Dr. Ülker Sözen

Ülker Sözen’s current research spans digital media, content creation, youth and religion, self-help cultures, intimacy, everyday politics, social reproduction, and gender. Her work explores how these experiential domains intersect with broader political processes, particularly authoritarianism and counter-politics.

Digital-Authoritarian Conjuncture and Intimate Politics in Turkey (2024-2027)

This research examines the convergence of digital capitalism and authoritarianism, focusing on content creation and the everyday, intimate dimensions of politics in Turkey. Despite extensive digital surveillance, content regulation, and pro-government amplification strategies, digital platforms remain potentially disruptive and only partially governable in the Turkish context. Adopting a social reproduction lens, the research analyzes digital authoritarianism through the dynamics of online discursive governance and the practices of critical content creation across Turkish social media.

The project investigates discursive governance, content creation, and digital publics in Turkish-language Internet across both pro-government and dissident spheres. Drawing on in-depth interviews and digital ethnography, it scrutinizes the authoritarian deployments and democratic potentials of digital content creation as a field of labor and social reproduction. On the one hand, it focuses first on self-help influencers and religious content creators aligned with the masculinist restoration and moral conservatism of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). This discussion reveals how moral entrepreneurship intersects with content creator economies, the discursive governance of intimate life and gender relations, and political patronage in digital media. On the other hand, it analyzes Turkish left-wing political influencers and “quality” content producers who politicize intimate, everyday, and gendered experiences. This analytical focus explores the possibilities and complications regarding political dissent and social critique within content creator economies in a heavily policed digital media environment.