Nilüfer Pınar Kılıç
(Faculty of Communication in Ankara University)
Abstract:
It is possible to say that the discussions on technological determinism that can be read through Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams are reviving in researches on new communication technologies. On the one hand, there are those who uphold the potential, participatory and democratic qualities of technology, and thus advocate that societies will be democratised, and on the other hand, that they will increase inequalities over the commodity of media, surveillance, ownership and power relations. In other respects, it is possible to say that there is a political-economic approach which criticises technological determinism and in terms of being critical, realistic, inclusive ist that discusses different aspects of new communication technologies in macro context. For example, Fuchs, with the critique of technological determinism, states that social media is embedded in the contradictions and power structures of today’s society and argues that this media cannot cause revolutions as techno-optimists explain. Although new communication technologies reflect capitalism as a profit-making institution and unseen exploitation in them continues, on the other hand, individuals participate in this network to communicate and interact. In the context of all these discussions, it will discuss how individuals use new communication technologies in everyday life practices with Bourdieuan perspective. In digital inequality research through Bourdieu’s concepts, it is presented how factors shape inequality and distinction. It can be said that each user does not benefit from information and communication technologies equally. What extent users can benefit from these technologies are depends around many different variables such as income, education, geographic location, age, gender, access tools (hardware, software and link quality, etc.), skills, and auxiliary networks. In this context, it is possible to say that the social mechanisms and the logic of distinction work in digital practices and the inequalities in offline environments are transferred online ones.
Nilüfer Pınar Kılıç graduated at Gazi University, Department of Business Administration in 2007. Then, she worked in a public institution for five years. In 2012, when she started working at the Public Relations and Publicity Department of the Faculty of Communication in Ankara University, she completed her master’s degree at which she analysed the public relations practices of non-governmental organisations. She finished his doctoral degree in 2018 by writing her thesis named “Facebook Usage Practices of Elderly People with Kemalist Orientation in the Context of Populism Discussions”. She is still an academic staff at Ankara University, Faculty of Communication in Turkey.