Sehlikoglu, Sertac

English

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5/20/2015 Female Broadcast Professionals in Turkey | Dissertation Reviewshttp://dissertationreviews.org/archives/12195 1/3Female Broadcast Professionals in TurkeyGENDER MEDIA STUDIES OTTOMAN/TURKISH  May 14, 2015 -  No commentsA review of The Construction Of Gendered Subjectivities Of Female BroadcastProfessionals Within TRT (1964 – 1989), by Özlem Akkaya.Özlem Akkaya’s PhD dissertation entitled “The Construction of Gendered Subjectivities ofFemale Broadcast Professionals within TRT” offers an interesting insight into femalebroadcast professionals of national state-owned TV channel of Turkey from its establishment(1964) until the time private TV channels start operating in Turkey (1989). The central focus ofresearch is the gendered subjectivities of those professionals and the work is benefited fromrich data conducted from the professionals themselves, through in-depth interviews. Theresearch also uses autobiographies, memoirs, and journals of former female professionals ofTRT, in addition to interviews and archives of TRT.Akkaya’s dissertation presents rich knowledge of the media in Turkey and carefully lays outthe connections between the work itself and a larger literature of cultural and media studies. Iwould also be interested in hearing about Akkaya’s work in relation to two other prominentfeminists from media studies, Tania Modleski and Lila Abu-Lughod, especially during the partwhere she was discussing the early works of feminist media critics and particularly those onsoap operas (p. 28).The author offers series of questions as central to her work, most of which are around thequestion of “professional” life (pp. 2-3). As the dissertation moves on, the author also raises –and addresses – the questions about the public-ness of working in a national TV channel andthe contradictions and contestations it may bring to a woman’s life, living in a society wherewomen’s bodies are objectified through discourses on sacredness and secrecy. Despite thedifficulty such a task bears, these questions are elaborated, quite skillfully, during thedissertation. Another strength of the dissertation was its ability to take the reader into therealms of senses and the ways in which cultural and social dynamics regarding women’ssexuality are easily troubled by senses. In her discussion on female voice (p. 118), Akkayabrilliantly introduces the multiple troubles, “anxieties” in her terms, are created whenwomen’s voice are transmitted over radio “speaking authoritatively instead of singing orentertaining on radio” (ibid).The dissertation is composed of seven chapters, including the introduction and theconclusion and it starts with a background on the development of media and women inprofessions in Turkey and with an overview of the literature on feminist media studies. Theother five chapters are distributed by decades (until 60s, during 60s, during 70s, and during80s), in chronological order. Such an organization is quite informative to be able to see thechronological changes and shifts towards the “official” discourses on women’s public-ness,and the ways in which women have conversed with those changing and shifting discourses. Itis important to keep in mind that in a country where military coups have interrupted thedemocracy in every 10 years and used the state-owned media channels to propagate theofficial ideology, perspective and discourses on a range of matters, a chronological analysisneeds to be divided based on those military interventions, which is what Akkayaunderstandably did.Chapter 2, which follows the introduction as chapter 1, focuses on the transition fromrepublican ideology on women in terms of their ideological as well as presentational value totheir professional presence on air, as radio professionals until mid-1960s. It provides aninsightful background regarding the affective milieu of pre-televised broadcast. Theemotional aspect of professional educated women during that time and their aspirations, areespecially invaluable to read, which also continues during Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. Chapter 5EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS BY SERIESEmail AddressYour Series of Choice (select as many asyou like)Fresh from the Archives (all series)Talking Shop (all series)AnthropologyAsian ArchaeologyAsian Art HistoryChinese StudiesChinese LiteratureCritical Human RightsDiaspora and Migration StudiesEastern and Central European StudiesEconomic HistoryGender and Sexuality StudiesInner and Central Asian StudiesIran and Persian StudiesIslamic StudiesJapan StudiesKorean StudiesLatin American and Caribbean StudiesMedia StudiesMedieval StudiesMuseum StudiesOttoman and Turkish StudiesPerformance StudiesReligious StudiesRussian StudiesScience StudiesSoutheast Asian StudiesSouth Asian StudiesTibetan and Himalayan StudiesU.S. History/American StudiesSign UpFIND US ON FACEBOOKDissertation Reviews6,703 people like Dissertation Reviews.Facebook social pluginLikeGET INVOLVED AT DRTo contribute a review of your own, to haveyour dissertation reviewed, or to contribute aTalking Shop or Fresh from the Archivespiece, all you need to do is get in touch.SearchSEARCHDR BY SERIESFresh from the ArchivesTalking ShopAnthropologyAsian ArchaeologyAsian Art HistoryBioethicsChinaChinese LiteratureDiaspora and MigrationEastern and Central EuropeEconomic HistoryEuropean ArtEuropean LiteratureGender and SexualityHuman RightsInner and Central Asian StudiesIran and Persian StudiesIslamic StudiesJapan StudiesKorean StudiesLatin American and Caribbean StudiesMedia StudiesMedieval StudiesMuseum StudiesOttoman and Turkish StudiesPerformance StudiesReligious StudiesRussian and Soviet StudiesScience StudiesSociologySouth Asian StudiesSoutheast Asian StudiesSouthern EuropeTibetan and Himalayan StudiesCULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS NORTH, CENTRAL & WEST ASIA EAST, SOUTH & SOUTHEAST ASIA EUROPETHE AMERICAS FRESH FROM THE ARCHIVES TALKING SHOP ABOUT US REVIEW & BE REVIEWED5/20/2015 Female Broadcast Professionals in Turkey | Dissertation Reviewshttp://dissertationreviews.org/archives/12195 2/3 Facebook  Twitter  Google+  Linkedin Pinterest Human-Animal Interactions in Bristol Zoo The National Archives of Afghanistan takes a twist and starts with a gripping quote from a Turkish female author, journalist, andplay writer Nezihe Araz: “Happy women… (…) Even abundant happiness is too much,especially in these days when real happiness is experienced drop by drop… That is to say, Iam not one of those happy women; I cannot be one” (p. 240).In my reading, one of the most striking aspects of this dissertation, also the strongestcharacteristic of it, is its depth in laying out “women’s perspectives” that are, despite thevisibility of women themselves on national TV channel(s), often left unexplored. Akkaya goesbeyond a mere sociological analysis with her engaging analysis of women’s narratives andprovides the emotional, affective, and sentimental aspects being a professional educatedwoman in post-50s of Turkey as well as the multiple way through which women manifest theirsubjecthood. In fact, this sort of approach reflects a particular genre in post-structuralistfeminist theory, especially in subjectivity studies, that suggests looking at the multiple subject(as opposed to single) positioning when studying women’s subjectivities. In this vein, Akkaya’sfocus on multiple tensions becomes especially visible in her discussion on professionalidentity, gender roles, and masculinity of the workspace (pp. 53-58). Indeed, upon theconfusing, conflicting, and contradicting demands of the multiple patriarchal demandsoperating on female broadcast professionals, in their everyday life, the female professionalsmaneuver through those demands, pitching from enlightening the society as a patriotic duty(p. 54) into familial roles as mothers and wives and aesthetic demands of broadcastprofession (pp. 90-91). Thus, these multiple demands are also often conflicting in and ofthemselves as perspicuously put by Akkaya. For instance, the particular profession on mediais, in Akkaya’s words, “a site of conflict and contestation among different actors” (p. 29). Thiscontestation, as Akkaya put intriguingly, is further complicated with the particular masculineposition attributed to radio in early years of its appearance in households (p. 59).During the dissertation, Akkaya keeps playing out the tension between the femininity andmasculinity as it is played out in everyday life of Turkey, and in this particular profession ofmedia women are involved in. Akkaya’s approach on “masculinity”, in my view, deservesfurther attention especially during times when masculinity studies in the Middle East ingeneral, and in Turkey in particular, is in rise. On another example, from page 202 to 207,Akkaya points out the tension between the newsroom as “a bastion of masculinity” (p. 202) inher words, and the female professionals working there. This tension is present not onlybetween the male chiefs and the female staff members working there, but also in the wayfemale professionals avoid addressing the tension. Ü.G. describes the “equality” innewsrooms on pages 204 and 205: “women were so equal that they had neither advantagesnor disadvantages” and then, she also admits that men in the newsroom considered womenincompetent (p. 205). And just as we read more, in the mouth of another interlocutor, İ.Ç., themasculine face reveals itself more clearly. By taking a “paternal” role, taking permission froma particular sexuality culture in Turkey, male chiefs patronize women.In sum, Akkaya’s dissertation is a valuable contribution to the studies on media and gender inTurkey, as well as the Middle East. It also offers a pleasant read, with Akkaya’s articulateanalysis and discussion.Sertaç SehlikogluDepartment of Archeology and AnthropologyUniversity of Cambridgess935@cam.ac.uk Primary SourcesArchives of TRTInterviewsAutobiographies of Jülide Gülizar and Adalet AğaoğluDissertation informationBoğaziçi University, 2013, 455 pp. Primary Advisor: Dr. Duygu Köksal. Image: Archive of Cumhuriyet (April 9, 1973). Tags: 2013 Dissertation, Boğaziçi University, Duygu Köksal, Media, Turkey Leave a ReplyClick here to get started.RECENTLY ON DRMay 20, 2015Archive of the President of theRepublic of KazakhstanA review of the Archive of the President of theRepublic of Kazakhstan (АрхивПрезидента Республики Казахстан /Қазақстан Республикасы ПрезидентініңМұрағаты) (Almaty, Kazakhstan). 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Review: "Female Broadcast Professionals in Turkey" by Ozlem Akkaya

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170053/1/Female%20Broadcast%20Professionals%20in%20Turkey%20_%20Dissertation%20Reviews.pdf

Review: "Female Broadcast Professionals in Turkey" by Ozlem Akkaya

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