Abstract
Edward Said undoubtedly didn't analyze the concept of orientalism through an Ottoman or Turkish perspective in the context of the relationship with the West. However, although orientalism isn't directly connected to Turkey, it indirectly concerns the country as the image of Turkey and East is the same in many articles, literary works, political texts, and orientalist pictures. The purpose of this study is to understand and analyze the orientalist viewpoint about the Turkish identity on “9GAG” internet site, one of the most known humour sites created after 2000 with the participatory culture. In this study, the two-level interpretation system of Roland Barthes, involving the systematic connotation and denotation and myth, is used. The images of Turks in caps are presented with signifiers such as Turban, Islamic tabard, beard, prayer beads, coif, and shalwar. Signified, on the other hand, is usually the element of East, religion/Islam, tradition, underdevelopment, and violence. The specifically designed Turkish image is used as a kind of actor that creates a sense of threat.
TopTheorotical Framework
The questions of “Are we from the East or the West?” and “who are we, what are we made of?” seem to be about the identity at first glance. However, they also serve another purpose; the idea that resembling one another, benefiting from one another, having differences is basic problems. Based on this perception, it seems impossible to talk about or define who is a Westerner without defining the idea of an Easterner or who is an Easterner without defining the image of a Westerner (Tutal, 2011). At this point, it should be noted that the East and West are discursively intertwined. Edward Said, struggling with this “deadlock” finds the solution in putting a name. The name of this impossibility is orientalism.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Semiology: A discipline-based on systematically analyzing all of the factors that involve the processes of interpretation, production, or understanding of the signs.
Captions/Caps: The word is derived from the words “Capture” and “Captions”; the act of writing sub-titles fitting for the image especially in sites that produce humorous content.
9GAG: An online social media site through which users create content, upload, and share what they created.
Participatory Culture: A new type of culture occurred when the media consumers have become active with the new media and started to have a voice in the production and distribution of the content.
Meme: A contagious information structure that reproduces by the transition from one brain to another; the structure that changes human behaviors and causes them to spread the structure.
Saracen: A name was given to Muslims by European artists during Crusades, meaning “Non-Christian.”