User generated dissent : a biographic case study of peer production mechanisms on Eksisozluk.com

Abstract

In a public sphere wherein corporate monopolies of mass media networks prevail and antidemocratic practices suppressing the freedom of speech are the norm, the widespread adoption of the Internet in Turkey has engendered the emergence of a sphere of dissent wherein participants use social media and Web 2.0 platforms to engage in cyberactivism, participate in networked social movements, and express alternative, non-hegemonic political identities and discourses. Sozluks, a genre of content hosting platforms that can broadly be described as urban dictionaries, are unique within this ecology insofar as they rely on collaborative mechanisms to produce and organize dissent. Affording the oppurtunity to express oneself to the Turkish-speaking online audience in an anonymous manner, sozluks have become safe havens for free speech within the context of a country historically known for the censure of the press and the public sphere. Although it has been argued that engagement in spaces similar to sozluks constitute a form of digital labour, this dissertation argues that participation and the collaborative process found in sozluks constitutes a unique model of peer production. The commons-based peer-production model used by sozluks generates a constant steam of publicly accessible and at times, subversive information. User generated dissent explores communal, commons and automated aspects to the peer production mechanisms driving Eksisozluk, the oldest urban dictionary in Turkish cyberspace in a holistic manner. It attempts to link the model of collaboration found on Eksisozluk with other studies on different peer production models found elsewhere online. Opting for a mixed methodology that combines ethnographic fieldwork with a sociotechnical systems and Biography of Artefacts (BoA) approach, User generated dissent combines conventional data collection methods with using the Wayback Machine (WM) to build a longitudinal case-study to document the collaborative process that has made Eksisozluk a unique and influential actor within the ecology of Turkish cyberspace.