عنوان

Singing Turkish, performing Turkishness: Message and audience in the song competition of the International Turkish Olympiad

Number

TL48238

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Singing Turkish, performing Turkishness: Message and audience in the song competition of the International Turkish Olympiad

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Joanna Christine Wulfsberg

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Newhall, Amy; Betteridge, Anne

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

The University of Arizona

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

88

Text of Note

Committee members: Sturman, Janet

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-77496-2

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

M.A.

Discipline of degree

Middle Eastern & North African Studies

Body granting the degree

The University of Arizona

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

Turkey's most controversial religious figure is the Muslim cleric and author Fethullah Gülen, whose followers have established around one thousand schools in 135 countries. Since 2003, the Gülen-affiliated educational non-profit TÜRKÇEDER has organized the International Turkish Olympiad, a competition for children enrolled in the Gülen schools. The showpiece of this event is its song contest, in which students perform well-known Turkish songs before live audiences of thousands in cities all over Turkey and reach millions more via television broadcasts and the Internet. While the contest resembles American Idol in its focus on individual singers and Eurovision in its nationalistic overtones, the fact that the singers are performing songs associated with a nationality not their own raises intriguing questions about the intended message of the competition as well as about its publics. To answer these questions, I analyzed YouTube videos of the competition and examined YouTube comments, popular websites, and newspaper opinion columns. I conclude that the performers themselves are meant to feel an affinity with Turkish culture and values, while Turkish audiences receive a demonstration that Gülen's brand of Islam is compatible with Turkish nationalism. Moreover, the competition reaches a multiplicity of publics both within and beyond Turkey. While some of these can be characterized as essentially oppositional counterpublics, I find that, in the case of the Turkish Olympiad, the dichotomy between rational public and emotional or irrational counterpublic established collectively by such theorists of publics as Jürgen Habermas and Michael Warner begins to break down.

Music; Multimedia Communications; Near Eastern Studies

Subject Term

Social sciences;Communication and the arts;Counterpublics;Gülen movement;Publics;Song competitions;Turkey;Turkish schools

DaCrema, Norma J.

Newhall, Amy; Betteridge, Anne

Subdivision

Middle Eastern & North African Studies

The University of Arizona

Call Number

1688731393; 1589575

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y