Counter-surveillance and alternative new media in Turkey

Ataman, Bora; Çoban, Barış

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2018.1451908

Cited by 20 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…This is essential to be considered for future studies in social media surveillance field. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on counter-surveillance tactics (Ataman & Çoban, 2018;Hermida & Hernández-Santaolalla, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We Will Either Find a Way, or Make One”: How Iranian Green Movement Online Activists Perceive and Respond to Repression

Honari

2018

Social Media + Society

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While studies on the effect of repression of online activism mainly focus on the capabilities of states in surveillances and filtering on the web, this article focuses on individuals' responses to repression. Using data gathered by in-depth interviews of online activists of the Iranian Green Movement-the pro-democracy movement which emerged after the disputed 2009 elections-this article attempts to shed light on online activism under repression. The article focuses on two questions: How do activists perceive repression? How do they respond to repression? The research distinguishes three dimensions of perceived repression which interactively influence activists' choices in their response to repression: the importance of the repression, the external assessment of this repression, and the internal assessment. Regarding the response to repression, five distinct strategies are identified (1) de-identification, (2) network reformation, (3) circumvention, (4) self-censoring, and (5) being inconspicuously active. The study has a number of important theoretical and empirical implications for future studies on repression and online activism under authoritarian contexts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We Will Either Find a Way, or Make One”: How Iranian Green Movement Online Activists Perceive and Respond to Repression

Honari

2018

Social Media + Society

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“…Within internet studies, scholarship has used the term “alternative media” to describe digital messages and practices that subvert the dominant order. Research on citizen journalism, for example, has demonstrated how activists appropriate digital platforms to circumvent the gatekeeping functions of commercial or state-sponsored outlets (Ataman & Çoban, 2018; Neumayer & Stald, 2014; Suwana, 2019). Researchers studying alternative media producers have also documented how digital technologies enable people who are underrepresented in mainstream media to share their experiences and perspectives (Florini, 2017; Khalil, 2013).…”

Section: Reflecting On Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Margins as Methods, Margins as Ethics: A Feminist Framework for Studying Online Alterity

Clark-Parsons

Lingel

2020

Social Media + Society

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Prevailing theories of marginalized media position the work of resistance as beneath or less than the institutions against which resistance works, raising a number of methodological and ethical challenges for research on online alterity. We offer a margins-as-methods approach for studies of social media on the margins, directing critical attention to the theoretical, ethical, and political implications of positioning subsets of social media users as peripheral to an imagined center. Drawing on theories of feminist reflexivity and our own fieldwork experiences, we articulate the margins-as-methods approach through two sets of practices: deconstructing the power politics behind theories of alterity and identifying how these power politics shape every stage of the research process. We conclude by offering guiding questions for researchers to reflect on as they evaluate the methodological and ethical challenges specific to their projects. The margins-as-methods approach and the reflexive questions it raises build accountability for how our research process may reinscribe the very power relationships that we, alongside our interlocutors, work to contest.

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“…With the sale of the Doğan group, ‘nine of the ten most-watched TV channels and nine of the ten most-read national dailies’ came under the direct control of the government (RSF, 2018a). Last but not least, the government took steps to control the alternative media sources that broadcast critical information on the internet and conduct ‘counter-surveillance’ despite the risk of prosecution (see Ataman and Çoban, 2018). In March 2018, the Turkish parliament passed a law that requires all internet-based broadcasts, national or international, to obtain a licence from the High Council for Broadcasting (RTÜK) and undergo an investigation involving the police and the MİT (RSF, 2018b).…”

Section: Systems Of Turkey’s Authoritarian Surveillant Assemblagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is not to suggest that all forms of surveillance in contemporary Turkey follow the ASA model. Surveillance, in particular social media surveillance, can also be used for the purpose of counter-surveillance, such as through alternative and oppositional news production, exposing police violence and mobilizing protesters (Arda, 2015; Chrona and Bee, 2017; Ataman and Çoban, 2018), even though such oppositional uses of surveillance have been significantly restricted by the ASA since 2013, as the article will show in the following sections. Depending on who uses it and for what purpose, surveillance can also facilitate play, sociality, entertainment, enjoyment and profit – not only control.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The authoritarian surveillant assemblage: Authoritarian state surveillance in Turkey

Topak

2019

Security Dialogue

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This article examines Turkey’s authoritarian state surveillance regime by developing the concept of the authoritarian surveillant assemblage (ASA), building on and expanding the concept of the surveillant assemblage (SA). Turkey’s ASA is the outcome of diverse surveillance systems, which continuously expand their reach, form new connections and incorporate new actors. These systems include a protest and dissent surveillance system, an internet surveillance system, a synoptic media surveillance system and an informant–collaborator surveillance system. Turkey’s ASA is controlled by the Turkish state and serves its repressive interests. Although pivotal in emphasizing the complexity of surveillance connections and increasing diversification of and collaboration among surveillance actors, the SA model of surveillance puts the main emphasis on decentralized, uncoordinated and multifaceted forms of surveillance, and does not offer sufficient analytical space to understand how an authoritarian state could coordinate diverse surveillance systems and use it for the overarching purpose of control. The article draws on Michael Mann’s theory of state power and the authoritarian state to address these limitations of the SA and conceptualize the ASA. It shows how the diverse systems of Turkey’s ASA work in concert with one another under the hierarchical command of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to control the population and suppress dissent.

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Counter-surveillance and alternative new media in Turkey

Cited by 20 publications

References 32 publications

“We Will Either Find a Way, or Make One”: How Iranian Green Movement Online Activists Perceive and Respond to Repression

“We Will Either Find a Way, or Make One”: How Iranian Green Movement Online Activists Perceive and Respond to Repression

Margins as Methods, Margins as Ethics: A Feminist Framework for Studying Online Alterity

The authoritarian surveillant assemblage: Authoritarian state surveillance in Turkey

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