| The 1990s witnessed significant changes in the Turkish media landscape as state-controlled broadcasting gave way to the pressures of privatization, deregulation and the infiltration of global media and culture. The new communications space that has opened up with the help of global communication technologies has played an important role in the empowerment of marginal or forgotten groups and voices and their integration with the global system. This space often functions as an alternative public forum to question modernity and national-cultural identities, and to resist top-down economic, political, and cultural systems.; Drawing from the author's fieldwork experience in the underdeveloped southeastern Turkish city of Sanlıurfa, this dissertation explores how nascent local radio, despite its commercial character, constitutes an alternative medium for the young to communicate and be heard. In a region where traditions, the tribal social structure, and the strict interpretation of Islam put extreme pressures on use of the public sphere for social interaction and result in many rigorous constraints on the lives of the young, radio plays a crucial role in alleviating these constraints by functioning as both public and private spheres. Although marriages are arranged, dating is not tolerated, and unmarried women and men cannot enjoy conversation in the public spaces of Sanlıurfa, the young manage to experience love and dating via the messages they send through arabesque song requests and conversations with radio DJs. For many youth, these message exchanges encourage independent romantic/emotional development outside the strictures of traditional arranged pairing, they provide a forum for criticism of traditional thinking and matrimonial customs, and they keep young people informed about their peers' struggles with love. With the help of multi-sited ethnography, this dissertation explores not only the radio audiences' participation in call-in shows and song requests in attempts to overcome traditional restrictions and social norms but also how radio programming decisions are made, challenges that the DJs and producers face when maintaining such audience interaction, and criticisms against such use of commercial radio for the purpose of dating. |
