Philosophy Seminars - Digital Technologies, Critique and Society II
“Against the Black Box: Context, Actor, and Practice in Communication Technologies”
Time: 15:00 – 16:30
Speaker: Burak Özçetin
Moderator: Emre Şan
How should we understand and make sense of our experiences in this age where communication technologies are developing, spreading, and being appropriated at a dizzying pace? This is a question that, far from being new, stretches back to Plato's Phaedrus. We frequently revolve around these questions, from Empire and Communications (Innis) to The Gutenberg Galaxy (McLuhan), from Orality and Literacy (Ong) to Mediatized Cultures (Hepp). However, as we delve into the importance of communication technologies and foreground this importance, we strengthen the tendency to detach these technologies from their existing social, economic, political, institutional, and structural contexts and treat them as absolute entities. My aim in this talk will be to develop a social-constructivist critique of communication technology by focusing on the triad of context, actor, and practice while examining the place of communication technologies in social change. Against the black box, we will strive to put communication technologies in their proper place.
Burak Özçetin works in the Department of Communication and Design at Bilkent University. He received his undergraduate degree from the Department of International Relations, and his master's and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Middle East Technical University. In 2006-2007, he was a visiting scholar with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Department of Political Science at the New School for Social Research (New York).
His main interests include communication theories, political communication, philosophy of communication, cultural studies, and political and social theory. Özçetin's book, Kitle İletişim Kuramları: Kavramlar, Okullar, Modeller ("Mass Communication Theories: Concepts, Schools, Models"), which systematically addresses mass communication theories, was published by İletişim Yayınları in 2018 (6th Edition 2024). His book, A Century of Votes: The Evolution of Election Campaigns and Communications in Turkey (1923-2023), which he wrote on the history of election campaigns in Turkey, is slated for publication in 2026.
* The event will take place at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Conference Hall.
* The seminar will be held in Turkish. To attend this seminar, you can create your registration by using the "Register" button on the page and receive your free event invitation. Registrations will open 1 week before the event date (10.05.2025, at 15:00) and the "Register" button will become visible. Participation is limited to a quota of 80 people.
* Participants who have completed the event registration and received their invitation are kindly requested to be at the venue at least 15 minutes before the event. The doors will be closed at the event starting time.