Interview with General Consul of Canada

We made an interview with the general consul of  Canada Mr. Ulrich Shannon. We talked about Canadian culture and today’s world in different aspects. We had a conversation about the relationship between Canada and Turkey too.

Promising Projects of Google Glass

  Google Glass

Google glass is a high tech digital and wearable device which we can  use like a computer or cellphone. Only small percentage of people use it for now. Additionally, there will be some alternative products from different companies including Samsung and Sony. You can take a photo or video by using Google Glass. You can even solve  math problems. The Google company is opened any suggestion to develop Google glass with kick starters.

Google Glass and new apps which are designed for it promise so many things… This high tech device already inspired many projects in global scale. Basically Google Glass projects depends on apps which means software. Google Glass can be used with other devices for projects or personal purposes. For some people Google Glass is a kind of  failed high tech device but for others it is just a real example of inspiration. In whole human history many good technologies vanished because no one use them. Only technology can not determine everything like Frederick Kitler claimed but it always affects people’s lives and culture. I think Google Glass is one of those inventions. According to some scientists the closest technology to human body is cell phone without competitor. I think Google glass is daring to cellphone now. It can share cellphone’s throne. This technology can show us what really extension of body means as Mc Luhan said? In anyway, Google class may remind many scholars Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifest”. Can Google Glass be considered as a part of body as an extension? Is it possible to live like a cyborg with those kind of devices including cell phone? Before think about those issues, it might be better to look at some projects by using this promising device.

    Projects with Google Glass

    1. Start up Brain Power

Brain power produces different Google Glass apps for autistic children to help them learning social skills. While autistic children learn the emotional interaction skills by using Google Glass , those apps may give a feedback for caregivers.

The founder of the Brain Power is Ned T. Sahin who is also a neuroscientist. He graduated from Harvard Medical School and  MIT. Sahin Claims that he can emerged new discoveries in academic neuroscience with wearable-computer technology with this Project.

Google Glass is sensitive to head gestures with its accelerometer sensor so it makes easier to understand  when  a child should look at to their parents. Google Glass make eye contact like a game with some apps which called as Empowered Brain Suite for autism. Additionally, kids can have a understanding about their families’ s expressions via different types of games and exercises. Google Glass apps will give an opportunity to those kids to have connection with their families and the world around them. Basically, it is gonna be like coaching for autistic children and their family. It can be for rich family for the very first times but later on The foundation hopes prices will be fixed for everyone.

Ned T. Sahin said that “I was absolutely astonished at how much remains undiscovered about the hows and whys of autism, from a neuroscience point of view, and even more importantly I was shocked and even shamed to learn that parents have to wait so long to get information about their children’s condition, and then have so little in the way of effective training strategies or treatments, or numerical reports on their children’s progress.”

    The Project of Facial Recognition for Google Glass in Dubai

Although it is banned that the use of Google Glass for recognition of face  in privacy policy , Dubai police want to use this technology to find criminals.

    How it Works?

If someone’s face is matched with a facial records of criminals, the Google glass will get a notification by using wink feature which use a software makes facial recognition possible. Some people say that if Dubai Police start to use it , Google company can not  do anything about it. For clarification, facial recognition software can only used by Dubai Police and for sure it is gonna be far away from MyGlass Store.

    Google Glass in Hospital

Google Glass application which is called  ‘Remedy’ can make real all wishes of patients true. The Owner Company based in San Francisco and the company makes co-operation with several hospitals such as University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. This project can be end of the problems about annual check-ups forever. As all we know, it may be really hard to get an appointment for most suitable time when we need. No problem! Google Glass has a application which is called as “Remedy”.

It connects a patient to a medical service or specialist quickly and digitally. It makes 60 minutes of office visits in 2 minutes office visit. One software which is called Beam in Remedy, lets specialists see procedure, treatment plan or diagnosis according to The Company’s co-founder Noor Siddiqui. Beam also makes it possible to send real-time videos from any kind of device which is connected to Google Glass.

     Glass Journalism

What Google Glass Journalism is basically a new style for reporting and making news by using that wearable device. A journalist who uses Google glass can also use some hardware such as digital audio recorder ,digital camera , and portable USB drives at the same time. CNN and Guardian already have Glass Journalism Projects. For journalism, the most important features are having news lively and quickly and proceeding them fast. (keywords; live and fresh as cyborg journalist).

Disadvantages of Glass Journalism

1. Battery Life

2. Storage Space

3. Uncomfortable

4. Vulnerable

5. Expensive

6. Screen on the right side.

7. Socially distraction: Hard to ignore a message or mail.

Advantages of Glass Journalism

1. Cloud services are always available such as e mail and socialmedia.

2. You can hack and add any hardware devices like even cellphone.

3. Portable

4. Hands Free Experience

5. Organized content: Chronically in timeline.

6. Easy to broadcast to live stream. (Full Screen Beam app)

7. Give a sense of first person perspective. (like you there)

8. More simplicity with more features.

9. Good for Citizen Journalists to be better blogger or reporter. (For CNN 1 million reporters)

Some Examples of Google Glass Journalism for Story Telling

          Some Dance

        Broadcasting News by using Google Glass

Educational projects for journalism student as Glass News

According to Robert Hernandez as a professor from University of Southern California Glass Journalism will change future journalism in three aspects:

1. Mobility

2. First person perspective.

3. New Consumption as geo-tagged content.

He also gives a Glass Journalism class. In class students will learn different skills including reporting, multimedia storytelling, web development design ,  user coding-programming by using Google Glass and hardware. (Such as digital audio recorder, portable usb, hard drive, digital camera etc…) Students also will have group projects to learn working together.

Reference

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/baltimore/glasskap-a-lens-cover-and-fun-accessories-for-goog

https://techcrunch.com/2014/12/23/brain-power/

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2690791/opensource-subnet/dubai-police-to-use-google-glass-for-facial-recognition.html

http://mashable.com/2014/08/19/google-glass-patients-remedy/#EBv.EaSRDSqV

http://www.glassjournalism.io/2014/12/08/through-the-eyes-of/

http://www.glassjournalism.io/2014/10/06/the-good-and-bad-of-glass/

Haunted Ghost

As a very good example of what future may bring us, Ghost in the Shell is giving audiences many ideas. Instead of the older version (1995) new version of the film (2017) is taking Ghost in the Shell to another level of understanding. In the movie, we can see very high technology and cyborgs who can be online by using cables like machines. Instead of high tech, people still fight against crime and the description of crime is not clear in that sense. As a dystopian world, there is a strictly controlling system all over the world which includes the bureaucratic and technological control. The state is authoritarian. Companies and people who has means of the capital dominate the system.  There are different governments and power relations and each single of them seeking for more power.

Hackerism is so fundamental and if they caught, they are punished punished extremely. Shortly, hackers seen as terrorists but there are different kind of secret relations in that post capitalist system and companies. Basically panopticon is everywhere. As  Castells claims ‘This information age has never been a technological matter. It has always been a matter of social transformation , a process of social change in which technology is an element that is inseparable from social, economic, cultural and political trends. That technology could not wiped out to ethnic groups and nations and system is problematic and  that system is just an example of  ’Global information Capitalism’ as Castells claimed.

There are different kind of beings which are full organism or partially organism and cyborgs. High technology give a permission to connect to the internet and live online with biological brain. Biological brain may considered as a machine as well which works with electricity and some chemical reactions. Castells’ idea ‘network society’ really works on people who live in that world. Castells’ ‘timeless time’ here is strong in the film so as an example even without a computer people can access through information networks,  ‘streams of live’ and ‘archived materials.’   A cyborg as machine used for hard missions or tasks because strong being. However, they are also have emotions and similar characteristic to humans but still they considered as  emotionally poor.

The main character of Ghost in the Shell as J Motoko Ksunagi is a female cyborg detective. She is spirit of the film. She said that I feel fear I am on the water but when I dive into water I feel safe. In first version of the movie; J Motoko  criticise the life and ask if the body create a ghost which is giving a life to a organism and ‘if our cyborg body create ghost as well as human body’?  Is there any difference to be human or cyborg?  When cyborgs have a mission, they can wear a fiber optic tech dress which may make them invisible for a use time as camouflage.

The Main mission for cyborgs is to catch Puppet Master which is an unknown enemy who uses hackerism and it is in the most wanted list at the top of the list. In the very end , it pops up  as a bug or program which can live by his or her own and create character programs like a lively organism but poorly it has no deep emotions as much as one cyborg has. That’s why The Puppet Master wants to be found by Motoko.  That movie is a post-cyber punk movie which romanticizes high tech in the sense of being cyborgs.

Cyborgs can criticize themselves as ‘I can bleed too’ but also in a negative way , complaining about not feeling pain. In the movie, ghosts represent the spirit of the one specific body or a ghost which is a source and representation of life at the same time. Shell represents the body or the physical part of organisms as a critique that a machine can be a real body or shell for  real smart beings or ghosts.

In the new version of the movie; Major J Motoko Ksunagi says; “My mind is human! My body is manufactured.” and “That humanity is our virtue”. She represents that even if you delete someone’s memories and create false memories with the body, still you can’t control the mind fully. It’s impossible to take over the control on ghost and self being. People would free themselves one way or another. Motoko is first one of her kind. She is a cyborg with a human mind and soul. At the end, she will figure it out who really she was. She also found her mother. Before she figured out who she was, she had many flashbacks like examples of simulacrum.

Viewers of the movie shall see Motoko as an example of human enhancement with cybernetic parts. She is an experiment with a fully synthetic body and human brain. Motoko’s body is her shell and her mind is her own ghost. Scientists may have changed Motoko’s all identity but her ghost survived and took control back. Motoko’s haunted ghost led her to find true path.  Although she is totally human in many ways at the end, she still has computer-like features without wires. She can connect to the network and take whatever information she needs.

 In the future instead of very advanced technology, if we still have problems, then there is no linear progress. If we look at it that way, the movie criticizes the idea of progress. When The Puppet Master the most wanting terrorist bug talk with Motoko and say to her being one new self with her he also said that A copy is just a image, there is no originality there. We can read this as a critique for post-fordism and mechanical production. Originality represents ‘auro’ here which Walter Benjamin talked about.  People as ‘prosumers’ (producer, user, consumer at the same time.) Hackers and Motoko (as cyborgs) and the Puppet Master represent political resistance. In the movie technological deterministic characters  are strong and mixed with technophobia.

The Destiny of My Child

In this documentary which is called “My Child” (2013) we see how people, especially young individuals from LGBT community and their parents, live in Turkey. What kind of hard life they faced. What kind of codes and stereotypes people have in Turkey and how those stereotypes can be changed from generation to generation. At the end,  the documentary convinced audiences that there are still many ways which make sure the different generations and people from different backgrounds can have common sense to solve problems together.

The documentary follows very open and strong way to show how society and norms suppress people, especially if they are gay, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals and intersex. How society’s cultural assumptions give male individuals more advantages in daily life. How those norms suppress women as second sex as Simone de Beauvoir examined. In those norms,  the most disadvantaged ones are people from LGBT community for sure. Generally, people want boys as children or at least as a first born child. Even culture and way of living change, some norms carry on from generation to generation. People, especially from old generations tend to think about girls such as; ‘Girls should act this way’, ‘Girls should sit this way’, ‘Girls should not misbehave!’ so on and so forth. If we look that way, it is so easy to understand that gay and lesbian individuals are more disadvantages.

In the documentary we see different life stories and different identities. There are gays, lesbians and transsexuals with their parents in the story which celebrates nearly all identities and colors of rainbow. The purple as the pure essence of the rainbow can be seen in this documentary as a very detailed story of LGBT youth in Turkey. Every person has a different background and experiences. Their parents are not in the same generation. Some parents are older. The thing does not matter is they all accept their children whoever they are.

In the stories we can look at some personal features which help viewers to understand LGBT community. People also may have sense to understand if their child is gay or not. Why do those people feel different? Is it a choice? Is it a sickness? Most of the parents have no idea how it goes. What should they do? Did they do something wrong when they raised their children? Parents ask them those questions or similar ones. The other important thing which documentary underline is gay people are invisible even in liberal or leftist groups in Turkey. Being gay is a humiliation culturally in Turkey which we can see in many examples of stereotypes or cursing words. In Turkey, people mostly assumed that gay people are more feminine. Gay people can’t be masculine. Other thing is gay individuals or transgender women are in more danger than lesbians in Turkey. Some gay and lesbian individuals or from women to men transgenders can live easier than men to women transgenders. Men from to women transgenders are mostly targeted for bullying.

Documentary makes easier to understand LGBT youth and help fight against discrimination and hate speech. Most important of all, if people don’t know what is homosexuality and it is natural, it is impossible to have some process for LGBT rights and fight against homophobia. If we think about how homophobia is wide and strong in Turkey, it is easier to understand that documentary is a big step as Pınar Selek from University of Strasbourg claims; “This film is a key to a thick iron door in our country. Soon we will see this rusty door open and a light to love, gender and difference will greet us.”  From Sabancı University; Ayşe Gül Altınay underlined for the documentary that “A film that promises to change many lives, help many hang on to life, and open up new sites of struggle for us all.” In a very homophobic society those kind of documentaries and activist people for LGBT rights are hope for a better future for sure. If we think more in detail, it is easy to understand that LGBT rights are human rights as much as other minority rights. LGBT community is in even more disadvantageous conditions than other minorities. Ignorance makes people assume that gay people are sick even it is natural scientifically. Also new researches show that gay, lesbian and transgender people have some differences in brain structure. There are also some other evidences say that being gay is also related to some genes. Activists for LGBT rights are working hard as much as some scientists to understand LGBT people and make life better for them and equal to others.

Documentary shows how parents work for their children also. They attend the Organization which is called Lambda for LGBT rights. They manage meetings and help LGBT youth. They try to create awareness on a social level in conferences and university debates. Those activists and parents even visit the parliament to share their ideas and show politicians what kind of problems LGBT people have and how can those problems be solved! In those parliamentary meetings, a gay activist confessed that politicians never shakes our hands like they shake parents’ hands. Those parents of LGBT people make those human rights issues more visible in politicians eyes.  Most important of all, those parents and activists are coming from different generations but still agree that their children and the LGBT community should  live a better life. When parents accept their children as who they are, most of the time grandparents accept their grandchildren too. Three different generations came to the same line for the sake of humanity and their children. Some parents show their love with that motto; ‘You can have a hard life but we are with you’.

A World in a Video Game

EXistenZ (1999) is a cyberpunk science fiction story which covers virtual reality and reminds the audience of cyborg theory by Donna Haraway and the term that Normal as  ‘what is normal and What is real?’. Basically, eXistenZ is a VR game which people can play while they use a plug with a material device both organic and mechanical-electronic.

 In the Movie , The Game eXistenZ is considered as ‘ eXistenZ is not just a game but the whole game is a system.’ In order to play eXistenZ users should use gamepads which are living flesh and cyborgs mixed with electronic circuits. Shortly, you should make a plug  in your back side to connect with the gamepod. When you connect with the gamepod, it’s possible to download that game. After downloading the game, users can teleport themselves to another reality which is totally natural. and  In that way gamers just made something real  or not real? Is it a new nature? or just an accessory.  Answer may depend on what you stand for. Hackers are so important in the movie and they are considered as assassins-like.

 Although the game is made for self expression and resistance , there is a panopticon everywhere in the movie. You shall associate your own contact after you port your gamepod. Gamepod can be infected by a germ or virus as a cyborg and just like another biological organism. Gamepod can also die. In order to play that game you should change your nature to port the gamepod. They have a new nature after a question of ‘what is a normal body’.

In Haraway’s manifesto, she talked about the fusion of the organic and the mechanical. We can see that with the use of gamepod on humans. Non-human machines and biological organisms just converged together as a good example of The Cyborg Manifesto by Haraway. It is scary when you pause the game! It is also extremely hard to understand after you quit the game, do you really quit or not? Can you differentiate whether you come back to the physical world or not? Which one is more real? Physical or the virtual one? If the reality is about feeling then What is real?. That virtual world is just illusionary in that sense even you cannot be sure when you really quit? With its neuro fabric system, games cause an addiction to the human body. What an example of a dystopian world!

The conception of time is really blurring and illusionary as well, so you cannot know how much time you spend by playing that game.  In the movie, also there is no certain sexual identity as a player because you can change it. You can act somehow based on your deepest desire or fear! Gamers can express their true or secret identities even if it can be considered as more true than their identities in physical life.  Human basic instinct can lead them away as animal instinct does. To kill, just kill! Then What is human or What is non-human or animal?  It’s not sure that Game users have to act as the game character’s lead according to the certain mission or they can interpret and change the lead?

Basic claim is that you can be whoever you want but if the game leads to your scenario and way of acting, it may be seen as a real big fat dilemma. Porting a gamepod to the body is a basic example of the penetration of the body like the change in nature or having alternative nature? In the movie, technology is represented as a tool of fetishism which you need to  fulfill the life based on your desires. There is also technophobia here because users of the eXistence are in control  and it looks like technological determinism took the throne as how badly technology can affect people.

Elephant: A Massacre Portrayal with Realism in a Movie

There are many ways to show the reality beyond text and medium. In a sense of realism, a movie needs to make the viewer feel that  they are in the story too. Elephant by Gus Van Sant (2003) as a movie uses long takes, different points of view for each character  with some camera movements to make sure the film portrays the reality. The movie is like an interesting hybrid which covers drama, crime and documentary.

Narrative construction in the movie portrays different ways of lives for each character. As a realist movie, characters have different stereotypes, psychological states. A drunk father portrayed as a middle class family. His son criticises him. He doesn’t seem well educated. Some people bully others in that film which helps the viewers to understand that big problem in the United States. Some people are interested in art and do paintings, take photos as life goes on.

It is easier to understand how each character feels and how they react to each other. The movie Elephant has a non-linear narrative. Audience will see the same case and story in different angles, for each character as a different phenomenon with long takes. Even though the story of that massacre in the movie is real, it is unknown what really happened that day. In order to make the film more realistic, the scriptwriter makes a fiction about that massacre. In order to be a realistic movie, Elephant makes  5 minutes of time equal to real 5 minutes in life.

Re-enhancement in the movie tries to make sure that viewers have empathy for characters. The camera moves with characters. The fictional interpretation of the incident of Columbine High School shootings shows viewers which character has what kind of mindset with their own emotional state. The movie portrayed the victims, the killers and the witnesses that provide to audiences how the characters were shocked and how the incident happened in the school. When one killer kills another, it is possible to understand how brutal they are with lack of emotions and empathy.

The movie is also open to interpretations. For instance, killers are outsiders and want revenge on others? May killers have family problems and want others to pay off? After killers sex scene with each other, it is also possible to think that those guys who commit homicide were gay and can’t accept who they are? That’s why they could be angry about life? Or is it just a game for them to commit homicide? How did the witnesses react to that massacre? The desperation of victims can be understood by following those camera movements, point of views, shots and long takes. Elephant as a realist movie gets viewers into the movie and tries to portray how the situation happened.

The Future of Data Journalism

I made an interview with Steffen Kühne who is working as data journalist at BR Data. He has a great vision and have promising projects for the future.

    Can you tell me about yourself?

My name is Steffen and I’m 28 years old. I work as a data journalist and software developer at BR Data which is a public service broadcasting in Germany.

We shall start with some questions. Can you tell me; Why data journalism was invented in the first place?

I think the reason why data journalism was invented was that there was always a necessity to deal with data sets. I think in the very beginning like 200 years ago, there was a first data journalism experiment but we didn’t call it data journalism back then. They had tables, documents, a lot of numbers and they needed someone who could deal with all those numbers.

Dealing with numbers and statistics requires certain skills. That’s why, we need data journalists. Especially, right now we have more data than ever.

How the process of data journalism goes through history of journalism?

I think the invention of data journalism as we know today, started in the 1960’s. When people have strong statistics backgrounds, for example; from different science sections including social sciences, they become journalists in that sense. They tried to combine what they learned in the universities to work as journalists. I think progress has been made by the use of computers. Computers were super expensive back then but they got cheaper every year and that might be one of the reasons why data journalism became so important and also I would say it is easy to do with cheaper computers. Everyone has at least 2 or 3 devices which can do all calculations. It couldn’t be like this 50 years ago.

Can you you tell me that What do you think about advantages of data journalism?

I think the advantages of data journalism are that with certain disadvantages. Generally speaking, I would say the big advantage of data journalism is that you can work with numbers, statistics in a very objective way. Using methods from science, especially from statistical science or social sciences. This is very important because nowadays we have a lot of controversial issues about certain topics such as; refugees. There are a lot of opinions about this topic.

In those cases like that, data journalists are the people who can bring out hard facts on certain topics. That is a big advantage. Hard facts from statistical sciences…

Can you explain importance of statistics in data journalism?

It’s not only statistics. I think data journalism is a mixture of statistics, computer sciences and programming. Programming is important to deal with data to use data basis, storing data and build an interface for final product. Even if your final product is a well written text, it is possible, all your insides can come from statistical analysis.

How do you make your stories with data?

I think there are two ways of telling a story. The first way is that you have a certain question and then you try to answer that question by finding data. Secondly; after doing that you need to analyse that data. If I already have a data set, normally the questions I have are very basic questions. Can I trust the data set? Can I trust the people who gather the data? Most of the time, I can trust because most of the data sources are from governments.

Journalistic questions normally are what is interesting in the data set?  The out layer.. Stream values… How is the average looking? If you put it in perspective and take an example; if you have a data set about poverty in Europe, you would first look at the poorest regions in Europe. And then the richest regions of Europe…

How can you make sure it’s a good story?

I think many times journalism is just like a little helper. It helps, even to be a better reporter but in the end; most of the work is like just classic journalistic investigation. For instance; if you stick with poorest regions in Europe; next step should be finding out why those regions so poor? Do we have like some economic deficiencies, after finding out, you could do basic internet research or you could talk with experts which may provide even more inside.

What about the editorial process?

In the end of the story, most of the time you would find outliers and you would start very traditional research. You may gather different sources related to the topic from newspaper articles or books etc. After all of that; you could start writing small texts or articles or you can try to do some interactive graphics and charts however you like. In that case, you could also think about sending a reporter to the poorest and richest regions to give the reader some inside information about people who are living there.

Is there any difference between data journalism and regular journalism?

I wouldn’t make a big difference between traditional and data journalism. For me, data journalism is the essence of classic journalism. Data journalism is just like another tool for journalists.

I wouldn’t say it’s a new genre. I would just say data journalism is a collection of tools which help any kind of journalist.

What kind of changes data journalism can bring?

I think data journalism is already providing a lot of changes in newsrooms. Especially newsrooms which had been working with data… I think the biggest improvement in newsrooms was that people from the programming department started working with journalists.

They are developing programs and they all started to make stories together. I think that it helps a lot. I still think that our readers are the same and make no difference a lot. Obviously, the content of journalism wouldn’t change that much by data journalism. In general, I don’t think data journalism would do different stories than stories we had been doing 20 years ago.

Did you have special projects so far? Or Can you tell me about the stories you admire the most?

I think, for me the best projects are the projects which do not like data journalism projects. That sounds kind of wrong because I’m working as a data journalist and interactive developer. I really do love data visualizations. My colleagues and I gave many good examples. They were super nice but I  think they didn’t brought too much inside.

I really like stories which brought a lot of data analysis and data works but at the end, I want it like a very good movie or which have given a very good written article in newspapers. As an example, I did a project about aid money about Syria. We had been investigating whether  those donations went to the Assad Regime or not. It would inappropriate if some of them given to Essad. That investigation required a lot of data analysis and at the end it was just a documentation in 15 minutes.  It was great but I think most of readers wouldn’t notice the difference.

The project I admired the most recently a data journalism project had been covering the US presidential election. I really enjoyed it. Even though all data journalists were wrong and Trump won in the end;. The questions to deal with were; ‘Who is voting for Clinton or Who is voting for Trump ?’. That was all about the big divide between well-educated liberal people in the cities and mostly poor people who live in rural areas. I was following that election from Washington Post because Washington Post is my favorite website in terms of data journalism.

What is importance of designing and coding in data journalism?

I think coding and programming are super important in data journalism. Data journalists are most likely to keep doing designing, coding, journalistic investigations and reporting. Coding is important for analyzing the data. When it comes to developing the final product which could be like a website or something we need designing. Basically, data journalism has three pillars named as coding, designing and making a story afterwards.

    What kind of skills make a data journalist succesful?

Five years ago, I would not have said that you need to be a good journalist, good reporter, a good engineer, a software developer and data analyst. You also need to be a good designer which is nearly impossible. Because I don’t know many people who have all the skills. Today, they focus on one thing; you can be either a designer, a programmer or you can be a journalist. I think it’s most important that you have a certain kind of skill at least. Honestly, at the end journalists will be the people managing the whole operation.

You will tell the programmer what to do or you need to assign jobs to the designers. This is becoming more and more important.

    What is your prediction of the future for data journalism?

I’m guessing that all those data journalism teams we see right now will be dissolved at a certain point. Because it is much better to have a data journalist or a data person in every point in your organization.

For example,  you are a data journalist working with the sport teams covering the soccer events. Then you have data journalism with a strong focus on economic topics, tax issues or stock market. I think that’s the kind of future we are going through. Journalists are getting basic data journalism skills and all those data journalism experts will be spread out the whole organization.

     Is specialization still important?

I think specialization is a  important topic like economics, ecology, etc. For me, data journalism is like a skill set for dealing with data such as; cleaning it, gathering the data, analysing , or maybe even visualising it.

    Do you think that we can solve social problems such as; poverty or immigrants or social inequalities in the future?

Nope; I don’t think so because journalism normally doesn’t solve the problems. It just put some specific topics in the spotlight of the public and exposes certain problems. Data journalism clearly helps covering those topics because nowadays; many of those topics are coming with a lot of data sets by data journalists.

There are no easy answers to some topics. That’s why; data can help you with visualizations and really helps to explain some problems.

    What would you recommend to journalists who want to be data journalists?

I think the most important advice would be to start with small things. Because if you are studying as data journalists, you will see very big projects by The New York Times, Washington Post etc… You could never get the skill they had been having. There is no one person behind these projects. Those media outlets are working as teams, experts are doing investigations for half of a year. If you want to work with data, the best idea would be to start with small details about your region or local projects. If you start with that; it would be easier to learn more. Best part of it at the end; if you work as a data journalist, you could know like everyone who has been doing this because you will meet with people in international conferences.

A Future with Terror of Technology

What kind of things technology may bring to us? Should be we afraid of it? What does really high technology promise for the future? If rich people have more money and poor people are gonna get poorer what is the meaning of technology? Should technology lead us to a society where we never see widespread and harsh inequalities?

In the famous movie Blade Runner (1982) we see a new kind of future we have never imagined in that way before! Every kind of technology from genetic engineering to internet and communication technology is like a nightmare we could never want. Technology dominates society and makes sure that  rich people who have the means of the capital can have whatever they want. Globalization in a very rigid upgraded version causes absolute control of the society by using technology and media. If we look at that future, can we differentiate that controlled society from absolute monarchy? Actually if we reflect on that scenario, it is easy to see that society with high tech lives in a more rigid regime. Even legal acts can be punished in this society which totally influence of harsh form the state which is literally ultimate form of panopticon.

The story is happening in Los Angeles in 2019. In that science fiction story about the future with high technology , that story is fulfilled by technophobia. Everywhere is looking terrible, there is no single green park! Audience sees the mechanization of the city and life are too much dominated  to escape in any way. State is a police state and  panopticon and surveillance is fundamental. Identification and tracing people are part of panopticon in that sense. Geishas are on boards. There are underground  multinationality in the city.

LA is totally like a chinatown. There are different languages , especially Chinese Culture, which some experts are afraid of. Some people do not even know English which criticize the claim that English as an international language. High tech gang and hackers are worldwide.  There is a cultural conflict in the city. Crime rate is high. In those images as a whole, we can interpret that all the things we are afraid of are already happening in the story. Entrances are on the  top of the buildings.

 The story starts with asking a favor from a guy which we count as a seeking of patriarchal heroism in the movie. I think it is a shame there is no female leading character still. He is charged with figuring out who is replicant who replicate the human tissues and organs. In the script, we can read that technology does not change people, they are still patriarchal and stereotypes are dominant. People still try to kill each other. Instead of that high tech, people do not look more civilized but maybe less civilized.

Some people even forced to work for others such as low level b girl or hostesses  in the movie as a post-slavery. Hunger still looks like a main problem in society. Poor are so needy and the rich are richer. One of the most interesting elements in the movie is that the big corporate companies and rich people live in a building which is shaped like pyramids. In the belief of Ancient Egyptian Mythology, the way to the stars is on the top of the pyramids as in the movie. Most of the houses are like ancient cemeteries and graveyards. When one of the biggest patrons meet with the hero they meet in a place like an Ancient Egyptian Temple which is filled with antique trinkets and one interesting Owl. In Ancient Egypt, an owl represents Horus and they meet three people in the room with Rachael who was an experiment. It is a kind of representation of the Holy Trinity especially with that Owl also led to think about Magical Flute By Mozart. In Mozart’s art work there is a representation of the Holy trinity as well, such as the chosen ones Prince Tamino, Princess Pamina; the good and wise Sarastro the priest; the beautiful Queen of the night (with three ladies) etc.

With corporate capitalism, strict social control in the cities is a perfect example of the dystopian society. People misdirected and manipulated by propaganda. People live in a dehumanized state. Society is controlled by bureaucratic and technological control at the same time. The new version of Blade Runner is on the way on 6 October 2017. We shall see the new version of it, to have more inside of the story.

A Succesful Data Journalist from Costa Rica

I made an interview with Hassel Fallas about data driven journalism, its tools and what it promise for the future.

    1. Where do you work? Can you tell me about yourself?

I am editor and journalist since 16 years ago. My current work is in daily La Nación Costa Rica (www.nacion.com/periodismodatos) as data driven and investigative editor. I graduated from the Online Master’s program in Digital Journalism of University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, in August 2013. I also finished a specialization course in Business Statistics and one more in Business Intelligence at the Technological Institute of Costa Rica.

Hassel Fallas had so many rewarded and successful data driven journalism projects.

2. What kind of projects have you done so far?

My work is focused on analyzing databases for in-depth research and developing news reports in the public interest. Publications are a result of a combination of traditional investigative reporting techniques with the knowledge of statisticians, data miners, computer engineers and any other professionals whose background may serve to improve the quality of the data analysis and storytelling. I am also in charge of editing the visualizations and stories based on data that we create for our interactive project, mobile and desktop.

On this regard, some projects I have been involved are:

    Stolen Memory

A transnational investigation prepared by teams of journalists in five different countries. It reveals the figures and the most serious cases of trafficking of cultural heritage in Latin America, an activity that connects antique dealers and politicians in Buenos Aires to drug lords in Guatemala, and suspicious art collectors in Mexico to diplomats in Costa Rica and Peru.

It is the first journalistic investigation on cultural trafficking involving big data. It also includes a database establishing the beginning of the first Latin American census of stolen cultural property. Winner of third place in the Latin American Investigative Journalism Award, 2016.

    The Hidden Cost of Gasoline in Costa Rica 

A mathematical maneuver made at the end of 2008 by the Public Services Regulatory Body (ARESEP in Spanish) harms, ever since, the consumers of diesel and gasoline, who pay more per liter than do asphalt firms and the consumers of gas who, in turn, save millions because of the lower prices they pay.

From 2009 through September this year, diesel users paid up to ¢73.5 billion more, while gas users save some ¢33.27 billion. Others who have benefit are the firms that buy asphalt and emulsion, which saved at least ¢11.6 billion, at the expense of buyers of regular and super gasoline, who paid an extra ¢29.5 billion. An investigation by La Nación found that the subsidy to cheapen gas and asphalt (and to increase the price of diesel and gasoline) is hidden in the price formula created by ARESEP in November 2008. Finalist, investigation of the year, Data Journalism Awards 2016

Your Career, Your Future

Is a storytelling project based in data analysis and visualization. It was created to help young people in the process of choosing what to study? Would it be worth to invest in that career? Are there openings in that field? How much can you earn? Are there many people studying the same thing as I am? The interactive allows to compare the unemployment in two careers of interest and the chances of working in the field of study. Besides, there are graphics with particular zoom over specific fields of study and their reality. You also can do your own analysis by downloading the original database we use for the project.

    Decide for Your Canton News Application

Decide for your canton is an interactive news app that emerged with one goal: providing voters in the Municipal Election with all the possible public information on the 605 mayor candidates in the nation. In it you can enquire on the court record of every one of the candidates of your interest in the 81 cantons of Costa Rica and to learn the reasons why a group of them have been taken to court, have been convicted, or have settled to avoid a court ruling. Also, you will find in detail those cases in which the General controllership of the Republic found unavoidable punishing another group of candidates because of misconduct in public office.

All of that information is compared with the version of those facts provided by those alluded to. The application also reveals the candidates who have outstanding debts with the Costa Rican Social Security Institution. In addition, it is made evident which candidates have experience in public positions and for how long they have done it. Finally, you will be able to explore their curricula and proposal of a government plan.

3. Which tools would you like to use for data journalism?

Excel, Access, SPSS, R, Tableau Public, SQL, Power BI desktop, Google Refine, Tabula. But remember: don´t get married with any particular software. Computers don´t change a bad reporter into a good one. What´s going to make you a better reporter is your hunger for learning, your ability to apply to your analysis all the necessary techniques to unveil situations that generate inequality, injustice, and corruption in our surroundings

4. How content of journalism changing by data journalism?

DDJ ensures the precision and trustworthiness of data that editors will present (as a fact) to their readership. They do not depend on a source that gives them “processed numbers” and are less likely to have biases or inaccuracies.

Traditionally, journalists go to a source, which we sometimes wrongfully call “expert”; we believe in what it says, believe it to be true, and reproduce its conclusions. But, how do we really know that the numbers they have given us are true if we have not examined, corroborated, and validated them ourselves? This is a need that data journalism helps to solve if we, as journalists, really want to do a good job and ensure the public interest.

Data journalism is also an opportunity because we are constantly forced to innovate, to better understand our audience and how they interact with information. It forces us to think about each publication, about the best way to tell or communicate the story behind the data. There are stories that, given the volume of data involved, are impossible to be told in a text; but if we have an interactive display we can generate information and knowledge at a glance. Data journalism makes available to people the conclusions based on data analysis that not only show the conclusions of the journalist, but also allow people to interact, find, and create their own story.

5. What kind of practices data journalists need?

There are 5 stages in data driven journalim;

Compile: there are several ways to get the data you need, you can get a dataset from an organization or the government, find it in open data websites, or download them from Internet. You can also extract data by using different software or collect it yourself through surveys or interviewing people.

Clean: this is the process that let us sleep peacefully at night. Why? Because it ensures that you don´t have errors in your data. Some typical errors could be: duplicating entries, misspelling names, blank spaces, or typos in figures. It´s the quality assurance of your data and the basis of your analysis.

Context: it consists of doing research over your data: where does data come from?

• How reliable is the information?
• Is it complete?
• Are there any missing parts, why?
• How was this data collected? What was the method used?
• Does it provide me all the information I need? Do I have to look for any other datasets or even build my own?

These steps can lead you to compile additional data. You can have the number of crimes in all the cities of your country but you need to know the population in every one of them in order to estimate rates and determine in which cities crime is really a big concern.

    Combine: you can work with only one dataset, but what is really fantastic is combining databases to increase the context and possibilities to extract journalistic information to tell a story.

Think of a dataset with the number of dropouts in every Turkey high school and combine it with two other databases: unemployment and poverty rates in every district of your country.

Imagine that after the data analysis, you found a cluster of schools that are doing very well with low dropout percentages, even if they have high rates of poverty in the community. You could go deeper and investigate what plans are being implemented in those schools.

What happens with those students when they leave high school? You could find patters of inequity and show them in an interactive way that leads you to the last stage of Data Journalism: communicating the results to the audience.

    Communicate: this includes: data visualization, infographics, interactive apps, but most important of all, how you´re going to tell the story, what human approach you´re going to use, and which is the best human story that data helped you get.

6. Which projects do you admire the most?

I think those projects that build a solid investigation, with impact and reveal something that was hidden and had consequences over people´s life.

7. Could data journalism bring awareness for social problems and inequalities?

For sure. Actually, I think it must to be its end. The stories based on data analysis have the potential of allowing people to make more informed and better decisions, empowering them to demand changes in society. It is also about creating tools to make a difference in their health, education, and even political participation.

8. What does data journalism promise for the future?

The new generation of journalists, those who are currently studying or about to start college, will put an end to the old dichotomy that led many of us to choose this profession because “we are good at writing, not math”. For future reporters, that division is nonsense because they will not conceive the understanding of reality without expressing the same with data accompanied by a critical narrative view of the facts. Society will definitely ride off to an increasingly data-centered culture and the new generation of journalists will not have to ask themselves: What do we do now with these databases? They will know exactly how to analyze it, extract information and, most relevant of all, squeeze the knowledge.

Journalists will have an intellectually strong arm to navigate amidst databases without the wow factor being the volume of data or software to handle the same. They will know enough about these subjects to, if necessary, do things on their own; but also to communicate effectively with their allied engineers, programmers and interactive designers when the complexity of the project so requires. What will be crucial is the quality of knowledge generated by the analysis, the balanced visualization of functional and aesthetic aspects, and the human story behind the numbers. The reaction caused by the research on audiences exposed to consistent evidence based on data will be a defining matter as well.

9. What kind of experiences have you had so far?

Doing data journalism has been very rewarding to me, from creating a project from the very beginning and discovering things that had been a revelation in my country,  to visit several countries in Latin-America and Africa to teach its techniques and storytelling. My best experience is when I see students making that click with databases and losing their fears to use technology as a friend to improve the quality of journalism.

10. What do you recommend to journalists who want to be data journalists?

The best way to start doing data-driven journalism is simply to start. When you’re just getting started, you really have nothing to lose. With every mistake, you gain experience and knowledge for your personal growth and to improve the quality of the journalism you are practicing. It’s easy to say, simply, “I am not good at math,” and decide that data-driven journalism isn’t for you. Well, I wasn’t good at math either until I decided to tear down that barrier, and found that learning is better and easier by applying theory to real-life projects.

11. What is the importance of design and coding in data journalism?

DDJ is multidisciplinary branch of journalism, you can´t do it without teamwork. Data journalism is increasingly amalgamated with statistics, mathematics, engineering, computer programming, and any other discipline that involves the development of abstract thinking. That emerging journalism is more holistic, closer to what we now know as Data Science and Business Intelligence. We need to work in synergy with designers, coders and system engineers to be able to extract data from various sources and visualize it, to correlate it consistently, apply different analysis methods, contextualize it – through deep research – and present it as a solid and useful interactive product.

12. What kind of skills data journalists need?

You can do Data Journalism if you:

Teamwork, no more lonely wolves. It´s great to share your ideas with other fellows, become friends with engineers, programmers, statisticians, economists, designers, and invite to the data journalism journey anyone who can help you achieve excellence and holistic knowledge on the digital reality were facing today.

• Lose your math phobia
• Have Critical thinking
• Good nose
• Discipline and persistence

13. Can you tell me, the tools (online and offline) do data journalists use? (from excel to import.co and etc) and How to use please ( for instance which tools help for what to do)

• io or Outwit hub (Scrapping/data extraction)
• Open Refine (Cleaning data; transforming it from one format into another)
• Tabula (liberating data tables locked inside PDF files)
• Data Wrangler (Cleaning data)
• Excel: create databases and interview data
• Access: To storage bigger databases (not big data) and create relationships between tables of data.
• R: statistical analysis
• Document cloud (Analysis)

14. How do you make a story out of so much data?

For me it´s not relevant the size of the data I am working with. I mean having 100 or 1.000 gigabytes of information could sound a lot, but it can be meaningless in terms of the conclusions and influence in the public interest of your investigation. The size of data by itself it´s not the impressive.The impressive are the precise conclusions that can be drawn from a database, having that one hundreds or billions of records.

Three Women from Three Different Generations

Since the 19th century, women’s rights and its studies have been taking place in society. When the feminist movements started in history, they had different steps  for different times. In time, feminist ideology evaluated more and more through time and space. Although feminism is considered as a movement which started 1960s, it is so clear to see some roots and ideologies which allows the creation of feminist movements. Even though the women’s work and contributions were mostly ignored, women always had an active role for creation of new ideas and philosophies. For instance, In the time of Enlightenment, women were created in saloon meetings and they were active members of intellectual conversations (Anderson  & Zinsser 1990). Additionally, some academicians claimed that women’s rights issues can go back to Mary Wollstonecraft’s book (1970) named “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (M. Evans 1992: 98). As a philosopher, writer and advocate of women’s rights; created the basic core of liberal feminism.

The thing that makes women’s rights issues more problematic is not only ideological background but also the division of home and workplace. That division forced women into a home-stuck life. Wollstonecraft criticizes the norms, especially French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau’s education philosophy which leads boys to social and natural sciences and girls to literature, music and poetry. Wollstonecraft believed that women have enough abilities to have the same education  as men in every kind of social and natural sciences (Tong 1989: 14). It was one of the big steps of other early big steps for women’s rights. That oppression of women has a very long history from Kant to ancient Greek philosophy.

Today, feminist movements varies and branch out a lot. Howewer, feminism is considered in three different waves. The first wave feminism used liberal political philosophy for women’s right. It’s so hard to believe that for a long time, women were discriminated against and alienated in social life. Back then, women had no right to vote or go to college. It was even impossible to have a certificate for a specific profession.

If the constitution and law underline that “all men should be equal under law, why were women an exception? First waver feminist wanted to be heard and equal rights including the vote. It was a shame but United States’ Government didn’t give the right to women to vote until 1920. In Europe after WW1,  it was earlier than U.S  to have a right to vote for women. Women had equal vote right in Russia too after The Russian Revolution.

After publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s book “The second Sex in France in 1949” the second wave of feminism was founded. De Beauvoir claims that Dominance of men and women’s subordination is a social creation rather than a biological phenomenon. She argues that ‘’One is not born, but rather becomes a woman… ; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature… which is described as feminine.’’ (1953, 267). Second waver feminists critices the standards and values which are created by men. They fight against sexual violence, prostution, pornography and sexist discourses about women in the media and cultural elements.

After 1990s, it is possible to say that third waver feminists taking over with new ideas and understandings. Those third waver feminist are mostly younger feminists who grew up with feminism. That’s why, Astrid Henry claimed that, the transition point between third wave and second wave is generational divide between mothers and daughters. (1) Feminist aspects tries to criticize the idea of patriarchy as a nature or God-given or necessity which sub-ordinate women. Feminist ideology is also branch in itself and named different world- view such as; gender reform feminisms (liberal, Marxist, socialist, post colonial), gender resistance feminisms (radical, lesbian, psychoanalytic) and gender rebellion feminisms (multi- ethnic).

Third wave feminists are not only a continuation of second wave feminism but also a break with it too. Third wave feminism includes multiethnic feminism, feminist studies of men and it play with discourses about sex, sexuality and gender. Third waver feminists also ore concern about animal rights, nature issues, global warming,  Among to feminist groups, it is debate that do we have enough success or not? Do we stop all discrimination or not? Do we have all we need to have as men do or not? In the center of it, third wavers are into fight for gay, lesbian and transgender rights instead of fighting the name of women’s rights as old days because some of them think that women are already successful enough.

As time goes by, the use of discourse for women changed too. In the 1970s, the word ‘chick’ was seen as an insult by women who want more freedom. Even the word ‘girl’ seems worse because it makes grown women more childish  in that sense. Next generations give different meanings to those words and similar ones. Women also created new slogans and discourse too. Women use words such as; “Girl power”, “You go girl”, “Chicks’ rule” to show their solidarity and signal empowerment. For second wavers feminism, the main problems were women’s control over the their reproductive choices and their false consumer habits such as; handbags, shoes, lipsticks and hair color.

For third wavers, one of the main ideas is that women have already had enough success in education, politics and professions, thus they already lead themselves to superficial self-transformation by makeup and fashion. In the idea of third wave feminism, being fragile and emotional were celebrated as a free will of women. All through those three waves of feminism the words ‘chick, girl, and choice’ appeared to identify what is women’s right, femininity, feminism, and womanhood.

Those discourses changed with ideas and ideologies.  These changes can be observed in women’s studies,  politics, popular culture, literature and films. Third wave feminism may call itself   as a ‘’postfeminism’’ and in a nutshell, it denies  feminist ideology, and claimed that there is no need for feminism anymore because women accomplish what they were looking for. In third wave of feminism, second wave of feminism was described as ‘’manhating’’ (2) by Natasha Walter, ‘’victim feminism’’ by Naomi Wolf.  In that sense, man considered as a source of women’s problem instead of sex partners which are given by nature. In that ideology, women are just described as powerless victims of patriarchy.  As an opposite  view  in third wave feminism, relationship with men was not seen that problematic, even it is seen as a sign of independence and power for women’s sexual freedom and pleasure.

There have been so many choices left after freedom of reproductive choice or professional choice. She also noted that ‘’Second wave feminism could not solve some of the most intimate problems for women – how to conduct heterosexual relationships, how to negotiate self-identity, and how to deal with ‘power’.’’ (4) One of the biggest challenges for feminism is having a balance between work and motherhood.  Kate  Reddy mentioned that: ‘’Back in the seventies, when they  were fighting for women’s rights, what did they think equal opportunities meant: that women would be entitled to spend as little time with  their kids as men do?’’ (5)

Third wave feminism prefers to spread via popular culture instead of direct political action. Carol Dole noted that ‘’for the most part third-wave feminism is closer to an attitude  of confidence than to an agenda. Many young women share the third – wavers’ world view that a woman should be whatever she wants to be without labeling that view as feminist or even recognizing the term third – wave.’’ (6) Third wavers tend to use visual and aural media such as; film, television, magazines and music. On the other hand, third wave feminism acted more closer to homosexual activists who use some mottos such as; ‘’We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.

Third – wave feminists have become more engaged with contemporary media such as; magazines, literature, television and film to support women and make them aware of women issues and women’s rights. Third wave feminists were against the victim mentality of second wave feminism. If we put those controversies aside now, the ‘chick’ word leads young women to chick – lit marketers as a discourse of  girl culture which is represented by the color of  ‘pink’ mixed with high heels and handbags as a consumer culture. Maybe, that’s why  chick – lit novels were seen problematic as a product of consumer culture or capitalism that features ‘’helpless girls, drunken, worrying about their weight.’’ (15)

After  chick – lit  and Sex and the City, the image of women who are waiting and begging for men’s attention replaced by working women in business and the idea that women can drink too much sometimes as men can do.  Bridget Jones called those images as ‘’fall for any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomaniacs, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders,’’ Bridget Jones also noted that “[I] have been traumatized  by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices.’’ (16)

In the third wave feminism ‘humor’ used in literature and propaganda much more freely  and deliberately. Even though second wave feminism had ‘humor’, second wavers were more willingly serious.  Even though there are some differences between second – wave and third – wave feminists, they still share many issues and concerns. Especially the word ‘’choice’’ can bound them for the sake of reproductive freedom or give them hope to fight against pop culture’s threats to women’s individual identity in the future.

Moreover another problem for feminism is that it can negotiate with militarist ideology in different geographies against United State’s policies. The writer of One Dimensional Woman, Nina Power says that ‘’one of the most profound and disturbing recent shifts in geopolitical discourse is the co – opting of the language of feminism by figures who ten or 15 years ago would have spoken out most vociferously against what feminism stands for.’’ (23) Eisenstein named that as ‘’Madeleine Albright Feminism’’ and claimed that across the places, the feminism originally may became a militant movement against US Imperialism (24) Instead of sexist discources and women’s right issues, feminism tries to evaluate itself and creates new discourses. In that sense, third wave feminism brought us the new way of seeing things as the writer of Full Frontal Feminism and founder of the US website feministing.com, Jessica Valenti notes that;  ‘’What I love about the third wave is that we’ve learned how to find feminism in everything and make it our own.’’

Interviewee 1:

Name : Z

Profession: PhD Student in Cinema and TV

Age: 24

Birthplace: İstanbul

Being a female student is harder than males?

I don’t think that there is a problem in universities as a female student. But I think there are many problems in work life for women. I faced some problems too.

What kind of problems have you ever faced?

I was in a production company. I was an editor for videos. I thought that place was better for me because it was close to my house. That was a small office though. Before me there were two workers there. After me, the female editor quit the job. She told me to please be careful. Back then I didn’t understand what she meant. Our boss is 35 years old. He told me I’m married. First, everything seemed normal. We didn’t sign any contract. My boss told me that first you should work and we should see your performance. He told me no specific salary but said your salary may differ based on your performance. I didn’t really care about the salary but I want to have more experiences.

It was very normal in the office for the first few days. On the other hand, I started to tell you that you are a girl. You can’t know it as well as men do. I’m a man. You should listen to me. Women don’t understand about  editing. It is a man’s job. If you have a good performance, you should listen to whatever  I said to you.

Actually I worked in CNN and A Haber before. That was nonsense. I tried to defend myself but he didn’t change his opinion. Everyone can be good or bad at something. My boss’ behaviours was changing in time. He started to reference everything about sex. One day, he asked me can you make some coffee? When I was in the kitchen he came and grabbed my waist. I was shocked. I warned him. He step behind but everyday it was going worse. I told my boss I have a boyfriend. He told me that “Can you show him to me? I wonder if he is more handsome than me?” He even told me I wouldn’t mind if you have a boyfriend. As a female I’m so concerned for my security and rights. That’s why, in a short amount time I quit my job. Never ever talked to my boss. I had no contract luckily. That makes it easier. I think also being women is hard in daily life in İstanbul too. I was sexually harassed a few times which is so sad. I think it is about culture and man’s lack of empathy. Men don’t have enough patience for their needs. They don’t know how to act.

Interviewee 2:

Name : Y

Profession: English Teacher

Age: 37

Birthplace: Antalya

How do you spend your leisure time?

I spend  most of my time with my friends out, or at home with my husband and my kitten. Lately, I have been following the Netflix  series. But also I use  Social media, I’m on facebook in order to be in touch with friends, and I have a twitter account to follow the world.

Have you participated in any political activities?

I am an eager follower of not only politics of my own country but also political issues of some remarkable countries. However I have never been a member of any group so far.

Which fashion trends do you follow?

If we can call technological developments a fashion trend, I am a huge fan of it. I love to read about it. It fascinates me.

What are your dreams for the future?

I don’t have such big dreams, just to be able to get older comfortably. I am glad that I teach at a university, I’m not planning something new for the future.

How do you feel about being a woman in Turkey?

I am a little bit uncomfortable actually. In the 21st century, women rights is still a debatable matter in Turkey, so this concerns me a lot. Also Being a female university student puts some burdens on shoulders, being away from your family for instance. Or trying to be invisible in order to keep yourself safe and it is getting harder, I guess. Conservative politics always target women  at first and their freedom of speech.

Interviewee 3:

Name : X

Job: House Wife

Age: 73

Birthplace: Trabzon

Education: No Education

Can you tell me about yourself?

I have 4 girls and one boy. I have 7 grandchildren now. I live with my daughters. My boy always brings me my grandchildren. My other grandchildren live with me. We all live in the same apartment. Sometimes we go to the Aegean Region for holiday.

Did you have a proper education?

I have never ever had an education. In my time and my region, girls are not allowed to study. Actually many people would not study then. Maybe only boys.. Me and my sisters were helping our family. I was such a brave and strong girl. My one sister is the most brave one of all of us. I always dreamed of having an education and going to school. Even now when I see students, I dream about it.

How did you get married?

I didn’t want to marry back then. My father forced me to marry.  They never ask me what I want to do. My husband kidnapped me and let me go after. My father gave me to him as a bride. I didn’t have anything else to do.

How did your marriage go?

It has never gone well. We always have fights. He always cheated on me. But I love my children. I love my grandchildren. I still love my husband too. Today’s generation of girls are really lucky. They can  do many things they want.

Conclusion:

In those three women had different kinds of problems based on time but still they faced those kind of problems just because they are women. Lutfiye didn’t have any opportunity to study because she lived in a poor area in Trabzon then. National education was not that nation-wide back then. In order to save her reputation, she married that guy after she got kidnapped. Society didn’t give her any opportunity to stand up on her own. No education ! No economic liberty!  Another woman,  Anıl Özsu, has more opportunities. She has got a good marriage. She travels on her own. She can hang out with her friends. She is more aware of the world. Anıl still is scared for social changes and oppression just because she is a woman. Younger woman, Esra, is so energetic. She has no stable life now but she is trying to gain more experiences. On the other hand, she faced many problems just because she is a girl. She is kind of scared to travel on her own in her own city too. She still is so concerned for her security and rights. Those things are the codes which are set up by men in order to control women. Religious reference or not, anyways woman face discrimination in many different ways. In Turkey, the cultural capital is weaker than European Countries. Education level is lower. Education is not that wide. Economic conditions are not good. Political clashes suppress women more than men. We can understand it from Anıl Özsu’s interview. Those women mostly know what their rights are.

Younger and more educated women, most probably from middle class families are more successful and lucky. Older and women from poor background have not easy life. They may not even have some basic human rights even. That shows how misogyny suppresses women in different generations. Instead of some processes for women’s rights, those interviews shows that there is still long way to go for women’s rights. We all consider that women’s rights are human rights as much as human’s rights are women’s rights.

Note: I did not cover Generation K because it is a very new phenomenon. Generation K includes very young individuals born between 1995 and 2002. There is still not enough research about Generation K. Most of the research for Generation K focuses on American and British youth.

The name of Generation K is derived from Katniss Everdeen who is portrayed in the movie named Hunger Games. Briefly; Generation K is more aware than previous generations. They are into design and technology more. They care about Climate change more than previous generations. Generation K is worrying about getting a job a lot. They do not want to have a debt for a mortgage or those kinds of payments. They care about their health and may drink alcohol less. They are into drugs less than Generation X, Y or Z or not at all. Generation K is strongly concerned about inequalities especially between men and women. That last generation saw many terrorism cases. Therefore; one of the most scary thing for Generation K is terrorism. That young generation is  mingled with social media so much.

Reference

1 Astrid Henry, Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004), 3.

2 Natasha Walker, The New Feminism (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1998), 36.

4 Imelda Whelehan, The Feminist Bestseller: From Sex and the Single Girl to Sex and the City (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 218.

5 Alison Pearson, I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother (New York: Random House, 2002), 262.

6 Carol M. Dole, “The Return of Pink: Legally Blonde, Third-Wave Feminism, and Having It All,” in Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies, Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, eds (forthcoming).

15 “Bainbridge Denounces Chick-Lit as ‘Froth,’” Guardian Unlimited, 23 Aug. 2001. http://books. guardian.co.uk/bookerprize2001/story/0,1090,541335,00.html

16 Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary, 52.

23  Power, 2009, p11.

24  Eisenstein, 2009, p1.