A Quantitative Approach: Hope Labor Among Turkish Female Bloggers

Year 2021, Volume: 38 Issue: 2, 631 - 654, 15.12.2021

Melike Aslı Sim

https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.743774

Abstract

This study investigates the blogosphere in Turkey from a gendered perspective, focusing on how blogging reshapes women’s cultural and social environment. Based on a quantitative approach, a snowballing survey method is conducted, to explore the spaces within which women seek “self-realization,” “self-formation” and “publicity” in the digital world, particularly, through the practice of blogging. There are two main questions that undergird this project: “Do women, performing in social media, unintentionally become subjugated to a form of exploitation and alienation, as the literature on digital labor suggests?” “Is hope labor is influential in female bloggers’ blog usage and content writing? Research findings demonstrate that these women, while constructing their identities as bloggers, incorporate to the neoliberal restructuring of Turkey via articulation of blogging with the global market system. Although blogs provide employment opportunities and economic gains, main motivation behind women’s blogging practices remain to be self-realization and self-fulfillment, leaving hope labor less influential in blog writing. Traditional views like unemployed women participate to public sphere via blogging activities wriggling out of their inherited gender roles also remain to be an over determination since employed women feel more emancipated through blogging.

Keywords

Blogging, hope labor, self-realization, emancipation, self-fulfillment

Türk Kadın Blog Yazarlarında Umut Emeği: Kantitatif Bir Bakış

Abstract

Bu çalışma Türkiye’deki blog dünyasını, blog yazmanın kadınların kültürel ve sosyal çevrelerini yeniden şekillendirme biçimlerine odaklanarak, toplumsal cinsiyet perspektifinden inceliyor. Kartopu anket çalışması yöntemine dayanan çalışma, blog yazma pratiği doğrultusunda kadınların dijital dünyadaki “kendini gerçekleştirme”, “kendini bulma” ve “kamusallık” arayışlarına ışık tutuyor. Çalışmanın iki ana sorusu var: “Sosyal medyada özgürleşme (ekonomik veya sosyal) arayışı içerisinde olan kadınlar, dijital emek literatürünün iddia ettiği gibi sömürü ve yabancılaşmaya maruz kalıyorlar mı?” ve “Kadınların blog yazma ve kullanmalarında umut emeği etkili mi?” Bulgulara göre, kadınlar blog yazarı kimliklerini kurarken aynı zamanda blog yazma sayesinde girdikleri global pazar sistemiyle, Türkiye’nin neoliberal yeniden şekillenmesine de entegre oluyorlar. Bloglar ekonomik kazanç ve iş imkanları sağlasa da kadınların blog yazmasının ardındaki ana motivasyon, umut emeğini geride bırakarak kendini gerçekleştirme ve kendini tatmin etme dürtüsü olarak karşımıza çıkıyor. İşsiz kadınların blog yazma aktiviteleri ile içselleştirilmiş toplumsal cinsiyet rollerinden sıyrıldıklarını ve kamusal alana katıldıklarını öngören geleneksel düşünce de iş sahibi kadınların blog yazma sayesinde daha özgür hissettiklerinin ortaya çıkmasıyla bir genellemeden öte gidemiyor.

Keywords

Bloglama, umut emeği, kendini gerçekleştirme, özgürleşme, kendini tatmin-etme

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