“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
—Emily Dickinson, “Hope”
There are so many ways to describe what the term transmediality stands for. In the world of storytelling, it is the new kid on the block, attractive but requires knowing from every aspect. When I say “new”, I only refer to its recent popularity in the academic realm. As a matter of fact, transmediality is a practice that is considered to have a long history (Freeman, 2016). However, it was only popularly defined in the early 2000s, by Henry Jenkins (2006), as a method of constructing a participative storyworld, where each medium reveals unique information to the audience. Presently, after many years of enquiry and evolution, transmediality is much more. It is the immersive language of industries, arts, practices, cultures, and methodologies (Freeman & Gambarato, 2018). On a more abstract level, it is a way of communicating, understanding, and, in some cultures, solving complex issues (Freeman & Proctor, 2018). These definitions reflect only some of what researchers have come up with. The rest is up to further investigation, such as this one, to dig deeper into the unknowns of transmedia studies.
Therefore, one of the scholarly incentives behind this investigation is to contribute to the ongoing debate about future directions of transmediality. To narrow the scope, the following study approaches this field within the confines of journalism. The reason behind this choice is twofold. Firstly, journalism in the 21st century has become a widely discussed topic all around the world. Global debates about fake news, post-truth, and digital transformation position journalism studies in the pile of attractive fields to investigate. Secondly, transmediality in journalism is still a perspective that needs to be developed. News media, journalism practice, journalists, and news consumers are transforming each day with the advances in media technologies. Moreover, each country has its own journalism culture (Phillips, 2014). This line of thought opens the door to new meanings offered by the technological change and cultural differences.
This brings us to the next purpose of this research: analysing independent journalism initiatives in Turkey through the lens of transmediality. What this book sets out to discover is the role of transmediality in a specific context. It aims to relocate what we already know about this concept and apply it to the problematic journalism environment within Turkey. The chosen context of this book calls to question whether transmediality can bring hope to the deteriorating faith of journalism practice. Where distrust and fear distort truths and ethics in the mainstream journalism practices, can transmediality be a support system to reconstruct an alternative news environment? While the government rules the mainstream with an iron fist, can transmedia strategies help to conquer unregulated news spaces? Last but not least, struggling to defend the public’s right to information, can transmediality help sustain the survival of independent journalists?
The following chapter, Chapter 2, constructs the contextual environment of this study. It starts with painting a global picture of the shifts in the contemporary journalism practice. Along the way, it identifies certain traits of this transforming news culture. The chapter then moves towards a specific geography, Turkey, where it exposes the current state of the country’s mainstream media and explains the reasons behind the formations of independent journalism initiatives. Chapter 3, followingly, sets off to build conceptual bridges between notions of independent journalism and transmedia journalism. In this pursuit, it presents how transmedia narratives manifest in journalism practices, how the notion of transmedia ethos plays a part in culturally uniting an interactive society, and how the initiatives of independent journalism in Turkey relate to the overall structural and cultural aspects of transmediality. This chapter dwells upon these areas to highlight the vital role of transmediality in journalism, especially from the fresh perspective of Turkey. Chapter 4 utilises the principles, concepts, and relations, discussed in Chapter 3, to demonstrate the position of transmediality in three different independent journalism initiatives in Turkey. Based on face-to-face interviews with the founders of these initiatives, the chapter analyses these distinct cases to understand their histories, objectives, operational structures, and connection to their communities. Moreover, it lays bare the pillars of sustainability for each case to show how these initiatives survive. The chapter goes through with a detailed demonstration of why transmediality plays a vital role for the chosen cases. The last chapter, Chapter 5, brings the study to an end by looking beyond the case of Turkey to draw conclusions for transmedia journalists more broadly and invites young scholars of Turkey to join the global conversation of transmediality.
Freeman, M. (2016). Historicising Transmedia Storytelling: Early Twentieth-Century Transmedia Story Worlds. Routledge.
Freeman, M., & Gambarato, R. R. (Eds.). (2018). The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies. Routledge.
Freeman, M., & Proctor, W. (Eds.). (2018). Global Convergence Cultures: Transmedia Earth. Routledge.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press.
Phillips, A. (2014). Journalism in Context: Practice and Theory for the Digital Age. Routledge.
2 Dethreading of a practice
Dethreading
(n.) any process in which the threaded structure of a molecule is disrupted.
(YourDictionary, n.d.)
The disruption has been in the making long before the sirens. It shouldn’t have been hard to foresee what was about to happen to a practice that has always depended on the media technologies of its time. Nevertheless, it arrived with a bang that no one anticipated. Journalism became a practice to be reconsidered.
In an era of technological, social, and cultural conversion, a flood of constant change has worn away the roots of journalism practice. These worn out roots extend along questions relating to ethics, function, and position of journalists. In the academic field, scholars of media studies keep a watchful eye on press freedom under titles relating to media and democracy, while scholars of internet studies and political science scrutinise questions about internet freedom, fake news, post-truth, and censorship. In this changing order, contemporary journalism initiatives welcome new methods to convey the news to audiences, such as citizen participation, multiple and cross-media storytelling, and self-governance.
Meanwhile in Turkey, along with global concerns on the future of their practice, journalists face a political barrier, where the political establishment maintains full control of the mainstream news media. One by one, critical news about the government are silenced, leaving mainstream media shorn of truth, investigation, and press freedom. The political oppression forces blacklisted journalists to look for other occupations or, in some dedicated cases, practice journalism in alternative news media outlets.
Now, we are at a threshold that is shaking the core of journalism practice. That is why this chapter’s title refers to the process of dethreading, a term of organic chemistry. The molecule of journalism is disrupted, and the definition of journalism and its surrounding ecology is in constant change. A famous quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus says, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”. Leaving its shed skin behind, journalism is in transition again to face the new challenges of convergent news media production and technologies, participative audiences, and increasing authoritative barriers of oppressive governments.
This chapter sets out to explore some of the global fractures that disrupted the molecule of journalism practice. Examining these fractures is crucial in forming epistemological questions on the role of transmediality in reconsidering a new journalistic perspective. The chapter then moves into a more specific geography. Turkey’s mainstream media environment is put under a lens to determine the context of this research. Within this context, unique values and beliefs surrounding and within Turkish independent journalism initiatives become significant. Their significance lies in conceptualising what is now referred to as the transmedia ethos,1 which will be dwelled upon in Chapter 3.
Change comes in many forms and sizes, and it shines with a global and significant impact on the practice of journalism from multiple angles. Producing, reporting, and consuming news turned into a new experience in the age of convergent media technologies for the globally social audiences (Gambarato & Tarcia, 2017; Heinrich, 2011). The ambiguous door of the 21st century opened to new questions relating to the identity, authority, purpose, and practice of journalists. Scholars of journalism, media, political science, and internet studies have previously scrutinised, and, still to this day, continue to explore what is in motion, and where journalism is heading to (see Carson, 2019; Hanitzsch, Hanusch, Ramaprasad, & de Beer, 2019; Price, 2019; Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2019).
The aim of this section is to outline the recent state around and within journalism practice. In other words, paint a picture of the interfluent chaos that is prevalent in the journalism scene. What I mean by interfluence is the act of entities flowing together and intervening with each other to form new entities. In the process, formerly drawn clear conceptual borders cease to exist, leaving chaos and uncertainty to form new definitions, behaviours, or systems.
Interfluence of definitions
Current transformation in the global practice of journalism brings about new perspectives that yield new questions. One of these questions could relate to the interchanging definitions and actors within the news-making milieu. Perhaps, pursuit of this query may reveal how this chaotic but connected news environment plays along with notions of transmediality. To that end, this section addresses the dethreading of formerly distinct definitions and actors of journalism thr...
