Abstract Volume 1
Structuralist Approach to "Harry Potter" -
In this paper I intend to analyze the famous bestseller “Harry Potter” from a structuralist point of view. I will try to demonstrate that the story created around the author (Rowling) is to a certain degree compliant with the framing story of the book. I will focus on similarities and differences regarding the structures of these two main frames. I will also analyze a short episode (the fighting of the troll) taken from the first volume, The Sorcerers Stone. Furthermore I will show that these models can all be traced back to the general schemes of myths and folktales with small deviations. I suggest that the usage of generally known structures makes the reception of the story at the denotative level easier for children, thus making it easier to concentrate on the connotative levels of the messages delivered by the book.
New Concepts for Media Education in the New Millennium and Turkey -
After the break up of the long established, state-controlled broadcasting system and mushrooming of private-commercial radio and television in Turkey, a new cultural climate has been created, leading both intellectuals and policy makers to open new communication faculties. The new commercial media arena has also affected the main interests of faculties resulting from both relatively low income and market oriented mentality. Intellectuals in modern societies elaborated new roles with changing conditions; and culture professionals (academicians, scholars, artists, journalists, scientists) found themselves in the seek of power in the market. This changed the role of the classical intellectual whose task is to witness, analyze, expose and criticize a wide range of social evils. With the changing conditions devaluation has been witnessed both in the quality and quantity of communication faculties. If we take communication education as developing media competence, critical and discerning attitude towards media, economics, political, social and cultural life and preparing students for democratic and political awareness, it should be reconsidered and restructured. Communication faculties should be centers of critical thinking independent of market control but aware of market demands. To meet these demands effective use of network technologies can be made. The problems arising from external pressure can also be the dynamics of self-reflection on freedom, autonomy and unfettered research of truth in universities.
Modernization, Globalization and Ethnic Nationalism: A Comparative Study on Karl W. Deutsch, Walker Connor and Fredrik Barth - This work is an attempt to scrutinize the recent resurgence of ethnic nationalism, or ethnonationalism, at a time of globalisation when the world is getting gradually compressed, unified and interconnected. The recent revival of separatist nationalisms implies that nationalism and ethnicity have intensively become interrelated concepts under the superimposition of ethno-nationalism. The superimposition of nationalism and ethnicity appears in two different forms in the world at the present time: separatism which is primarily occuring in the East, and xenophobia which is occuring all over the world. Contemporary ethnic nationalism results from the dissolution of the social identities in the modern times as a situational response to the dissolution of the ideological hegemony of the Cold War bipolarity, to the flow of various peoples around the globe, and to the rising hegemony of globalism metanarrative. As social identities have ceased to be meaningful with the dissolution of modalities like class, proletariat and citizenship, people retreat to the ethnic and cultural group identities. Ethnic and cultural identities are nothing but a myth, a superstition, a narration, a construction and an invention. National identity, which is a product of industrialism and capitalism is a part of the ethnic and cultural identities. National identity is itself an imagination and invention that has recently been reimagined and reinvented under the superimposition of nationalism, racism, xenophobia and culturalism. Hence, this article aims to speculate on those contemporary issues with particular reference to the prominent scholars who have contributed to the analysis of some of the key concepts such as modernisation, globalisation, nationalism and ethnicity.
The Ownership of the Turkish Media Within the Framework of the New Legal Regulation - In very broad terms, the aim of this study is to discuss the Article No. 29 of Law No. 3984 which was replaced with Article No. 13 of Law No. 4676 through a comparison of the two articles. It is an attempt to examine the Turkish media industry and its organization, the structure of ownership, concentration and conglomeration in the media industry and the formation of the media market in Turkey, particularly with respect to these two articles. Legal and illegal formations and all the transformations the Turkish media industry has undertaken are also discussed here from the perspective of political economy. As the “New Law” was legislated and published on the 21st of May 2002 in the Official Gazette, what it brings about now and in the future is the main concern on the agenda. Thus this paper aims to remind the reader how ownerships are legitimized with the Law and the consequences of this legitimization in particular.
Gendering Hi(s)tory - This paper attempts to draw a general understanding of the term “gender” by exploring its contributions to history writing. In order to accomplish this, first of all different approaches to history and history writing will be covered starting with the history’s becoming a discipline of its own in the 19th century. As gender offers an understanding to the construction female and male identities in mutual relation with each other, it maintains an analytic category for social and historical studies. It opens up a wide area to investigate by adding women into hi(s)tory, and also adding hi(s)tory –in that sense herstory- to women. These two contributions also include a third feature, which lets all the groups whose history have not been written to find a base to become visible in history. By the introduction of this term into theory all the inequalities defined in terms of power and lack of power in history turn out to be areas of interest to investigate. The term gender refers to an understanding that the relations between different sexes are not simply the results of economic or demographic determinants; instead they are the main element of the social organization of societies. This term also implies that the differences between sexes establish -and are established by- the hierarchal social structures.
Character Analysis in Locally Produced TV Drama, Sample Case: Ikinci Bahar - This research resulted from an attempt to understand the characteristics of the characters and the narrative structures of the serials, which have this much power in influencing the viewers’ life. The research is based on a premise of analyzing the popular local production dramas’ narrative structures and especially their characters’ traits and identities will provide a path to understand the social structure of a given society. In this research, I have also tried to analyze and reveal the intertextual relations of the characters and narrative organizations of ‘Ikinci Bahar’ with other texts’ characters and narrative organizations and in context to the country. The basic questions that I have tried to answer are: “How are the characters of the serial ‘placed’ in the narrative according to what procedures?”, “Which notions do the characters represent to the spectators?”, “Do these characters have common characteristics with the other popular texts’ characters?” and “Do the local television dramas’ narrative structures have common characteristics with the other popular texts’ narrative structure?”. I have tried to find out the answers of these questions and analyzed the characters and narrative organizations of the local production television dramas, by focusing on the serial ‘Ikinci Bahar’ as a sample of the research, with using the content analysis method and the discursive reading strategy.
The Role and Importance of Poll in Political Campaigns - The political campaign is one of the communication methods that has the greatest influence on political preferences and that helps to steer the voter towards a certain party or candidate. The need for an effective political campaign becomes even greater in the current political atmosphere, one in which the number of undecided voters is steadily increasing while party loyalty is. In such a campaign athmosphere, polls represent the best method to determine voter orientation. Polls are conducted to discover the attitudes and opinions of the society as a whole, or a particular section of the society on a selected topic.
Because, through, polls reveal the dominant views and thus may have considerable impact on the votes of undecided , their findings are met with constant debate as to the objectivity of the methods used and the veracity of the results.
The study is a discussion of the following topics: the concept of political campaign and the progressing trend of the important role of the poll in the campaign itself; definitions and historical development of polling; poll reliability and the impact of polls on political life, the potential influence on the voter and the politicians.
