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This study investigates the role of Turkish commercial local radio in the construction of a youth community in the city of Sanliurfa, which is located in the poor rural south-eastern region near the Syrian border. Through in-depth interviews with radio listeners and analysis of their interactions via radio, this article also examines young people's attempts to overcome traditional restrictions and social norms through talk radio. By doing so, this study aims to highlight the social role of radio, which is often underestimated in media studies, and to challenge western-centric scholarship on talk radio, which ignores talk radio's role in community formation. By drawing on Downing's concept of radical media, Atton's definition of alternative media, and Couldry's theorization of the symbolic hierarchy of media power, this study will discuss why some local commercial stations in Sanliurfa function as alternative media for the Turkish youth and how they cross the boundary between the media and ordinary worlds to create a space for themselves.

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Ethnographic examinations of media and social change can focus too narrowly on the changes taking place at the time of introduction of a new communication technology and thus can end up being incredibly short-sighted and celebratory in their approach. Postill argues that inquiries into media's role in social change should not be done through time-constrained ethnographic methods, but rather should follow a more biographical model that better accounts for ongoing social change. In response to his essay in this issue and in light of my fieldwork experience in the same site during the past 15 years, I discuss the value of adopting a longitudinal approach to media ethnographies with focused or punctuated revisits (Burawoy, 2003) to the field.