Researcher:
Bulut, Ergin

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Ergin

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Bulut

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Bulut, Ergin

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2014 - 2019142020 - 20237

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 21
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    The fantasy of do what you love and ludic authoritarianism in the videogame industry
    (Sage, 2023) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    Like other creative workers, videogame developers believe doing what you love (DWYL) brings success and happiness. Drawing on three years of ethnography in a U.S. based studio, I theorize DWYL as a social fantasy, which glues developers to work despite cruelties. Because developers' attachment to work is not an individual matter of the heart but a powerful relation that is mutually cultivated, desired, and even joyfully dictated, I conceptualize these cruelties through "ludic authoritarianism", redefined as a diffuse form of workplace regime. In this regime, both the management and developers invest in the DWYL fantasy that normalizes overwork, creates success mythologies, institutes vague performance metrics, and cultivates discriminatory production cultures. Moving beyond "love at work brings exploitation" narratives, I show how authoritarianism is not a deviant political form in non-Western contexts but a diffuse and playful culture across elite workplaces in the Global North.
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    Digital populism: trolls and political polarization of Twitter in Turkey
    (University of Southern California, 2017) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Department of Sociology; Bulut, Ergin; Yörük, Erdem; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279; 28982
    This article analyzes political trolling in Turkey through the lens of mediated populism. Twitter trolling in Turkey has diverged from its original uses (i.e., poking fun, flaming, etc.) toward government-led polarization and right-wing populism. Failing to develop an effective strategy to mobilize online masses, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP/AKP) relied on the polarizing performances of a large progovernment troll army. Trolls deploy three features of JDP's populism: serving the people, fetish of the will of the people, and demonization. Whereas trolls traditionally target and mock institutions, Turkey's political trolls act on behalf of the establishment. They produce a digital culture of lynching and censorship. Trolls' language also impacts pro-JDP journalists who act like trolls and attack journalists, academics, and artists critical of the government.
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    Introduction: academic labour, digital media and capitalism
    (Unified Theory of Information Research Group, 2018) Allmer, Thomas; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
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    Governance through philitainment: playing the benevolent subject
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2014) Mejia, Robert; McCarthy, Cameron; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    This article analyzes Free Rice within the context of the rise of the ludic sublime, where video games are hailed as the solution to highly sophisticated political problems. As part of what we call practices of philitainment, Free Rice, we argue, functions within the political domain of what Jodi Dean has termed communicative capitalism and therefore both captures resistance and actually solidifies global capitalism. Ultimately, this case study of Free Rice reveals ways in which practices of philitainment signal the proliferation of a convergence between the technological sublime and neoliberal politics through which the disinvestment of the state from social problems is legitimized and reproduced through a reconfiguration of citizenship in terms of techno-consumerism.
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    Dewesternizing precarity in Turkish TV drama roduction through the body and the law
    (Sage Publications Inc, 2022) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    Beneath Turkish TV dramas' global glamor lie workplace accidents, systemic injuries on workers' bodies, and deaths. In response, workers seek to impose restraints on what can be done to their bodies by resorting to law and evoking ideals of equality as they struggle for workplace safety, healthcare, and dignity. Drawing on ethnographic research across production sets, industry summits, union meetings and more than fifty interviews since 2015, this article documents drama workers' bodily vulnerabilities, arguing that precarity in this global media industry is a bodily phenomenon legally sanctioned by the state. I dewesternize the notion of precarity in creative industries by foregrounding the materiality of the body and the regulative power of law as centers of exploitation and resistance. Critical scholars of media production could learn from non-Western contexts in identifying how creative workers do not only demand stable incomes but also legal recognition and protection of their bodies.
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    Disrupting the spectacle: the case of capul TV during and after Turkey's Gezi uprising
    (Univ Westminster Press, 2017) Department of Media and Visual Arts; N/A; Bulut, Ergin; Bal, Haluk Mert; Faculty Member; PhD Student; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279; N/A
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    The pandemic shock doctrine in an authoritarian context: the economic, bodily, and political precarity of Turkey’s journalists during the pandemic
    (Sage Publications Ltd, 2022) Ertuna, Can; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    What happens to journalists when hit by a pandemic in a country governed by authoritarian media regulations? We examine journalists' experience in Turkey's mainstream and alternative media and find that while the pandemic has deepened their economic precarity, journalists further suffer from bodily and political precarity. In the context of Covid, the body emerges as a site on which precarity with multiple dimensions (economic anxiety, illness, and state violence) is inscribed. Under the conditions of what we deem political precarity, most journalists cannot speak truth to power as the pandemic is politically instrumentalized. This retheorizing of precarity dewesternizes the term by connecting it to state-induced forms of violence relying on relations of political recognition and value ascription. We urge journalism and media labor studies to refrain from Eurocentricism and technological determinism that center the standard employment model and the disruptive cultures of technology at the expense of body and politics.
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    Glamor above, precarity below: immaterial labor in the video game industry
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2015) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    This article foregrounds the concept of immaterial labor to theorize the tension between the precarity of below the line workers and the glamor of above the line workers in the video game industry. I argue that even the most seemingly secure sections of the gaming workforce have a tendency to drift toward the economic precarity most acutely felt across below the line workers. In other words, we, as researchers, may need to question the presumed hard break between the above and below the line work experiences of employees in the game industry in light of the increase in processes of deskilling, outsourcing, and financialization. Moreover, I assert that workers, like game testers, are attracted to below the line positions as through-ports to the glamorous core sections of game labor: design, art, and programming. As such, they are interpellated to the ideology of creativity and practices of hope labor. The theoretical insights developed in the article draw on 2.5-year ethnographic work in a medium-sized game studio in the US, during which above and below the line digital laborers, and their spouses, were interviewed alongside participatory observation.
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    The cruel optimism of casual games: neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and the valorization of play
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2019) Mejia, Robert; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    Casual games disrupted the games industry, but not in ways commonly believed. What if we left behind the hardcore vs. casual games dichotomy to reveal that casual gameplay and casual game development have extended the neoliberal and neocolonial logic of the industry? Casual games, in terms of design and industry practices, remind us that there is nothing inherently liberating about play. Rather, the design and development practices of casual games should be understood as an extension and acceleration of neoliberal and neocolonial logics. Casual gameplay and casual game development pull us within processes of cruel optimism. These deeply political economic processes endanger free play and creativity and therefore are obstacles to the flourishing of gamers and game developers as free subjects. In this neoliberal and neocolonial game market, cruel optimism is enticing because casual gameplay and game development emerge as powerful actors and practices in a context where the state has globally failed in the distribution of hope.
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    Labor behind the drama: rating system, working conditions and unionization in Turkish soap opera industry
    (Galatasaray Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi, 2016) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279
    Through the concept and the experience of precarity, this article investigates the impact of rating system on the working conditions within Turkey's soap opera industry. Drawing on the findings from a fieldwork involving 26 participants, the article argues that precarity in this sector differs from that defined within contemporary studies on precarious media labor. Rather than a purely economic phenomenon, it is crucial to grasp soap opera precarity with its bodily, physical and legal dimensions. Additionally, the article suggests that workers in this sector are neither victims of their passion for the job, which leads to self-exploitation, nor do they fall prey to precarity. On the contrary, they resist precarious labor conditions. Campaigns targeting precarity and adverse working conditions in the industry are examined in this study. Ultimately, it is observed that organization attempts in this sector unfold differently than horizontal organizations resisting precarity. Unionization within this sector aims to convince the state to recognize performers, actors, provide professional definitions, and prevent workplace accidents, which at times do lead to deaths./ Öz: Bu makale, Türkiye'deki reyting sisteminin dizi sektöründeki çalışma koşullarına etkisini ve sendikalaşma faaliyetlerini, güvencesizlik kavramı ve deneyimiyle ilişkili olarak tartışmaktadır. 2014 Aralık'tan bu yana yirmi altı katılımcıyla yürütülen saha çalışmasına dayanan araştırma bulgularının ele alındığı makalede, sektördeki güvencesizliğin, eleştirel medya çalışmaları literatürü ve spesifik olarak da medya emeğine dair araştırmalarda ele alındığından farklı görünüm arz ettiği iddia edilmektedir. Dizi sektöründe güvencesizlik, sadece ekonomik ilişkiler ve istihdam boyutuyla ele alınmayacak kadar karmaşıktır. Bu sektörde güvencesizliğin, çalışanlar üzerindeki bedensel, fiziksel ve yasal boyutuyla kavranması şarttır. Buna ek olarak, dizi çalışanlarının güvencesizliğin, işlerine duydukları tutkunun ve bunun yol açtığı öz sömürünün esiri olmadığı ve direnme pratikleri geliştirdiği iddia edilmektedir. Dolayısıyla sektördeki olumsuz çalışma koşullarına ve güvencesizliğe karşı atılan adımlar ve geliştirilen kampanyalar, sendikalaşma faaliyetlerinden hareketle incelenmektedir. Sonuç olarak sektördeki örgütlenme faaliyetlerinin, güvencesizlik temelli yatay örgütlenme biçimlerinden farklı evrildiği, önceliğin devlet tarafından işçi olarak tanımlanmaya, meslek tanımlarının yapılmasına ve iş kazalarının önlenmesine verildiği görülmektedir