Papers by Serdar Tunçer
Social Media Archaeology from Theory to Practice, 2021
This study analyses the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Tu... more This study analyses the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Turkey—Syrian refugees. Here, the focus is on the shift from a discourse of ‘welcoming guest’ into one that now qualifies Syrian refugees as “privileged guest”—a new terminology that also reflects the changing of Turkey’s political landscape. To do so, this study mobilizes fact-checking platforms through a Discourse Historical Analysis (DHA) approach to highlight the underlying meaning articulated towards Syrian refugees in Turkey today. The analysis shows that the “privileged discourse” toward Syrian refugees in Turkey has two main trivets: Economic and Social Welfare.
Istanbul University Press, 2021
Cyberbullying refers to the behaviour of inflicting harm upon a certain individual or group by us... more Cyberbullying refers to the behaviour of inflicting harm upon a certain individual or group by using information or communication technologies. Although it originally became a topic of discussion in Europe and North America, it has now become a worldwide issue. Bullying is not a new phenomenon but 'conventional bullying' is now being replaced by cyberbullying. With the increasing use of the Internet, mobile devices and particularly the spread of social media, the number of individuals vulnerable to cyberbullying is on the rise. In this context, angry or offensive messages, those mocking, teasing, intimidating, acquiring private information by means of fake accounts or attempts to spread such information may all be considered as examples of cyberbullying. While conventional bullying may occur at a certain place or time, cyberbullying emerges anytime and anywhere people may have access to the Internet. Additionally, factors such as cyberbullying's capacity to spread more quickly and simultaneously to a larger number of people, its long-lasting effects and the perpetrator's perception of concealing his/her identity enhance the need for multidimensional scholarly studies on this subject.
Türkiye İletişim Araştırmaları Dergisi/26306220, 2022
Misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread as quickly as the COVID-19 pathogen itself. The... more Misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread as quickly as the COVID-19 pathogen itself. The infodemic, which describes false or misleading information about this recent epidemic on the internet, has become a serious problem all over the world, and has been declared as an "enemy" by the World Health Organization. In this sense, in order to combat the epidemic, it becomes important to reveal the nuances of COVID-19 related infodemic available on the internet. Particularly, internet users in Turkey are increasingly utilizing social media-a platform synonymous with misinformation-to access news coverage regarding the pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020). In this quantitative study focusing on the city of Istanbul (n=399), which is at the epicenter of the outbreak in Turkey, the social media usage of individuals, their trust in these platforms, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories, and fact-checking behaviors were examined. Our results indicate that participants tended to believe in misinformation and conspiracy theories rather than confirming information through fact-checking platforms. Nearly half of all participants believed at least one of four widespread conspiracy theories about the virus. Moreover, when fact-checking did identify misinformation, the participants' trust in social media showed a slight decrease. Based on these findings, our study proposes a comprehensive model for pandemic-related trust, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fact-checking factors on digital platforms.
As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to... more As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to the erosion of trust, organizations today are facing crises at greater frequency than in the past. Transformation is a phenomenon that appears to have taken place in each and every period of history, but it has never been as rapid, comprehensive, and unpredictable as we observe it today. There are an increasing number of people who name the era that we currently live in as the post-truth era where the focus is on narratives, their significance, and their abilities of persuasion, rather than focusing on presenting knowledge or the truth. Causality, or the rational paradigm, that was defended by modernism, does not seem to have enough prowess to interpret today's complexity and phenomena. This perspective and transformation are also valid for at organizations that encounter crises. This article gives a theoretical framework for scrutinising how organizations deal with obstacles within post-truth times. It suggests that the value-based and emotionally-driven framework of the narrative paradigm might be the most powerful communication approach adopted by an organization during a corporate crisis in this new era.
Social Media Archaeology from Theory to Practice, 2021
This study analyses the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Tu... more This study analyses the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Turkey—Syrian refugees. Here, the focus is on the shift from a discourse of ‘welcoming guest’ into one that now qualifies Syrian refugees as “privileged guest”—a new terminology that also reflects the changing of Turkey’s political landscape. To do so, this study mobilizes fact-checking platforms through a Discourse Historical Analysis (DHA) approach to highlight the underlying meaning articulated towards Syrian refugees in Turkey today. The analysis shows that the “privileged discourse” toward Syrian refugees in Turkey has two main trivets: Economic and Social Welfare.
The central objective of this paper is to analyze anti-immigrant rhetoric towards Syrian refugees... more The central objective of this paper is to analyze anti-immigrant rhetoric towards Syrian refugees in the framework of Barker's (2001) 'new racism' (cultural racism) on YouTube. This mediated-cultural racism is, in principle, based on the idea that third world migrants are a group of "othered-others," who disrupt the taken-for-granted stable national identity and economy in immigrés' countries such as Canada and Turkey. We mobilized content analysis on users' comments on a selection of YouTube videos produced in Canada (English Canada) and in Turkey. We analyze the first 10 most-watched videos from each country, in English and Turkish languages, and collected through a search for "Syrian Refugees" and "Suriyeli Mülteciler" on YouTube.
Humanity is facing a turning point in its history. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a crucial r... more Humanity is facing a turning point in its history. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role not only in computer science and robotics but also in the communication between machines and machines, and between humans and machines. With the rise of this new interactive space, it is becoming ever more critical to ask what role intercultural communications will play in this complex correlation. Does culture still matter in the era of AI?
Computer scientists are building a vast array of machine learning systems (often called Artificia... more Computer scientists are building a vast array of machine learning systems (often called Artificial Intelligence or AI) that can perform daily human tasks reliably, sometimes more so than humans. Indeed, AI is becoming capable of capturing the unique essence that makes us "human": storytelling. Humans are intrinsically storytellers and able to express themselves through stories that already exist (Fisher, 1987; Frank, 2012). Moreover, people have always learnt about themselves and made sense of the rest of the world through narratives (Ebanda de B'béri, 2006; Tunçer, 2018). However, in recent years, AI-generated games and articles have already started to emerge (Fitch, 2019). While AI is able to exceed certain functions of natural human intelligence as it gains self-learning capacity in repetitive or analytical tasks, it may have the potential to harness the persuasive capabilities of storytelling. What will become of humanity if AI can perform such "human" ta...
Misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread as quickly as the COVID-19 pathogen itself. The... more Misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread as quickly as the COVID-19 pathogen itself. The infodemic, which describes false or misleading information about this recent epidemic on the internet, has become a serious problem all over the world, and has been declared as an "enemy" by the World Health Organization. In this sense, in order to combat the epidemic, it becomes important to reveal the nuances of COVID-19 related infodemic available on the internet. Particularly, internet users in Turkey are increasingly utilizing social media-a platform synonymous with misinformation-to access news coverage regarding the pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020). In this quantitative study focusing on the city of Istanbul (n=399), which is at the epicenter of the outbreak in Turkey, the social media usage of individuals, their trust in these platforms, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories, and fact-checking behaviors were examined. Our results indicate that participants tended to believe in misinformation and conspiracy theories rather than confirming information through fact-checking platforms. Nearly half of all participants believed at least one of four widespread conspiracy theories about the virus. Moreover, when fact-checking did identify misinformation, the participants' trust in social media showed a slight decrease. Based on these findings, our study proposes a comprehensive model for pandemic-related trust, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fact-checking factors on digital platforms.
Social Media Archeology From Theory to Practice , 2021
This study analyses the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Tu... more This study analyses the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Turkey—Syrian refugees. Here, the focus is on the shift from a discourse of ‘welcoming guest’ into one that now qualifies Syrian refugees as “privileged guest”—a new terminology that also reflects the changing of Turkey’s political landscape. To do so, this study mobilizes fact-checking platforms through a Discourse Historical Analysis (DHA) approach to highlight the underlying meaning articulated towards Syrian refugees in Turkey today. The analysis shows that the “privileged discourse” toward Syrian refugees in Turkey has two main trivets: Economic and Social Welfare.
Moment Journal, 2018
As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to... more As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to the erosion of trust, organizations today are facing crises at greater frequency than in the past. Transformation is a phenomenon that appears to have taken place in each and every period of history, but it has never been as rapid, comprehensive, and unpredictable as we observe it today. There are an increasing number of people who name the era that we currently live in as the post-truth era where the focus is on narratives, their significance, and their abilities of persuasion, rather than focusing on presenting knowledge or the truth. Causality, or the rational paradigm, that was defended by modernism, does not seem to have enough prowess to interpret today's complexity and phenomena. This perspective and transformation are also valid for at organizations that encounter crises. This article gives a theoretical framework for scrutinising how organizations deal with obstacles within post-truth times. It suggests that the value-based and emotionally-driven framework of the narrative paradigm might be the most powerful communication approach adopted by an organization during a corporate crisis in this new era.
Moment Journal, 2018
As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading t... more As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to the erosion of trust, organizations today are facing crises at greater frequency than in the past. Transformation is a phenomenon that appears to have taken place in each and every period of history, but it has never been as rapid, comprehensive, and unpredictable as we observe it today. There are an increasing number of people who name the era that we currently live in as the post-truth era where the focus is on narratives, their significance, and their abilities of persuasion, rather than focusing on presenting knowledge or the truth. Causality, or the rational paradigm, that was defended by modernism, does not seem to have enough prowess to interpret today's complexity and phenomena. This perspective and transformation are also valid for at organizations that encounter crises. This article gives a theoretical framework for scrutinising how organizations deal with obstacles within post-truth times. It suggests that the value-based and emotionally-driven framework of the narrative paradigm might be the most powerful communication approach adopted by an organization during a corporate crisis in this new era.
Books by Serdar Tunçer
Social Media Archaeology from Theory to Practice, 2021
This study analyzes the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Tu... more This study analyzes the prevalent discourses surrounding the most prominent immigrant group in Turkey – Syrian refugees. Here, the focus is on the shift from a discourse of ‘welcoming guest’ into one that now qualifies Syrian refugees as ‘privileged guest’; a new terminology that also reflects the changing of Turkey’s political landscape. To do so, this study mobilizes fact-checking platforms through a Discourse Historical Analysis (DHA) approach to highlight the underlying meaning articulated towards Syrian refugees in Turkey today. The analysis shows that the ‘privileged discourse’ toward Syrian refugees in Turkey has two main trivets: ‘Economic’ and ‘Social Welfare’.
Digital Siege, 2021
Cyberbullying refers to the behaviour of inflicting harm upon a certain individual or group by us... more Cyberbullying refers to the behaviour of inflicting harm upon a certain individual or group by using information or communication technologies. Although it originally became a topic of discussion in Europe and North America, it has now become a worldwide issue. Bullying is not a new phenomenon but 'conventional bullying' is now being replaced by cyberbullying. With the increasing use of the Internet, mobile devices and particularly the spread of social media, the number of individuals vulnerable to cyberbullying is on the rise. In this context, angry or offensive messages, those mocking, teasing, intimidating, acquiring private information by means of fake accounts or attempts to spread such information may all be considered as examples of cyberbullying. While conventional bullying may occur at a certain place or time, cyberbullying emerges anytime and anywhere people may have access to the Internet. Additionally, factors such as cyberbullying's capacity to spread more quickly and simultaneously to a larger number of people, its long-lasting effects and the perpetrator's perception of concealing his/her identity enhance the need for multidimensional scholarly studies on this subject.
Digital Seige, 2021
Cyberbullying refers to the behaviour of inflicting harm upon a certain individual or group by us... more Cyberbullying refers to the behaviour of inflicting harm upon a certain individual or group by using information or communication technologies. Although it originally became a topic of discussion in Europe and North America, it has now become a worldwide issue. Bullying is not a new phenomenon but 'conventional bullying' is now being replaced by cyberbullying. With the increasing use of the Internet, mobile devices and particularly the spread of social media, the number of individuals vulnerable to cyberbullying is on the rise. In this context, angry or offensive messages, those mocking, teasing, intimidating, acquiring private information by means of fake accounts or attempts to spread such information may all be considered as examples of cyberbullying. While conventional bullying may occur at a certain place or time, cyberbullying emerges anytime and anywhere people may have access to the Internet. Additionally, factors such as cyberbullying's capacity to spread more quickly and simultaneously to a larger number of people, its long-lasting effects and the perpetrator's perception of concealing his/her identity enhance the need for multidimensional scholarly studies on this subject.
Conference Presentations by Serdar Tunçer
Despite the growing popularity of using Artificial Intelligence-based (AI-based) models to assist... more Despite the growing popularity of using Artificial Intelligence-based (AI-based) models to assist human decision-makers, little is known about how managers in business environments approach AI-assisted decision-making. To this end, our research is guided by two questions: (1) What facets make the Human (Manager)-AI decision-making process trustworthy, and (2) Does trust in AI depend on the degree to which the AI agent is humanized? We blended the business and human-computer interaction fields by considering AI applications’ design from both a social and a technological angle to answer these research questions. Our results show that (a) AI is preferred for operational versus strategic decisions, as well as for decisions that indirectly affect individuals, (b) the ability to interpret the decision-making process of AI agents would help improve user trust and alleviate calibration bias, (c) humanoid interaction styles such as conversations were believed to improve the interpretability of the decision-making process, and (d) organizational change management was essential for adopting AI technologies, more so than with previous emerging technologies. Additionally, our survey analysis indicates that when interpretability and model confidence are present in the decision-making process involving an AI agent, higher trustworthiness scores are observed.
CSDH-SCHN 2020 , 2020
The central objective of this paper is to analyze anti-immigrant rhetoric towards Syrian refugees... more The central objective of this paper is to analyze anti-immigrant rhetoric towards Syrian refugees in the framework of Barker’s (2001) ‘new racism’ (cultural racism) on YouTube. This mediated-cultural racism is, in principle, based on the idea that third world migrants are a group of “othered-others,” who disrupt the taken-for-granted stable national identity and economy in immigrés’ countries such as Canada and Turkey. We mobilized content analysis on users’ comments on a selection of YouTube videos produced in Canada (English Canada) and in Turkey. We analyze the first 10 most-watched videos from each country, in English and Turkish languages, and collected through a search for “Syrian Refugees” and “Suriyeli Mülteciler” on YouTube.
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Papers by Serdar Tunçer
Books by Serdar Tunçer
Conference Presentations by Serdar Tunçer