Internet Censorship & Social Media

Cagri Yalkin, Finola Kerrigan & Dirk vom Lehn (all King’s College London) {cagri.yalkin, finola.kerrigan, dirk.vom_lehn}kcl.ac.uk (Il)Legalization of the Role of the Nation State in the Freedom to Consume the Internet: Consumers’ Understanding of and Reactions to Internet Censorship in Turkey “access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision 2007/386 dated 06.03.2007 of first criminal peace court” ABSTRACT This study aims to understand Turkish consumers’ understanding of and reactions to censoring of different web-sites in Turkey. In an environment where sites such as youtube.com, blogger.com, and other social media sites are increasingly banned, the consumers’ macro-level understanding is that such bans on consuming the Internetscape are part of a wider ideological plan and the micro-level understanding is that their relationship with the wider global network is reduced and that they have trouble accessing full information on products, services, and experiences. The nethnography revealed that consumers engage in two types of resistance strategies against such domination by the state: using irony and making fun as passive resistance, and using the very same technology used by the state in order to resist the domination of the state. Contact Dr Cagri Yalkin Department of Management King’s College London Franklin-Wilkins Building 150 Stamford Street London SE1 9NH United Kingdom [email protected] EXTENDED ABSTRACT This paper examines the area of social media in questioning the intersection of ‘civil society’ and ‘the state’. Firstly the paper discusses the construction of these entities ‘civil society’ and ‘the state’ before contextualizing the role of the internet and access to the internet within Turkey. Turkey provides an interesting context for the study of resistance and expression in the era of web 2.0 and the growth and prevalence of social media. Drawing on literature on consumer behavior in online environments and resistance, the paper discusses the banning of social media such as YouTube in Turkey. The Internet is conceived as a network without borders and boundaries. It is argued that on the Internet information travels freely, without interruption or interception by national governments. National boundaries increasingly become obsolete as websites are accessible in the same way wherever people are located. The impact of the Internet on national boundaries, cultures and trade has been described as resulting from the qualities of “information”; “information wants to be free” (Brand 1987). However, several countries such as China, Turkey and North Korea restrict access to certain web-sites. The aim of this study is to understand the consumers’ reactions against censorship on the Internet in Turkey. The focus is on the reactions of consumers to the ban on YouTube in Turkey. This study is positioned within broader work such as that by Hall (1986) and Gramsci (prison notebooks) which discuss the tensions between the state and civil society. These studies made explicit reference to the role of the ‘free press’ within these struggles while this study repositions this debate to within the contemporary social media landscape. Drawing on frameworks such as resistance and the role of the state in shaping our consumption and expression this study aims to provide an insight into Turkish consumers’ understanding of and reactions to information restrictions imposed on social media such as YouTube.com. Whereas China’s internet censorship sought to reinforce the Communist Party’s views (e.g. McKinnon 2008), the censorship introduced in Turkey was either based on the premise that some users insulted Turkishness and Ataturk (as explained above) or that some websites were promoting malicious material such as porn, paedophily, etc., as seen by the statements of the RSF (RSF 2009). This paper moves beyond the neo-liberal versus neo-Marxist battles over the need to reduce or increase the role of the nation state in regulating the market and social spaces in society which are well rehearsed by thinkers such as Stiglitz, (2002) and Ohmae (1990), and instead questions what happens when the state acts to distance the consumer from their global peers. Drawing on the literature on resistance (e.g. Dobscha 1998, Kozinets and Handelman 1998) and on nethnography (e.g. Kozinets 2002), this study interprets the data about consumers understanding of and reactions to this removal of choice of consuming YouTube. In the first stage of data collection, 12 informants are interviewed by using purposive sampling (following Patton 1990), and in the second stage of data collection, a 2-year nethnography has been undertaken. The data interpretation and analysis reveal that the negotiation of the role of the state and civil society continues in the era of social media and that discourses of globalisation which propose empowerment for the consumer, underestimate the continuing role of the state in shaping the reality of consumers. Furthermore, our paper contributes to the furthering of debates around consumer empowerment, the role of the state and globalisation and technology by illustrating the methods of resistance which consumers employ in coping with state intervention into their consumption practices. It is also interesting to note that much of the discourse which emerges focuses on the impediments to consumption which such state intervention/ control has resulted in, rather than to objections to freedom of expression on a socio-political level. This can be viewed as evidence of ideological expansion of the consumer society within the sphere of civil society. INTRODUCTION The Internet is conceived as a network without borders and boundaries. It is argued that on the Internet information travels freely, without interruption or interception by national governments. National boundaries increasingly become obsolete as websites are accessible in the same way wherever people are located. The impact of the Internet on national boundaries, cultures and trade has been described as resulting from the qualities of “information”; “information wants to be free” (Brand 1987). This perspective on information is occasionally described as the “ideology of ‘free’” (cf. Hemetsberger 2006; Kozinets et al. 2008). It pervades discourses about the Intrnet, forms the basis for the “hacker culture” (Levy 2002; Brand 1987) and the file sharing community (Giesler and Pohlmann 2003; Hemetsberger 2006), and provides the grounds for the emergence of websites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and the likes that disseminate user-generated content for free across the globe (Leung 2009). The worldwide dissemination of free user-generated content can oppose the interests of stakeholders such as media companies and nation states. File-sharing sites like Napster or more recently, Piratebay, have been subject to tough police action that shut them down to protect commercial interests. As companies see their financial base being eroded by some practices on the Internet, so some nation-states consider the free flow of information on the Internet as a threat to their political legitimacy, as for example is the case in China (e.g. McKinnon 2008). There has been considerable debate regarding the perceived weakening of the nation state (cf. Sharma and Gupta, 2006). Sharma and Gupta (2006) summarise these discussions of such weakening into two key areas of concern; territoriality and sovereignty. In developing their argument, they point to the rise of anti-global protest groups as being a transnational movement. This paper moves beyond the neo-liberal versus neo-Marxist battles over the need to reduce or increase the role of the nation state in regulating the market and social spaces in society which are well rehearsed by thinkers such as Stiglitz, (2002) and Ohmae (1990), and instead questions what happens when the state acts to distance the consumer from their global peers. The discussions of the ‘nation’ and ‘state’ which Sharma and Gupta engage in highlight the role of the ‘state’ in regulating the citizens of the state, and the ‘nation’ which can be conceived of as a reflection of wider civil society. Rose (1996/2006) draws on Foucault (1980) in presenting the dichotomous presentation of concepts such as State and Civil society, public and private life as problematic and delimiting in terms of developing our understanding of the role of politics in society. He implies that there is a danger that the State becomes “the cold monster” that programmes, colonizes and dominates society. An example of intrusion of the state into society’s affairs is the censoring by the Turkish government of social media sites such as YouTube, where people express their political opinion and organise discourses of resistance. The users of these websites, mostly Turks, voice their frustration and objection to the government censorship. This paper explores the discourse about the Turkish government’s interference in societal and political discourse on websites like YouTube. It examines people’s discussions on websites about the censorship to investigate whether there is a debate about the legitimacy of the State’s activities. Thus, the paper can make a contribution to debates about the nature of ‘legitimacy’ with regard to governmental activities. Consuming the Internet, Consuming the Internet in Turkey Theorists such as Castells (2002) have linked the proliferation of the Internet with increased globalisation. In addition to being seen as a tool of globalisation, homogenisation of consumer desires and central to discourses of consumer rights and empowerment (van Aelst and Walgrave, 2002; Harfoush, 2009); the Internet has been seen as a central tool in contemporary strategies of social resistance (e.g. Shirky 2008). The rise of YouTube has opened new doors for consumers to create, share, and consume videos worldwide and YouTube has become a site where people post and share private videos as well as recorded and ripped videos with others. It has also been a site of ideological battles over copyright and creativity (O’Brien and Fitzgerald, 2006); and discussions over the glorifying of (gang) violence (Mann, 2008). McKenna et al. (2002) argue that the Internet has become the main platform for social interaction. In the first days of its existence, the Internet was seen as a vehicle in promoting global democracy (e.g. Birdsall 1996), as information was easier to obtain and unheard of masses could voice their opinions. The rise of ecommerce was seen as a way in which consumers could access a greater range of products and with the development of web 2.0 and user generated content on blogs and review sites (such as IMDB, Trip Advisor etc), consumers could engage with evaluations of products and services which were seen as a welcome alternative from commercially motivated paid for advertising content. The percentage of people that have access to the Internet varies around the world (OECD, 2009), however, recent reports by InternetStats (2009) reports that 34.5% of the population in Turkey access the Internet. As outlined above, the Internet has become a site where people voice their opinions, and, in turn, consume their own and others’ opinions while interacting. It has become a site where political issues are discussed. Social media are used by politicians who post their talks on such sites such as YouTube for people to consume, and on the other hand, there are people from different nationalities discussing (and sometimes even fighting) about politics. Hence, YouTube is a site where politics is consumed and enacted. Naim (2007) pointed out that YouTube has become a force for social and political change. The Chinese government, for example, monitors and censors what Chinese citizens are consuming and posting on the Internet about politics (e.g. McKinnon 2008). Since the Internet is a space with high political charge, any government intervention/censorship on YouTube is likely to revoke (politically charged) resentment and resistance, although this resentment and resistance may never leave the Internetsphere. Context of the Study A number of countries such as United Arab Emirates and China have restricted access to certain websites over the past number of years. Among these, Turkey’s ban has attracted attention due to the incongruity of this action with perceptions of Turkey as a secular democracy. According to Reporters Sans Frontieres (2009) (Reporters Without Borders, RSF from here on), 1309 websites have been made inaccessible by the Telecommunications Directorate since November 2007. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal and his followers designed and introduced the Modernization Project, which was based on Westernizing and secularizing Turkey in the areas of law, education, politics, dress, and arts (Ahmad 1993). The secular elites were the advocates of this Kemalist project, and although religion was always an important factor in Turkey, after the 1980s the role of Islam changed from a personal expression/act of faith to a politically charged movement (Sandikci and Ger 2002). These websites are banned under Law 5651, which allows prosecutors to block access if a site’s content is found liable to incite suicide, peadophilia, drug abuse, obscenity or prostitution, or violate a 1951 law forbidding any attacks on the Turkish republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. According to RSF, “Banning sites of a pornographic or paedophile nature or those that promote drug abuse is obviously justifiable but banning sites (or any other communication medium) because of content that is in some way critical of Atatürk violates free expression. As Atatürk is dead, he cannot be deemed to have sustained moral damage” (ibid). RSF point out that as a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, Turkey cannot punish the expression of views just because they clash or conflict with mainstream opinion. It must tolerate all views, including political ones, as well as criticism of the state (European Court of Human Rights, Handyside v. UK, December 1976). 1039 of the 1309 blocked websites are social- networking sites, or, according to RSF, sites where Internet users can read about and/or discuss political, cultural, etc. issues. According to the September 2009 report of RSF, prosecutors also violate online free expression to protect copyright on social networking sites such as MySpace and Lastfm. The video-sharing website YouTube has been inaccessible since May 2008 in Turkey, which is ranked 102nd out of 173 countries in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index (Reporters Sans Frontiers, 2009). Although the current government (Justice and Development Party) under whose rule online censorship has been increased to include YouTube and Blogger.com (only 2 of 1309 sites) is known for its Islamic orientation, it has claimed political power by promising more democratization. Although the ban on Blogger.com has been removed, YouTube is still banned in Turkey. Following Kemal, is there an acceptance that the state apparatus/government has a legitimate role in protecting its founding principles, which can supersede evaluations of the specific actions of the state in the eyes of its citizens? Hence, do the citizens believe in the role of government in safeguarding such values as Turkishness or do they perceive such actions of the state as illegitimate, given how it removes their options of consuming the Internet? In other words: Is the state’s official reasoning for banning YouTube for example (that a video has insulted Turkishness and Ataturk) seen as a reasonable explanation for the censorship applied? What are the different sorts of resistance that Turkish people engage in order to deal with the bans? In order to deal with the censorship, the consumers have used temporary remedies such as channels that would grant access (known as proxy servers) such as www.ktunnel.com, however, the general opinion was that using such sites meant accepting such bans more readily and agreeing to operate in a limited-information sphere. Even though this was the voiced opinion, the use of sites such as www.ktunnel.com continues to date. The literature on freedom of expression suggests the use of such tools to avoid censorship (e.g. Soraker 2008), however. LITERATURE REVIEW Online Environments YouTube can be placed in the sphere of visual consumption (Schroeder 2005), where consumers produce and consume videos for a variety of reasons. Earlier work dealing with the question of why consumers engage with YouTube approached the topic from a psychological perspective and has employed the uses and gratifications theory in order to explain the reasons for engaging with YouTube. Pace (2008) has conceptualized YouTube as consumer narrative. However, it is also possible to view social media as an extension of the fourth estate, illustrating the role of social media platforms in negotiating struggles between the state and civil society. There is an increasing volume of work in the area of marketing and consumer research and social media (e.g. Kozinets 2010, Pace 2008). The earlier work on online communities included Kozinets (2002) and the study of brand communities (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001). Overall, research on online environments and interactions suggest that the Internet is a site where people consume and is consumable on its own (e.g. Kozinets 2010). Hence, although there is literature on how to approach analysing social media such as YouTube (Pace, 2008) and on understanding the appeal of user-generated media (Livingstone et al., 2005), the ban or removal of such media from the consumers’ lives have not been addressed. Resistance Resistance has been studied from different angles in marketing and consumer research. Dobscha (1998) studied the tactics employed in resisting being a consumer by looking at the informants’ lived experiences and how consumers rebelled against marketing in general. Kozinets and Handelman (1998) studied consumer resistance toward specific corporations. In both studies, the consumers rebel against a dominating system located outside of their control. Holt (2002) studied the dominance of corporations, Ustuner and Holt (2007) studied the ways of life within the dominance of a particular kind of consumer culture, Wallendorf and Arnould (1991) adopted the altering of the meaning of consumption as resistance perspective, and Peñaloza and Price (1993) called for a more inclusive account of what constitutes resistance. Overall, these debates about the relationship between dominance and resistance in marketing and consumer research suggest that people are not subservient to dominant structures but they subvert these structures through everyday practices (cf. DeCerteau 1984). Overall, this suggestion tied in with deCerteau’s (1984) work which suggests that subversion can be found in people’s everyday practices. According to Foucault (1988), domination is inscribed in the power that operates in modern discourses and provokes resistance: “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (Foucault, 1988, p. 94). Dominance, however, in the instance of censorship introduced by the state/government, can also be conceptualized as removing the freedom to consume social media. Hence, as a result, consumers are expected to engage in resistance. Kates’s (2002) work on resistance suggested that politics relevant to the interpreters in question must be paid attention to. Hence, when considering the consumers’ understanding of online censorship, it is important to take into account the political environment in which this took place, as covered in the previous section. Featherstone (1995) argues that resistance to one’s own domination is incorporated by the cultural producers to increase domination and that this is the paradox of the resisting individual: both disliking and desiring the market. Although in the case of Internet censorship, the dominating entity is not the cultural producers but the state/government, it is possible that the resistance on part of the consumers is incorporated by the state to increase domination, as is argued to be in the case of Internetsphere (Drezner 2005). This study places the understanding of and reactions to the ban of and censorship on such web-sites in the context of production/consumption of shared meaning and employs the concept of resistance not against corporations, marketing, or capitalism per se but against the dominance of the state on the freedom of expression and consumption of ideas through YouTube and other social networking sites, and how this affects the creation/production and consumption of a global sharedness of meaning. METHODS This study employs two different interpretive methods. The first part of the study made use of 12 individual in-depth interviews recruited through maximum variation purposeful sampling (see Patton 1990) in order to understand a diverse set of consumers’ reactions to censorship as tying in with their consumption experiences. The table outlining the backgrounds of the informants can be found in the Appendix. The second method used was nethnography as outlined by (Kozinets 2002), which is used to study a wide variety of topics including issues of identity, social relations, learning, and creativity (Kozinets 2010). This part of data collection included reading and interpreting the entries (writings) on the popular user generated content site Eksi Sozluk (the Sour Dictionary, http://sozluk.sourtimes.org, which will be referred to from now on in the paper as ‘SD’) in Turkey, which is based on moderator approved ‘writers’ (contributors) creating entries about a diverse list of topics under nicknames. The purpose of the web-site is to generate dictionary-like definitions of concepts, places, people, events, and experiences. Known for politically charged discussions among its members and the disquiet it causes among a diverse set of people from ranging from columnists to artists, this web-site emerges as one of the key sites of contestation and creation of sharedness of meaning overall in Turkey. The Dictionary has also been the topic of several academic studies and presentations (http://www.interdisciplinary.net/...acts-and-papers/; http://aeural.googlepages.com/youthlang.ppt). Writing under nicknames, contributors to the dictionary discuss a range of matters from recent political news and concepts to restaurants and places. Of the 122,000+ users, 44 of them are below the age of 18, 67173 of them are between 18-25, 23776 of them are between 25-30, 11308 of them are between 30-40, 1958 of them are between 40-60, and 340 of them are above the age of 60. 71698 of them classify themselves as males, 31818 classify themselves as females. The entries under the topic “the banning of YouTube in Turkey” has been followed for a period of two years (since starting with the first entry and the ban’s implementation). Both sets of data were analyzed using a hermeneutic approach (e.g. Thompson 1997). As outlined by Kozinets (1998), such online communities as SD have a real existence for their participants and therefore have bearings on consumer behaviour. As pointed out by Kozinets (2010), “…because culture is unquestionably based within and founded on communication (Carey 1989), online communication media possess a certain ontological status for their participants. These communications act as media of cultural transaction – the exchange not only of information, but of systems of meaning.” (p.12). Since the ‘writers’ of SD build and exchange their own system of meaning, over time, what has been written on the topic becomes the culture of this certain form of online community. As a quality that pertains to such online communities as suggested by Kozinets (2002), one of the authors has a deep understanding of and familiarity with the group in terms of membership, interests, and market and (in this case) political orientation as she has been a ‘writer’ for two years and a registered reader for 10 years. The ethical issue of informed consent in doing nethnography as also pointed out by Kozinets (2002) has been considered. Although the writers are warned that all the information that is generated in the dictionary is public, and the managers of the site warn against quoting without permission, the necessary permission to directly use the quotes within this text has been asked for and obtained. The contributors (writers, users) of SD are fully aware on being granted ‘writer’ (user) status that the content is publicly available, however, writers are protected by nicknames and there is no marker of one’s real identity (name, last name, occupation, etc.) in the dictionary realm. To further anonymize the writer, instead of assigning pseudonyms for the writers’ nicknames, the representative ‘entries’ (the writing on a specific topic by a user) are cited in this paper with a random number. FINDINGS The interpretation of the interviews and the analysis of the online data yielded the themes that are outlined and discussed below. The data collected through the interviews yielded two dimensions of the effects of such censorship: one on the consumption of social media in general, and one on everyday consumption. The issues of the consumption of social media in general also tied in with the dominance of the ‘state’ and the current government. Hence, overall, there are macro-level issues such as general concerns about questions about evolution or politics and there are micro-level issues at the basic level of the consumer’s engagement with the market. Macro-Level: Effects of Censorship on the Consumption of Social Media The informant below, for example, sees the ban as the beginning of the engineering of a thought system which favours one view over the other (such as favouring creationism over evolution): I did feel strange when YouTube was banned, but that was a long time ago, or it seems like that now, and sadly we got used to it. I think it’s the moment we start getting used to it that it kind of means we are accepting what they are putting on our plate. We joke about it… like that time there was a UN or a NATO or something convention and YouTube was available in the conference room but banned elsewhere… and like the time the Prime Minister said he could reach YouTube without any difficulties...We were angry at first but now the tragedy has turned into a sad and funny reality… YouTube is one thing, but there are other sites like Richard Dawkins’s site and all that are banned, this is very scary. In a way YouTube being banned can also be said to be, if you will, engineering the thought system and the available viewpoints of the society, but Richard Dawkins’ website, that’s blunt and blatant hegemony for you right there to ban it…like “you are not even allowed to think about evolution” kind of message it’s sending through. I find it creepy. The graduate student informant interpreted the online censorship to be the manifestation of some kind of fascism that prevents people from accessing other viewpoints. This informant sees the online and offline censorship and bans to go hand in hand and believes that such bans are more easily introduced/implemented because the public does not react with an organized form of protest or resistance. Hence, she believes that because people find short term remedies such as changing DNS server preferences for online bans makes it more acceptable for the authorities to maintain or increase such bans I come from a family that has taught us to question such acts of… for the lack of a better word, ideological fascism… the only word that comes to my mind is fascism. OK do you remember why YouTube was first banned…it did have an ideological side, but the very fact that it didn’t allow the people to see that other viewpoints existed, then it has just become fascism. We all know how this works… create people that think within certain boundaries and in a certain way. And how some people say “well if you change your DNS server preferences then it works”, well that’s a lot of crap, that just means you have and I have accepted this act of fascism and that we agree to live like that. Not that I don’t do it myself, but the fact that nobody went out to demonstrate is very irritating… One of the informants, Deniz, a male young professional, believed that such bans on certain web-sites were introduced because the current government has a secret agenda. This discourse is part of a wider discourse about how the current government (one that is pro-Islam or perceived as such because of the recent debates about the headscarf and related manifestations) is handling the secularist vs. Islamist debates. According to this informant, the ban of such web-sites is only the tip of the iceberg, and the connotation suggested is that the current government has a wider plan to slowly cut Turkish people off their connections with the West and to Islamize the country, which is similar to the bases that the informants in Sandikci and Ekici’s (2009) study about the politically charged brand rejection decline to consume Cola Turka, the coke with religious/fundamentalist connotations whose parent company is claimed to have good bonds with the current government: This is not at all about that man Adnan Oktar persuading the authorities that the content in Dawkins’ website was belittling him, or whatever his argument was. I think this was accepted by the government because they well match with what the majority of secular people think is the hidden agenda of this government. This line of thinking is similar to that of an older professional, Tekin, who argues that such acts of banning, although they are carried out in the name of protecting ‘Turkishness’ and the respectability of Ataturk, are parts of another ‘master plan’ where more and more restrictions are introduced in order to bring Turkey more in line with an Islamic way of life. Aysel, a high school teacher, thinks that the government uses the lack of parental monitoring online that gives way to children and teenagers accessing porn and running into peadophiles as an excuse to implement censorship on sites of other nature social-networking and political: It is clear that there is no informed parental monitoring in Turkey, not the same way as in the Western world, no limited access. I mean not to the same level of sophistication. Hence, the government uses these as an excuse to ban a number of web-sites that are not even related to things of obscene nature. Blogging, YouTube… I mean there could be obscene things on YouTube but rather than having that content removed or limited to children, banning it for maintaining the state line of thinking is a bit too far. Hence, the consumer perceives that such acts of banning the consumption of online material is part of a wider political movement that is going to be introduced in Turkey. Such a fear is widespread among the ‘secular elites’ who have been labeled as the ones fostering the Kemalist principles and among the liberal democrats. Micro-Level: Consumers’ Engagement with the (Global) Market Blogger, that’s … It’s(was) another story. It’s a perfect way to cut down our information on what other people think, eat, drink, post, view, use, watch, photograph, smile about, cry about, etc. (researcher: Think.. and use?) There’s that side of it, if I’m gonna buy a new camera, I want to know what ordinary people say about it on such blogs, I mean, of course, first I buy into the idea that these are real people and not some ad agency that is being paid by companies for example, but the fact that it’s not accessible just annoys me, as a person (human being), as a photographer, as a citizen, as a consumer… this means I cannot use it to say and post things, and there you go, now we are cut off from the loop and our voice does not exist in the world. This is very dangerous. I think someday we might end up like Iran. That is one of my biggest fears. Hence, according to the consumers, not having access to consumer reviews and the attempts to negotiate authenticity is problematic. The consumers argue that they are being removed from a global flow of information, even if partially. Aysel, the high school teacher, also pointed to a similar issue: The Internet is a place where one can learn about the advances in so many fields like medicine and new methods in teaching. Like when you go to a doctor’s, they can easily learn what the rest of the world is doing about this illness and therefore, it makes them connect to their professional peers (colleagues), so they are on top of things. If they keep censoring websites, how is this going to be possible? How will we learn what the rest of the more advanced world is doing? The informants, therefore, perceive that they are removed from the global circulation of information and meaning, hence disconnecting them from or limiting their connection to the wider network of global peers and issues. This disconnection is in full contrast to the ideal of the ‘Internet’ where information would flow freely and there would be global networking and applies both to the area of consumption of goods/ services as well as knowledge. The following section presents the interpretation of the data collected through nethnography. First it presents an overview of what the consumers make of a particular act of censorship (that of banning access to YouTube) and then outlines the resistance strategies practiced by the consumers in order to tackle this removal of the freedom to consume the Internet. Understanding Censorship: What is it? Overall, the informants perceive online censorship to be an implementation of the sort that existed during the cold war times, when nation states were limiting the information about the rest of the world that was available to their citizens: It is a tragic example of the test of the nation state against globalization. (see: don’t know whether to laugh or cry) (writer 005). One of the users specifically pointed out that this was the iron curtain, indicating a similar line of thinking with the user above. This user’s entry as the definition of “the banning of YouTube in Turkey” was exactly as seen below: (see: iron curtain) (writer 266) Yet another user saw it as a nightmare, and pointed to the lack of informed understanding about who exactly is imposing this ban: it was thought that when we close our eyes, it will be nighttime. And contrary to many people’s belief, it is not Turk Telecom but the court that has taken this decision, it’s important to remind (them) of this (writer 256). This user describes the ban in a way that a child might think that it is nighttime when s/he closes her eyes. This is indicative of how the consumer finds the actions of the state to be immature. A number of users tied the ban with the previous events regarding the freedom of expression that have taken place in Turkey before such as banning books, cutting out parts of books, and burning books: the last act of those who have burnt many ‘banned’ books at the time because they did not like what they contained inside. This is no different from burning books or chopping of parts of translated work (such as the little prince). It is open censorship. And it is the ultimate point that I have seen in censorship. (writer 888) User 888 maintains that this censorship is not any different from offline censorship of thought, and user 292 criticizes the Turkish authorities that once criticized the censorship acts in the countries that are/were ruled with socialism. Hence, while user 261 finds this action very much congruent with how the state handles freedom of speech and access to Information, user 292 finds it incongruent with the state’s previous position, yet both users think that this censorship is a backward and restrictive act. The brand new action of those who have meaninglessly belittled socialism based on the socalled state/government censorship. Your medals are with me, come get it. (writer 292) The reactions of the users against the ban reflect the reactions of the users against the state/current government which has implemented the ban. “your medals are with me, come get it” statement is especially meaningful in the sense that it is putting the government in spotlight for ‘achieving’ this implementation of all things while they are in power. The Looking-Glass Ban: How Does This Make Us Look in the Eyes of the World? The consumers evaluated the consequences of the ban on the image of Turkey in the eyes of the rest of the world. In a manner that’s similar to the ‘looking-glass self’ (Cooley, 1902), the consumers provided their understanding of how the ‘westernized’ countries with more freedom in general perceived the YouTube ban and how this affected the image of Turkey for those countries. …they are making us look bad in the eyes of the world. The first time I heard this, I said, well, this is not gonna be the first.... They turned it back on (youtube) and... I still was not convinced, I was like, said there’s more to come. In about a week’s time, it had gone off and on again so many times that it had started feeling normal. I know it’s so bad to say it’s normal, and this, I still think it’s outrageous, but if it happens so many times in a row, you start perceiving it as normal (writer 222). Another user refers to the widely-used explanation in Turkey in everyday discussions, that of ‘Turks are their own worst enemies’, indicating that it is the Turks themselves that make fools out of themselves: It is the perfect proof that only Turks can make fools out of Turks. This is incredible, if you think about it (writer 678). Another user makes the point that this censorship is so backward that one of the most criticized countries for freedom of speech, North Korea, seems better in comparison: Well what can I say, it will make the North Korean citizen feel like they live in a liberated, democratic environment (writer 112). China, one of the countries that is under constant online censorship, is also brought up as a comparison standard. The user below jokingly says that the situation is so sad that it is as almost if people are expecting the government to say ‘it was all a joke’, and likens Turkey to China: the event which makes me hope/expect for people to say “we put on a short play”. What difference is there between us and China? (writer 554) Many users compared Turkey to China and North Korea, as seen below by one of the most representative accounts of this line of thinking: It is the ban that constitutes proof that we know nothing about freedom of speech. Now we’re exemplars to the world, after China and North Korea. Oh, there is also Iran. As you see, we’re running a great race. In addition: http://www.internethaber.com/...s_detail.php?id=72326 YouTube that insulted the Turks and Ataturk with the insult ‘homosexual’ has incurred a huge bill. What is a ‘homosexual’ insult??... To say that the word ‘homosexual’ is an insult could as well be something that could be taken to court in another country but what do they know, are they not the ones who lost it and lost their cultural and moral values? We are the country whose auditing mechanisms work well…(user(writer 676) A similar line of thinking is apparent in writer 17, who points out below that while Turkey criticized China for censoring Google, it is now in the same category as China. This user’s account also ties in with a looking-glass self line of thinking: the fear that the Western world will not cease to think of Turkey as ‘Ottomans’, as people that wear headscarves, that censor the Internet, and that are uncivilized. This user expresses the fear of an expected deterioration in the image of Turkey as a nation-brand: What we made fun of all these years like ‘China censored Google’ is now hitting back at us. So the image of the Turks outside of Turkey is: Muslim country, they wear headscarves and all that, they censor the Internet, and they are barbarians…I am guessing it’s gonna be people’s first choice for a holiday destination after this YouTube advert. One of the most significant markers of the undemocratic image of Turkey being portrayed was the movie Midnight Express, which has created fears of being perceived as undemocratic, backward, and not up to Western standards. One of the users makes reference to this movie, and compares the effect of this ban to the effect of this movie, again indicating that the image of the nation-brand will further be deteriorated: the ban that I think is a nightmare. If at this time we are living through an embarrassment like ‘Midnight Express’, it can only be a nightmare. I am wishing that those who are responsible for the nightmare will end it as soon as possible. (writer 521). A similar fear, that of being seen as a third-world country, is evident in the below user’s account. the decision that constitutes the proof that we live in any third-world country…Yes Iran has also banned YouTube not so long ago, then now don’t be screaming in the streets things like “Turkey will not be Iran” because it already is (user(writer 665) After being a country where books are banned, we have become a country where Internet is banned, we’ve just become more modern, how happy for us… (user 532) Both user 328 and user 29 are sharing how the press in the rest of the world shared the news on the censorship. Their entries reflect the same fear: that the rest of the world is going to think that Turkey is a backward country where the freedom of speech does not exist. In user 29’s entry, there is also cynicism in that it ends with ‘well done’, almost similar to the ‘your medals are with me, come get it’ statement of user twenty something writer above, belittling the current government and the restrictions by the state. (user(writer 29): the news that has made it to the world (global) media http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6427355.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6427355.stm. The headline is “freedom of speech”… in a few days the site will be accessible again but the thousands of people that read the piece on the BBC website will only remember turkey=/=freedom of speech equation. Well done. Writer 204 questions the exact role of the nation state in making decisions on such matters: (writer 204) Is it the role of the state (nation) to find out the right course of action for its people and execute it on their behalf? Or is it only responsible for making things work? Of course this changes with the way the government is run. Is Turkey not a democratic, social, and legal state which is run on the basis of a republic? In this system, do the government organs have the right to diminish the rights of its people or decide for them? The above statements indicate a clear disenchantment with the state and questioning of the legitimacy of the state in their actions similar to those raised by Hall (1986), however, the forms of resistance are less direct and politically tainted than may be expected. The following section outlines the forms of resistance employed by the respondents to this study. RESISTANCE STRATEGIES against the DOMINANCE of the STATE on CONSUMING the INTERNET The entries of the users revealed two kinds of strategies against the implemented ban by the state: The first one is through making fun of the issue, and the second one is using technical means to overcome the ban and access the censored website. Irony/Making Fun of it as a Coping/Resistance Strategy: Access to Thought Has Been Denied by the Court SD user 88 has written a hypothetical scenario where s/he will tell his/her children about the ban in the future: The piece of news that I will enjoy adding to the list of magnificent events to tell my kids. - children you won’t remember but back in our time they tried to ban YouTube. - what is YouTube - so you see, this thing that you used to upload videos with - video as in 3-D? - raaaaa Year 2007. Very strange things are happening in Turkey. People totally understand liberalism from the wrongest way possible. Hence, this user uses a scenario to point out to the depth of the issues and indicates that the children of the future will grow up with different technologies that will make it impossible for them to understand what this generation went through, and that when describing year 2007, the humanity will remember it as a country where liberalism as a concept has totally been misunderstood. it’s an incomplete enforcement…one should deal with a snake once it is small, people can reach such dangerous content from other sources. I am making a list of harmful Internet sites like YouTube for the government officials, I hope they will do what is needed. Or else at a time like this when we need a revolution/independence war period-like spirit, at a time like this when the entire world is against Turkey, when Orhan Pamuk is going around the block, etc. Anyway, my list of web-sites that should be banned: http://www.google.com, http://www.yahoo.com, http://www.msn.com, http://www.hotmail.com …(to block traitors and terrorists’ potential communication) (writer 209) Another informant chose to use irony as a way to point out to the seriousness of the situation and referred to the discourse that is famous and also famously criticized, that of “at a time like this when we need to unite as a country in an independence-war kind of spirit because the rest of the world is against us”. This discourse also frequently made fun of by the users of the dictionary and in fact is discussed under several headings in the dictionary, thus making it possible for this user to get his/her point across, thus making use of conversations and riding on the common understanding of the dictionary users. see: access to thought has been banned by the order of the court (user 129) User 129 describes the ban in a way that makes fun of the message that is displayed on the banned YouTube page in Turkey. When one types in www.youtube.com in Turkey, one finds the message “access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision 2007/386 dated 06.03.2007 of first criminal peace court”, which this user is referring to when s/he is saying “access to thought has been banned by the order of the court”, hence making fun of the very official language of the ban and transforming it in a format that is widely-used by the dictionary users (the see: topic x) function. Hence, although this sentence is very short, its significance also lies in the twist that the language of the ‘officials’ have been sour dictionarifed, meaning the language has been transformed into the everyday dictionary language of the users, thus distancing it from some cold, unreachable court decision to something that can be made fun of. Using irony and making fun of the dominating forces and the situation emerges as another form of resistance, and widens the range of activities that are practiced by consumers as resistance, filling the gap pointed out by Penaloza and Price (1993) as stated above. Using Other Technological Means as a Coping/Resistance Strategy: Gradual Acceptance It is also evident that consumers, rather than resisting the ban through protest, prefer to find technological means through which to circumvent the ban. The SD members below indicate that this ban is merely an ideological ban rather than an actual ban as it is possible to overcome it easily; (writer 167) If all else fails, it’s not difficult to hire a dedibox for 29.90 euro or a machine people can use as a proxy… then come and try and shut this system down (writer 167). SD author 174 referred to the ban as a; meaningless and nonsense application. Why meaningless? Because in about 20 sec you can change your dns setting and go on YouTube without problems (writer 174) However, SD members did acknowledge the pervasiveness of the attack on such forms of expression, following deCerteau (1984), the government are using the resistance strategies on the resisters; it’s a (legal) decision that is going to go on if people keep on writing the correct IP addresses here. As the IPs are deciphered, the people that run the Internet Service Providers will keep on banning. (see: you know what I mean) (232) (248) the situation that got out of hand by the IP address of YouTube being blocked. We shouldn’t be shocked if those that use proxies are jailed. DISCUSSION The main findings of this study are twofold. The first is that consumers evaluate censorship at two levels: one relating to more macro-issues like the role of the state and the implications of the ban, and one relating to micro-level issues such as its effect on the relationship between the individuals and the global community. The second finding outlines the consumers’ understanding of the ban and its effect both for their lives and on the image of the country and their resistive practices against the ban. The data revealed that there are two kinds of reactions to the censorship on the Internet on part of the consumers, making fun of it and using other technological means to override the ban, however, the end result does not change. The consumers’ understanding of and reactions to the censorship of videos are mainly centered around making sense of what censorship on the Internet means and how this affects other countries’ perceptions of Turkey. Similarly, the culture of avoiding the censorship of, for example Youtube and/or Blogger, over time, through such mediums as proxy servers becomes the norm of practice and the relationship between the consumers of a YouTube video and those that enforce the ban take place in a dialectical fashion, one resisting the other but at the same time one shaping the other as suggested by deCerteau (1984) and Drezner (2005). Hence, although the consumers think that the state should not be introducing such bans, they normalize the coping mechanisms such as proxy servers as a way of dealing with the situation, hence not imposing concrete sanctions on the state. That the consumption place (Internet) of the product (YouTube video) is also the same site where it is resisted (judged by the fact that there was only one ‘physical demonstration’ against the ban) is about consumers using the hegemony’s tools to resist hegemony (in this case, technology as manifested through proxy servers) which echoes deCerteau (1984) in that people use the very tools of the system to resist it. However, apart from not being able to access and what other people around the world say about themselves or a specific topic, the ban of the blogging website Blogger also affected how consumes consume other’s opinions about products, services, and experiences. 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Arnould (1991), "'We Gather Together': The Consumption Rituals of Thanksgiving Day," Journal of Consumer Research, 18 (June), 13-31. Appendix – Table of Informants Pseudonym Aysel Berk Umut Begum Deniz Murat Ozge Ceyda Tekin Ozlem Nihan Muge Profession High School Teacher University Student Academic Academic Investment Banker Photographer Sales Manager Hairdresser Mid-level Manager Lawyer University Student High School Teacher Gender Female Male Male Female Male Male Male Female Male Female Female Female Age 55 21 32 38 27 30 32 29 44 39 20 42