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Volume 20, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1740-8296
  • E-ISSN: 2040-0918

Abstract

This article explores the interconnection between journalism, community and embodied experiences of nationalist politics. As journalists in Istanbul, Turkey, navigate political environment shaped by nationalist narratives and policies rooted in ethnic purity, this article asks what role do journalists envision themselves playing in imagining and realizing a more democratic and pluralistic community? To address that question, this study examines how these journalists imagine and conceptualize the idea of community and how such work is impacted by the gendered, ethnic and racialized experiences of their daily and professional lives. I argue that journalists imagine and envision community as an ideal through which to navigate and contend with a highly polarized political climate. I draw evidence from narratives and participant observation gathered from eighteen months ethnographic fieldwork in Istanbul. Through these, I trace how the ethnic, racialized and gendered hierarchies embedded in the history and the contemporary politics of Turkey come to bear on journalism, and how journalism can function as a community-building practice.

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2025-02-07
2026-04-16

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/content/journals/10.1386/macp_00087_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): affect; community; identity; journalism; nationalism; Turkey

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