Social Media in a Knitting Community in Ankara, Turkey
Social Media in Turkey: Uses and Impacts in Social and Political Life
British Institute Ankara, 2016
ABSTRACT
Knitting is a highly social activity, for it has at its core the free circulation and building upon of existing knitting patterns, which connects knitters and friends of knitting in an inevitable network. The social aspect of knitting becomes especially visible when knitters’ daily interactions in offline communities are reinforced through the use of social media tools and platforms in sharing of patterns, dissemination of knitting know-how and enabling a channel for communication in general. To understand this better, I have conducted four months of participant observation sessions in a knitting community which gathers at a yarn shop in Kızılay, governed by shop owners (brother and sister) and two knitting tutors (sisters). All of the knitters are women of different ages and the majority of the knitters own smart-phones and use social media. The use of social media spans a wide range from mere text messaging to photo sharing via WhatsApp and to making video talks on Facebook, all throughout the knitting process. Knitters in this community appropriate WhatsApp to copy and share knitting patterns among each other, to receive opinions of friends and families during the selection process of yarns, patterns and accessories, and to receive and deliver orders. Knitters also become members of and follow knitting related online communities on Facebook (groups, pages) and pin boards on Pinterest to keep themselves up-to-date and also to attain originality in their future projects. The social media tools are very popular in this particular knitting community, and yet their use is criticized from time to time by the tutor who provides the knitting patterns in the community, although the tutor herself uses and promotes the use of social media tools when conducting her own business. Therefore, aim of this paper is to discuss the different appropriations of social media tools such as WhatsApp, and to scrutinize their democratizing potential in the dissemination of knitting patterns, which are highly valued and over which authorship is produced and reproduced.
Slides: Burak Taşdizen
Workshop programme.
WORKSHOP INFORMATION
Social Media in Turkey: Uses and Impacts in Social and Political Life
ABSTRACT
The workshop brings together different research on the uses and consequences of social media in Turkey. The papers will illustrate different forms of usage of social media and their social and political implications. What is the impact of social media on people’s relationships? Have social media reinforced or reduced social inequalities? What is the current state of the ‘digital divide’ in Turkey? What is the impact of social media on political participation? Have social media transformed visual communications and photographic practices? The workshop will include a keynote talk by Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology at UCL (University College London), who will present the results of Why We Post, a research project on the uses of social media in 9 different countries around the world.
Convenor: Elisabetta Costa
Organisers: British Institute at Ankara, Middle East Technical University Social Anthropology Graduate Program
Hosted by Middle East Technical University
Date: 9 April 2016