nationalism, namely the Turkish Islam synthesis embedded in a gender-specific regime in which the paramilitary hero is placed at the centre. The study draws on thirty-seven in-depth interviews with viewers of the programme from different social backgrounds. These viewers read the serial from various perspectives in the light of their gendered experiences, suggesting that the relationship between text and audience is not necessarily predetermined by the former, but is rather constructed through an interdiscursive process. The book also examines the pleasures of the “contesting” readers of Valley of the Wolves, drawing on the audience interviews, and argues that critical approaches to a particular media text do not present a barrier to audience pleasures.
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Book Chapters by Kumru Berfin Emre
Sosyal Bilimler Perspektifinden Aleviler ve Alevilik I (Der. Şükrü Aslan, Çiğdem Boz, Cemal Salman, Ütopya Yayınevi-Gadev Alevi Akademisi, Ankara, ss.342-365), 2023
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Television in Turkey: Local Production, Transnational Expansion and Political Aspirations, 2020
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The Sage Handbook of Media and Migration, 2019
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Talks by Kumru Berfin Emre
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Papers by Kumru Berfin Emre
Books by Kumru Berfin Emre
In this book I also argue that in order to unpack the socio-political dynamics of Alevi television we must adopt a community-centred approach and make sense of Alevis’ boundary-making practices, political divisions and ethnic diversity. This community-centred approach is mainly influenced by contemporary debates on decolonising which took place in South Africa more than a decade ago and have been increasingly influential in the Global North more recently (Nigam, 2020; Meghji, 2021; Reiter, 2021). We need a community-centred approach not only for an understanding of Alevi media in detail but also for the decolonising of media studies which has a great deal to learn from marginalised community media and communications. Umbrella terms such as community media are useful for understanding social conceptions and patterns in relation to media communications but they pose limitations on distinguishing different types of communities (e.g. ethno-religious minorities). They also do not guarantee a critical understanding of colonial legacies that underpin media studies. For this reason decolonial media studies is not simply about researching marginalised communities or oppressed or under-represented groups; it is rather a theoretical orientation towards unpacking the legacies of colonialism while developing a critical dialogue with media studies. A productive approach to this can be found by examining the history of these groups and exploring their emic perspectives which this research also endeavours to do. A prominent example of this is Richardson’s (2020) work on African-American citizen journalism. Instead of examining the uses of smartphones by the Black community in recording, disseminating and protesting police violence in the United States of America (USA) through focusing on devices or platforms, Richardson rightfully situates it within the long history of Black witnessing of racist violence. Another call for cultural specificity comes from Florini (2019) who investigates Black digital networks by grounding her analysis in histories of Black communication and media production. In this book I adopt a similar approach in looking at the history of Alevis and the Alevi movement to understand how Alevi media has engendered a particular form of citizenship.
Book Chapters by Kumru Berfin Emre
Talks by Kumru Berfin Emre
In this book I also argue that in order to unpack the socio-political dynamics of Alevi television we must adopt a community-centred approach and make sense of Alevis’ boundary-making practices, political divisions and ethnic diversity. This community-centred approach is mainly influenced by contemporary debates on decolonising which took place in South Africa more than a decade ago and have been increasingly influential in the Global North more recently (Nigam, 2020; Meghji, 2021; Reiter, 2021). We need a community-centred approach not only for an understanding of Alevi media in detail but also for the decolonising of media studies which has a great deal to learn from marginalised community media and communications. Umbrella terms such as community media are useful for understanding social conceptions and patterns in relation to media communications but they pose limitations on distinguishing different types of communities (e.g. ethno-religious minorities). They also do not guarantee a critical understanding of colonial legacies that underpin media studies. For this reason decolonial media studies is not simply about researching marginalised communities or oppressed or under-represented groups; it is rather a theoretical orientation towards unpacking the legacies of colonialism while developing a critical dialogue with media studies. A productive approach to this can be found by examining the history of these groups and exploring their emic perspectives which this research also endeavours to do. A prominent example of this is Richardson’s (2020) work on African-American citizen journalism. Instead of examining the uses of smartphones by the Black community in recording, disseminating and protesting police violence in the United States of America (USA) through focusing on devices or platforms, Richardson rightfully situates it within the long history of Black witnessing of racist violence. Another call for cultural specificity comes from Florini (2019) who investigates Black digital networks by grounding her analysis in histories of Black communication and media production. In this book I adopt a similar approach in looking at the history of Alevis and the Alevi movement to understand how Alevi media has engendered a particular form of citizenship.