Research

This article elaborates on the utilization of social media for practices of interaction in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses its potential in providing for the wellbeing of urban communities. During the early periods of the pandemic when preventative measures were taken intensively to decrease contamination, communities lacked physical relationships with and within cities. Interactions realized in physical spaces in normal conditions were compensated with practices in social media. While such shift can be perceived to have decreased the meaning of cities in the pursuit of daily life and interactions, efforts which were localized upon physical human settlements yet were realized in the digital realm seem to have opened alternative paths for connection among residents. Within this context, we explore Twitter data through three hashtags which were promoted by the local government of Ankara and used densely by the residents in the early periods of the pandemic. Considering that social connection is one of the fundamental enablers of wellbeing, we aim to provide insights into the strive for wellbeing in times of crises where ruptures in physical interaction prevail. The patterns we observe in the expressions that gather around the selected hashtags shed a light on the ways the cities, their people and local governments are positioned in the struggles pursued in digital realm. Our findings support our arguments that social media has significant potential in contributing to the wellbeing of people especially in times of crisis, local governments can increase the quality of life of their citizens with modest actions, and the cities hold significant meanings for people as loci of communities and thus of wellbeing. Through the discussions we pursue, we seek to contribute to the stimulation of research, policies, and community actions that aim at the enhancement of wellbeing of urban individuals and communities.

Based on precedent theories on collective memory and urban studies, this article develops a framework of approach to contemporary urban collective memory. Understanding urban collective memory by handling people and urban space as a system provides a sociospatial perspective for critical approaches to cities. The study initially provides overviews of theoretical approaches to collective memory and city, and then puts forth constituents of urban collective memory. Based on these constituents, contemporary urban collective memory is discussed, and a framework for analyzing contemporary cities in terms of urban space and urban experience is introduced. For a clear portrayal of urban issues within the context, the introduced framework is devised through the case of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey and the inspiring force behind this study. This framework aims to present a ground to assess people’s relation to urban spaces in the contemporary era.

This chapter handles the digital realm as a 'public space' produced through communication. It proposes ways of adopting socio-spatial theories and methods to develop perspectives for media and communication research.

The chapter provides a framework of memory theories in retrospective.

However salient the concept of cyberspace is, this study is an exploration of the relationship of people with their places. With a socio-spatial approach, this work sets forth a theoretical plexus between collective memory, cyberspace and urban space. This construction intrinsically relies on a conflation of associations and dynamics of memory, technology and place. Accordingly, the study explores analogies between cyberspace and memory, and between cyberspace and urban space. Merging qualities of the given concepts reveal that the cyberspace presents contemporary formations both of memory and of place. In the light of this premise, the study argues that cyberspace potentially constitutes an external urban collective memory and that it should be utilized to invent cyberplaces in this context. To understand the extent to which such potential is realized, a sample of the websites of existing location-based digital storytelling or oral history projects are investigated. To illustrate the means of projecting a cyberplace as a locus of urban collective memory, a model is established and a pilot website is created. Depending on the theoretical construction and the following propositions, a guideline for possible future implementations is generated. The intention is to bring cyberspace – the indispensible component of contemporary everyday life – to the light as a media that can be used to strengthen people’s relationship with cities rather than submitting our thought to the unavailing dystopia of digital culture.

The pandemic, economic and policy-based crises that dominate today have emphasized the inevitability of change and the importance of mobility. Although the city implies geographical fixity, it is confined to change and transformation and depends on the displacement of the commodity and the living. This mobility, which the urban space depends on, hosts and witnesses, is decisive in the relationship people establish with their physical and social environment and spatial and temporal context. The primary form of mobility in question is walking. However, walking in today's city is either a privilege or a risk. This study deals with the production of urban space through the concept of walkability and questions the walkability of today's Turkish city on the axis of various power relations. Countless crises, from pandemics to explosions, from violent interventions in marches to harassment, are affected by or born out of power relations and are linked in different ways to the inability to walk in the city. As the crises we have witnessed strikingly demonstrate, the fact that the city is not walkable corresponds to constraint, bondage, peril, insecurity, and intolerance, and thus to the destruction of the social production of the city. Yet the city changes and transforms. In this context, this study takes walkability as a focal point for critical reading of the city and its production. Although the reading presented draws a rather pessimistic picture, it finds hope in walking as a facilitator of positive change and transformation.

Depending on the assumption that buildings play the fundamental role in the formation of cities and their image, this study investigates the contribution of the Train Station to the formation of Ankara and its image in the early years of the Turkish Republic. The spatial entity of the station reflected the intended modern identity of the new state. Orienting the movement and development within its setting, the building constituted an indispensable element of the structure of the city. It acted as an immediate stimulus for the perception of the city and as a mediator for the creation of city’s image. As a building of prestige, it accommodated contemporary practices and provided civilized conditions for the whole public. Consequently, the station had a significant effect on the social and spatial formation and mental re-formation of Ankara.

Digital media provides society with countless tools and settings to represent thoughts, feelings and memories of both individuals and groups. It also constitutes an external memory in which those representations are created, stored and consumed. The freedom ensured by digital media offers authority for speech to individuals and groups independent from titles and positions, in a way, ruling out credibility of digital memories. Not only do the memories represented embody distortions, but also representations of those memories have the probability of being distorted. Accordingly, cyberspace as an external memory is intrinsically distorted. This chapter focuses on the digital representations of significant events on search engines. The aim is to understand how the consumption of digital representations in cyberspace influences our remembrances of the past. The study involves investigation of representations given in the digital media about significant events, and gathering information about how those representations and events are remembered. The observations will be used to develop a critical approach to digital memory as a source of knowledge about the past.

The chapter presents collective memory as a framework to question the potentials of video-sharing in co-remembering.

This thesis handles the city as a dynamic network of places and people, and investigates the concept of the image of the city. Early republican Ankara, the capital of Turkey, was chosen as the case of this investigation for an extensive understanding of the concept. The study is structured according to the components of the image of the city that were proposed by Kevin Lynch. Formations of these three components (identity, structure and meaning) are explained to be overlapping with the three phases (envisioning, planning, experiencing) of the formation of the city. Depending on the assumption that the buildings play the fundamental role in these formations, contribution of the Train Station to the formation of Ankara and its image is examined. The building, one of the most significant artifacts of the early republican Ankara, was studied in means of its contribution to the components of the image. With its spatial entity, the building reflected the modern identity of the city. Orienting the movement and development within its setting, it constituted an indispensable element of the structure of the capital. Furthermore, the station, as a building of prestige, accommodated contemporary practices and provided civilized conditions. The experience of these practices and conditions within the building, which was now an urban public space beyond being only a station, lead to attachment of its people to the station and to the city.