Sabun Köpüğü

Abstract

This article contextualizes the significance of popular culture and the everyday in feminist communication practices through the example of Sabun Köpüğü (Soap Bubble), a feminist radio production in Turkey that ran from May 2000 to October 2001. The research draws from the author's interviews with Müge İplikçi, the main producer of Sabun Köpüğü, and Ömer Madra, the founder of Açık Radyo, in 2004; the content of the episodes; and the author's observations as a listener and as a guest speaker on the program. Sabun Köpüğü was not publicly announced as a feminist program; however, it implicitly aimed to genderize discourses along lines that were elsewhere excluded from public debate. The author argues that the significance of Sabun Köpüğü as discursive-level feminist radio activism was mediated by a specific set of political conditions (e.g., gender politics, censorship, broadcasting regulations, the role of the state, and media ownership); by the history of feminist and intellectual movements; and by the economic, social, and political context that framed its production. Through the incorporation of gendered knowledge into areas where gender dimensions were marginalized and excluded, and through the promotion of dialogue and a conversational style, the program contributed to the politics of feminism in the space of radio

Twitter or Radio Revolutions? The Central Role of Açık Radyo in the Gezi Protests of 2013

“…I have decided to analyse this case because it is relatively under-investigated and, above all, it played an important, yet unacknowledged, role during the Gezi Park protests. Studies that have focused on this radio station do exist, but they are few and do not address Gezi Park (Köker and Döanay, 2007;Birsen, 2011;Haydari, 2015). I intend to demonstrate that Açık Radyo represents an exemplary case of the centrality of radio in the age of digitally supported protests.…”