The Resonant Chants of Networked Discourse: Affective Publics and the Muslim Self in Turkey

Creative Commons License

Ural H.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, cilt.15, ss.1081-1101, 2021 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 15
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Dergi Adı: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, ComAbstracts, Communication & Mass Media Index, Index Islamicus, Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1081-1101
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: affective resonances, discourse, Twitter, Muslim self, Turkey, SOCIAL MEDIA, TWITTER, AKP, POLARIZATION, NATIONALISM, ENGAGEMENT, POLITICS, IMAGES, STATE
  • Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This study draws on a specific hashtag campaign (#AliErbasYalnizDegildir), a concerted activity of tweeting supporting the chair of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey Ali Erbas, who had criticized sexual practices outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. I read the archives of tweets as a performative site for imagining a Muslim self that forms affective publics. This research is built on two complementary layers of analysis. First, I dissect the thematic patterns of the top tweets including the above hashtag and identify three thematic patterns. Second, I scrutinize affective resonances by examining the circulation of the tweets in question. Viewing through this lens, the present study argues that networked discourse is a dynamic site for drawing the symbolic boundaries of Muslim identity. To have a deeper understanding of this dynamism, this study calls us to pay close attention to affective resonances, as they can provide the potential for negotiating networked discourse.