We listened to Şenol Ayla’s story of how he started in radio, including his biographical account of Freud with Neuro-Psychiatry specialist Serol Teber, the still-listened-to Didik Didik Freud program that aired years ago, psychoanalysis, and Apaçık Radio, all from Şenol Ayla’s perspective.

Zülaysu Altındal: Firstly, hello and welcome.

Şenol Ayla: Hello. Thanks for inviting.

Ş.A: I’m happy to be having this conversation with you. I am a medical doctor. I’ve been working as a medical director in health communication for a long time. However, you know me from the program Didik Didik Freud (Freud Under The Microscope).

Z.A: While mentioning Didik Didik Freud, I would like to ask about Serol Teber. How did your paths cross, and in your words, what kind of adventure was it to set out for India and end up in America?

Ş.A: Serol Teber has been a psychiatrist I’ve known since my youth, and a writer. I loved his books very much and read them, underlining passages. We first met in 2002 when he came to Türkiye. He was living in Germany. After finishing his university education, he went to Germany, and when we met, he was 64 years old. He had written two books: one about Freud and the other about Tevfik Fikret. He had returned to bring these two authors to Turkish readers. I also met him on this occasion. At that time, I was working at a publishing house, and we wanted to publish his books. Serol Teber was happy that his books would be published by a house specializing in psychiatry. I had the chance to read his books and work together on preparing them. During the period when we were doing research and working on the books, he told me that he had a proposal for a radio program about Freud on Açık Radyo and wanted to do it with me. This made me very excited, but also quite scared. What can I possibly talk about regarding Freud? Could I be the person to discuss with someone like Serol Teber, who will soon publish a book about Freud?

I experienced this fear and told Serol Teber: “This is not something I can do, it’s a very good idea, I support you, but I am not the person to speak in front of.” Serol Teber was a very polite person and said to me, “No, you can do this, you are familiar with the subject. You read the book; you roughly know what we will discuss. I want you to do this.” I hesitated for a few weeks, feeling ashamed, and stalled him. I couldn’t do it, and I would find someone else. He finally convinced me. He said, “You might be the one to do this because I want us to talk.” I also finally agreed, albeit nervously. I wish I hadn’t upset him for weeks and had accepted right away. Because it wasn’t as terrifying as an exam. Throughout the program, I was someone who asked questions to learn more about his deep knowledge of topics I knew somewhat about. That’s how we started this program in 2004. There wasn’t a huge preparation period. I had already read his notes. Even though I wasn’t completely familiar with the subject, I had an idea of it.

Açık Radyo’s studio at that time was in Harbiye (Istanbul). It was a multi-story building. They showed us the studio where we would do the program and talked about the process. “There will be a break every nine minutes and the music playing is about to start.” Serol Teber had given lessons to an audience, spoken, and participated in seminars, but radio was a different place.

We were talking to each other in a studio. There were a glass window and a technical desk across from us. It wasn’t a live broadcast, but it gave us a very different kind of excitement. Especially because we had to be silent every nine minutes, which made us quite nervous. We even prepared our timer and wrote down the minutes to keep track. Now I understand how important that nine-minute interval was for us as a barrier. Because during the first program, we focused more on how to manage those nine minutes than on what we would talk about. When the ninth minute came, we discussed making a move and acting accordingly.

We had previously discussed how we would make the program, but it wasn’t a days-long preparation. When we met in Harbiye headquarters for the first episode, we immediately agreed at the door, saying, “We’ll talk about why we’re making the program.” The questions I would ask and the introduction to Freud, our main topic, were already decided. We also brought the music to be included. Since there was no digital music back then, we brought records and CDs, and would hand them over to the technical team, saying, “This is the third track, this part here…” The pieces were played in between. I remember we finished the first program and left, not knowing how it turned out. They hadn’t given us the recordings right away either. Completely unaware, we came back to the studio the next day for the second program.

“What do Tevfik Fikret and Freud have in common? People might ask why these two. I also asked. He said, ‘I explained the common points of these two melancholic people.’”

The radio show was supposed to be broadcast every week, but since Serol Teber was living in Germany, we tried to record five or six episodes during the weeks he was here. That’s why we also went back to the studio the next day for more recordings. Speaking consecutively required a clear mind and good mental state. On the other hand, because no significant time passed between recordings, it felt like we were continuing the previous day’s conversation, which was more beneficial for us. However, during the recordings, some things happened; even though it was summer, I caught a cold. Since we recorded back-to-back, I had a blocked nose for five weeks while doing the show. There were funny things like this too, but we focused on what we were talking about ourselves, thinking, “Look, we skipped this topic, should we mention this in the next one?” and gradually built the content along the way, resulting in a very wonderful 26-week recording process. Our program was published as a book by Açık Radyo and Can Yayınları after many years. The most important part of what we did with this program, regarding why we did it, is explained by Serol Teber in our first episode. I also emphasized this in the preface of the book, and with your permission, I would like to read it: “This program is not just about psychiatry and Freud. It will be a program about life, death, and everything else, and we will embark on a Columbesque adventure. It’s like setting out for India and ending up in America. That’s a beautiful illusion. But setting out for India and arriving in India is a bad thing”. When I first said this, I didn’t understand it very well. It was a nice thing, but I came to understand it as we progressed through the 26 weeks. We started talking about Freud, but within that, there was so much more – life, death, depression, melancholy, excitement. Following Freud, we investigated archaeology and literature, then jumped into cinema. We discussed many things. Honestly, on the path we took with Freud, I felt like we didn’t go to India but to America. I think the listeners may have felt the same way.

Mustafa Burak Avcı: Do you have any information about how Serol Teber’s special interest in Freud and Tevfik Fikret developed and how he decided to study them?

Ş.A: I had said I wanted to press. One was Bilimsel Bir Peri Masalı (A Scientific Fairy Tale) about Freud, and the other was Aşiyan’daki Kahin / Tevfik Fikret’in Melankolik Dünyası (The Oracle in Aşiyan Tevfik Fikret’s Melancholic World). What do Tevfik Fikret and Freud have in common? People might ask why these two. I also asked. He said, “I explained the common points of these two melancholic people.” He was also a melancholic person. He shared some traits with them. The things he saw in them that made him angry, the habits and behaviors he scrutinized, the experiences they had, he had those too. While preparing his books, he visited the places where these people lived. He repeatedly visited Tevfik Fikret’s house in Aşiyan, read his paintings and books, and took notes. He sat there trying to connect with him. He prepared his books after intense journeys. I realized that Tevfik Fikret wrote a book about these two melancholic people when I saw that he was also melancholic during the program process.

“Back then, we didn’t know who listened, what they said, what they thought, or how they felt… A few friends of Serol Teber and mine would say, ‘It turned out really well, great job, congratulations.’ We also thought, ‘They love us so much, they don’t want to hurt us.’ We didn’t know how many people were listening. There were no podcasts, no digital recordings.”

Ama Serol Teber was never a closed-off, unhappy person who looked at everything negatively. He was very lively and full of life, but he was also affected by the negative situations he encountered. The reason he could see these things was that he was an open-minded and sensitive person. After reading these books and meeting him, I also gained a better understanding of what melancholy truly is.

So, in this program, it wasn’t just Freud, but you also got to know Serol Teber. From what I saw during those two short years, he was someone who opened doors of curiosity for the listeners and me, guided us, and shared things about himself. I realized this over time. I started out without knowing exactly what we were getting into, but it was a very happy process for me.

M.B.A: When looking at the phrase “We are atomizing Freud” inside the book, one might expect to encounter dense theoretical knowledge. However, when you get into it, you come across a more everyday narrative that touches on life. Being able to present this without delving into scientific explanations or methodology is very nice.

Ş.A: We started out not to explain any theoretical stuff. That was also what comforted me because I could never master theories. No matter how many books I read or how many bread and butter I earned, I couldn’t argue with that. The person we discussed on the program was Freud. His shortcomings, his dislike of music, his admiration for literature, his socks, his strange attitudes in human relationships… All of these made him a real person. For example, when we discussed the Oedipus Complex, we talked about the path he took to uncover it. We didn’t do this by just explaining theories; instead, we talked about what he experienced at the time and what he read to make it easier to understand. Maybe some theoretical insights can be drawn from it, but they weren’t dry sentences. Since it explained how Freud thought, how his ideas came to him, and what his experiences revealed, I think the program became easier to understand. After all, even people who know nothing about psychology listened to this program.

Of course, we made this program in 2004. Back then, we didn’t know who listened, what they said, what they thought, or how they felt… A few friends of Serol Teber and mine would say, ‘It turned out really well, great job, congratulations.’ We also thought, “They love us so much, they don’t want to hurt us.” We didn’t know how many people were listening. There were no podcasts, no digital recordings. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact time, but I do recall that the program started at 11:00 on Monday. If you didn’t listen to the episode at that time, you missed it. If you caught up the next week, you listened. Those were very nice times for us. When we ended the show, we couldn’t really understand who was listening or how they felt, but we were very happy with this project. Because we loved sharing stories and enjoyed the process so much, we decided to continue. That was also Serol’s idea. We considered a program called Didik Didik Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Kubrick Under The Microscope). This time, I accepted immediately, without saying no at all. In fact, during our last few recordings, we took notes about it and made plans on which movies to watch first

As you also know, unfortunately, a few weeks after the program ended that same year, we lost Serol Teber. We scrutinized other people thoroughly because of him. We were so eager and hungry that we even started thinking about who to scrutinize after Stanley Kubrick. For us, scrutinizing someone was also a way to scrutinize ourselves. Because I know that during that journey, we learned many different things about ourselves. I found a lot about myself. I also know it was for Serol…

Z.A: So why Freud and psychoanalysis? Why is he such a complex and self-examining person?

Ş.A: I realized quite late how much Freud has influenced, cast a shadow over, and played a role in many parts of our lives. Jealousies, the dreams we see, slips of the tongue, psychoanalysis, and even the surrealist movement in art, all these branches extend from him. Freud is not just the serious-looking man we see in photographs. He is someone who makes jokes, has characteristics, and whose work has permeated culture. For Serol, talking about him was very enjoyable.

Following the paths we take, ruins in Rome and Pompeii, sculptures, findings from the Rosetta Stone, interpreting dreams, slips of the tongue… All of these are everyday experiences in our lives,things we find funny, some that cause us panic, situations where someone is inside us, but we don’t really know it, moments when we encounter that inner person. If we learn to look at these, we can uncover many things about ourselves.

And if there’s someone else who knows how to see these things, it’s very beautiful and exciting to realize that a person can be someone other than the person they think they know themselves to be. You can’t really define yourself as “this is who I am,” and even if you try, it’s incomplete. There are things that happen unconsciously, suppressed emotions that appear in our dreams, unspoken desires, and our ongoing search to understand what our true self is like-things that don’t always lead to successful results. I believe those listening to this program also have curiosity about these topics, enjoy examining themselves and others. We didn’t know how many people listened when it first aired, but ten years later, it was re-broadcast digitally. This time, everyone could access Açık Radyo recordings whenever they wanted. It was a huge luxury. I was finally able to learn how listeners felt, their feedback, how many people listened, and whether it attracted interest. Unfortunately, Serol couldn’t find out this information, but I was very surprised that so many people listened to it. Just like the question you asked, “Why Freud? Why do people listen to Freud?” I asked myself the same thing. Yes, Serol Teber spoke sweetly. Maybe we were in good communication, but in the end, we were talking about Freud; we were discussing the Oedipus Complex, psychoanalysis. Why do hundreds of thousands people listen to this? I also thought about it a lot and debated internally. After the digital records were released, many people reached out to me, and all of them said they found something in themselves. Maybe the answer to your initial question, “Why Freud?” is hidden here. People start to understand things about themselves. Even if they don’t fully understand, they begin to ask questions. This is like setting out to India and discovering America. It’s a very exciting and enjoyable journey. It doesn’t always end happily. It can also cause pain, but once someone sets out on this path, they don’t turn back, and they follow the doors of curiosity. They go across that sea, with that ship, trying to cross those roads.

If Serol Teber had heard this feedback, I guess he would have said: “Oh, come on, that’s not true.” Because he was a very polite and modest person. When you told him a compliment, he would always take it humbly, feel embarrassed, and be uncomfortable. If I had told him that so many people have listened and are saying these things: “Oh, really? What did we do? Truly?” I am sure he would have been happy. Because knowing that others had gone down the same path he did pleased him. That was the purpose of writing these books. For someone to read, draw conclusions, and reach a destination. I think Freud also had a melancholic personality that served these purposes. Similarly, Tevfik Fikret was the same. We were about to finish the Didik Didik Freud program, and we were talking about, “Next week we will kill Freud. What will we do then?” The dear Ömer Madra, the General Director of Açık Radyo, had asked, “Could you also talk about Tevfik Fikret?” So, we started the program to talk about him for a few hours, and it ended up lasting six hours. He shared many points in common with Freud; Tevfik Fikret was also sensitive, a very honest and melancholic person who was deeply affected by evil and suffering.

I think that analyzing these and talking about them was also good for Serol Teber. It didn’t really improve his melancholy, but there are people like me who do these things, and that made him feel better. I’m not a melancholic person, but I got to know them closely. Serol was a very nice, friendly person with great conversation skills. He was one of those rare people who always told you the truth but did so politely without ever hurting you. They say a friend tells you the painful truth, but he could do it without causing pain. Serol was someone who could tell the truth without hurting.

“Wilhelm Jensen’s work Gradiva was a topic we discussed at length on the program. The book tells the story of a man who, driven by a subconscious impulse he doesn’t fully understand, goes to Pompeii and is deeply influenced by a wall relief called Gradiva’s Walk.”

Z.A: How did the idea of approaching Freud not as the father of psychoanalysis but as someone like us with vulnerabilities come about? What kind of awareness does it create to consider such historically significant people not as icons but as human beings?

Ş.A: Of course, people don’t think Freud was like us. Serol Teber knew this and thought about it. As I read more, talked with Serol, and delved deeper while making this program, I came to understand better. When we reveal certain pathologies, psychological states, or aspects of normal psychology that belong to us, he could do so from himself, because he is a human. He’s not an icon; he’s a human like us. That’s why he has dreams and slips of the tongue… He doesn’t see everything in his clients and patients; he also experiences some of these things himself.

A person who has spent a lot of time analyzing and scrutinizing their dreams, past, and subconscious. Because of that, these things have come to light. He is just an ordinary person; he doesn’t like music, doesn’t want music played at home, and even hates phone ringtones. The person we see in the photo on this wall is not Freud. This is a person. Freud gets angry at his children. A very strict father.

In fact, his children say years later, “Yes, we were free, but our only freedom was being terrified of our father to death.” Such a strange person. When I say strange, I mean someone we wouldn’t love. Maybe we wouldn’t want to sit and have a chat with him – or maybe we would, I don’t know – but he is a person. We understand that. Even when they become scientists or writers, they are still people. It was nice to see that.

In my opinion, especially starting from the dreams he sees, revealing some impulses he doesn’t understand, and peeling back his life layer by layer while analyzing psychoanalysis… These are very exciting things like detective stories. In fact, when you say detective stories, he even gives examples from Sherlock Holmes. He draws a lot of inspiration from literature, Hamlet, Sophocles, and theater plays, and from looking at them, he derives insights. This also shows us that he is a human being, not just a scientist to be put in a box, but someone who lives in life.

M.B.A: He loves Shakespeare very much, and the phrase “a scientific fairy tale” also comes from his fondness for him, doesn’t it?

Ş.A: He loves Shakespeare very much. In fact, he says that Shakespeare and many other artists and scientists sensed and revealed things before others did. He is more impressed by Hamlet’s father being killed by his uncle and waiting to act until he is sure, rather than just suspecting. Freud spends a lot of time thinking about this, and he has drawn many conclusions from it. We see these in the program as well. There, we go to Hamlet, talk about Shakespeare, or discuss Father and Sons. All of these are essentially the possible human stories that writers and artists have drawn from real life and told through real people. One of Freud’s differences is this. He derived many things by looking at them. During the program, I also realized there was another Freud besides the one I knew. He read more literature, archaeology, theater plays, and writings about art, and these played an important role in his life; each one served as a reminder to develop his theory.

M.B.A: I think there was also a saying that goes, “Artists and writers see the truth first.” Can we elaborate on that a bit?

Ş.A: I don’t remember the entire sentence, but what he said was Freud’s: “Artists see things before scientists do, and they are the first to bring them into their works.” They do not reveal why this developed this way, the impulses that lead to it, or its consequences. Instead, they express this human condition through their art sculpture, painting, literature, theater plays, and poetry. After all of this, scientists say, “There is something here,” and it can be grounded in scientific evidence. Freud did the same. Wilhelm Jensen’s work Gradiva was a topic we discussed at length on the program. The book tells the story of a man who, driven by a subconscious impulse he doesn’t fully understand, goes to Pompeii and is deeply influenced by a wall relief called Gradiva’s Walk.

Freud then goes to Pompeii and sits in front of the relief. The woman named Gradiva lifts her skirt, extends her foot, and tries to connect the events in the novel to reach our subconscious. Based on this, yes, this artist saw this and wrote about it in the novel, but it is a scientist like me who uncovers it. The artist has already revealed it. He has great respect for them. He draws clues from all of this and works like a detective. We also talked about these. That’s why the program flowed like a series or a film. We told a story and then discussed its theory.

Z.A: I think these days we’ve lost the ability to see great authorities as human. We know Freud as an authority to some extent, but what is he like at home? What does he enjoy? If he were in this room, would we want to sit and chat with him?

Ş.A: Yes, you’re right about our view of authority, but I think authority wants this a little bit. I don’t think they want to be seen as humans. They want us to think that they don’t eat, don’t go to the bathroom, don’t sweat. But when you lift that up and look underneath, you can see the reasons that drive them to this. Maybe when we know their childhood, we see different reasons as well. In my opinion, it’s very important to talk about things that broad audiences will be curious about and understand when discussing a scientist or a scientific topic.

The reason we were able to do this successfully in “Didik Didik Freud” is that both of us looked at the subject like normal people and were curious. We talked about the things we’re curious about. We didn’t speak like authorities. We broke Freud down into detail. That’s probably why it was an easy and surprisingly engaging program to listen to.

“There’s a caricature of Freud that everyone knows. Shakespeare is the same way. When you make a comment about him, people think you’re saying something very heavy. But Shakespeare is very much involved in life-jealousy, love, scheming, negotiations…”

M.B.A: Freud is a name that even people who have no knowledge about the subject talk about. At times, he has become a symbol of fake intellectualism. In your opinion, how did this happen? How does everyone know Freud?

Ş.A: There’s a caricature of Freud that everyone knows. Shakespeare is the same way. When you make a comment about him, people think you’re saying something very heavy. But Shakespeare is very much involved in life-jealousy, love, scheming, negotiations… I mean, unless you get into it, they just remain icons, and it’s easy to make such fancy statements. I think Freud’s presence as a figure, unknown and exalted, stems from his thoughts on sexuality and what he revealed. He’s a person with mysteries. When you say something about someone who is unknown and inaccessible, I think it also comes across as heavy.

M.B.A: Freud is a highly debated figure both during his lifetime and afterward. There are those who completely reject psychoanalysis in a very radical way. For example, we don’t see the same heated debate about Lacan. In your opinion, what might be the reasons behind these discussions about Freud?

Ş.A: The psychoanalysis put forward by Freud, along with his theories about dreams and the unconscious, was dismissed by some scientific circles as nonsense, a fairy tale, and lacking a scientific basis, so much so that, as Serol puts it, they devalued psychoanalysis. However, many theories have been developed based on his work. Today, it’s not possible to say that Freud is entirely correct or entirely wrong.

There are many different points of view, starting with Freud: numerous theories, many psychoanalysts and psychotherapy experts, their studies, and the approaches they have developed. Of course, as in all sciences, there is no situation where it can be said that everything is finished, and this is the final word. Over the years, many things have developed beyond his work, and development continues. Opposing theories are also evolving, but there is a consensus that it is not a fairy tale; many truths have been uncovered, and everyone accepts this. The reason people can approach with aggression may be because Freud has become a figure. When Lacan is attacked, how many people know about it? Attacking Freud might bring more ratings.

Z.A: We also want to look at it from a publishing perspective. What we are listening to is not just a collaboration, but also the blossoming of a friendship. Did you have any disagreements with Mr. Serol during this process?

Ş.A: In this process, we started as teacher and student and ended as friends. It was a huge gain for me. He is still a friend I look for. I would have loved to consult about some things. We didn’t have disagreements because I was like his assistant. At most, we might have said, “Let’s play this song instead of that one.” He was considered a migrant here. His home was in Germany. He was also here, but he didn’t have the kind of musical background to bring music here. That’s why I was bringing the music. At most, there might have been things like, “Should we play this instead of his sonata?” but he already handled those very sweetly. Everything went very well, and we never had any disagreements.

Z.A: If I’m not mistaken, your first program in publishing was Didik Didik Freud. When you think about this experience, how do you position radio and podcast broadcasting? What do you think are the main differences between the two platforms?

Ş.A: Radio and podcasts are very different places for me. I am a radio person. I have only a few podcasts that I enjoy listening to. I listen to them, but when I have free time, I don’t think, “Let me listen to a podcast,” I think, “Let me turn on the radio.” Because I don’t choose the flow on the radio, it feels nice. Someone is playing something for me. It’s like going to a nice restaurant and having your order taken for you. I like that. If I don’t like it very much, I can change the channel, but with a podcast, you open it knowing what you’re going to listen to. I think the magic of the radio is that whether it’s music or talk shows, someone prepares something for you, and you don’t have to choose.

This feels comfortable and luxurious to me. With a podcast, you have the freedom to listen anytime you want, even in places where radio doesn’t reach, like the subway, plane, or car. I find those parts useful, but I am always a radio person. I am a member of a generation that grew up with radio.

Television had entered our lives later. Our house was one where the radio was always on. Whatever played there, that was what we listened to, and that was a good thing. It played fairy tales; it played folk songs. We also listened to Turkish music and pop music, and we enjoyed it. I still love this now.

Z.A: Didik Didik Freud is not only making its way into the podcast world recently but is also finding a place in literature. Publishing is progressing within the flow, but putting the discourse into writing stabilizes the moment. Like our previous question, what is the most noticeable difference for you between print media and audio broadcasting?

Ş.A: This podcast was turned into a book after many years. Once again, dear Ömer Madra really wanted it. In fact, for many years, I thought there was no point in transcribing the audio recordings into text. But I was convinced later.

I’m glad we did it. Because this time, the listeners became readers. When they told me they followed the authors in the book because they couldn’t understand or remember certain words, or because they couldn’t take notes, and that they underlined, folded the pages, and valued the book, I realized we were doing the right thing.

The book is always permanent, but the voice is not. The reason I wanted my voice to be recorded back then was because it was a program, and I thought, “Let’s not put this into writing, it happened and it’s over.” But later, I realized that having it as a book was more useful. People who read the book shared photos with me. I also informed Serol about each of these; I told him, “Look, this is happening, people are reading it, they are highlighting parts.” I wish he could have seen all this too.

Z.A: It would make us very happy to see both of you here today.

Ş.A: He would have liked me too. It should have been him. I mean, I’m speaking on his behalf, but the program was Serol Teber’s. We were like Kavuklu and Pişekar. I was just helping him. Everything came from his mind; I wish he had been the one, of course.

Z.A: Actually, when we look at it, you must take on a kind of legacy in the absence of Serol Teber. I’m sure this is challenging for you.

Ş.A: There is such a great legacy, and I am carrying it. When you invited me, I came running because I can’t make that decision. I assume Serol would have wanted it that way. Z.A: There is a strong music selection that fuels the program. So, has there ever been a time when a part of a music piece changed the flow of the segment? Ş.A: It didn’t work out because, as I said, the questions we would talk about were already known. Based on that, I was selecting suitable pieces from my not-so-extensive music archive. CDs were preferred at the time, so I would bring them to the technical desk. Of course, it also created some emotion for us, but it didn’t change the flow.

Z.A: One of the most beautiful parts of Didik Didik Freud is when, after listening to an exciting story, music suddenly intervenes and calms you down. For a few minutes, it feels like a moment of tranquility, then it starts to rise again and then calms down once more.

Ş.A: I think these nine minutes mean something. Even though they stress us out at first, you really don’t get to rest much longer. Like on a roller coaster, when you reach the top, you want to relax. I realized later that those breaks are helpful. If I skip the music and just listen, the flow doesn’t seem smooth. You can go from one intense topic to another, even more intense one. Putting music pieces in between really makes sense.

Z.A: So, let’s also talk about Açık Radyo. How did the spirit of Açık Radyo shape the atmosphere of the program? Do you think the same program would have the same feel if it were on a different platform?

Ş.A: I think being inside Açık Radyo completely changed your whole spirit. We were given a wide freedom there. Aside from the nine-minute segments I mentioned, we had no other restrictions. We talked about whatever we wanted, and no one interfered with us. We were never told to “add this” or “remove that.” The only request came from Mr. Ömer; it was Tevfik Fikret, whom we enjoyed talking about for hours. We initially decided on two hours, but we couldn’t finish in that time and ended up spending six hours discussing him.

The freedom we are given was very liberating. We asked each other if there was anything we needed to say, but no one told us anything. That’s why it’s very important to me that it happened on Open Radio. Didik Didik Freud also became an iconic program for Open Radio. People still call it a legendary program. That means a lot to me. Now that I think about it, I would never want it to be on any other platform.

Back then, there weren’t such opportunities. In 2004, there were almost no options besides music radio stations. There was no platform to speak like this, especially not one that would say, ‘Come here and talk about Freud for 26 hours.’ Maybe there are different places today, but the same spirit wouldn’t be there. These things can be explained to Açık Radyo listeners, but not necessarily on every platform. Because their audience is curious, detail-oriented, serious, and professional listeners. If you make a mistake, they’ll tell you right away and say you’re wrong. That’s why they deserve such a deep conversation, to spend hours of effort on it.

Z.A: Today, despite having dozens of channels, the intellectual freedom provided by Açık Radyo at that time looks different. Do you think Apaçık Radyo was able to fulfill the same function?

Ş.A: I think the radio continues to serve the same function. The only change is that terrestrial broadcasting has been cut off. For example, when I’m driving, I started listening through the app instead of terrestrial broadcast. Of course, terrestrial broadcasting also has a separate mission; it’s a special space accessible to everyone, even functioning during earthquakes. But now, it’s not just a radio; it’s a cultural hub. It sponsors some exhibitions, publishes books. Apaçık Radio is also expanding its mission and growing.

Z.A: So, Didik Didik Freud, if he started from scratch today, what do you think would change?

Ş.A: I hope nothing has changed. The process developed very beautifully and spontaneously. We knew what we were going to talk about, but since we didn’t read from a written text, it felt more relaxed and easier to understand. When they restarted digital publishing in 2015, I opened a Twitter account and shared visuals. The feedback was very positive. Maybe I would have liked social media platforms to exist back in 2004 as well. It would have been great if there was a platform where people could see the photo of Lou Andreas-Salomé, whom we talked about during the broadcast. However, I would have hoped that our conversation wouldn’t change. I also received some feedback here today; I heard that it was discussed in classes. Being used as a reference, being cited, and having people listen and understand is very gratifying.

Z.A: The Didik Didik Freud program is like a wonderful conversation I listen to quietly in a house filled with the people I love. At the same time, it’s a product that nourishes me greatly. So, among the feedback you received, what was the most memorable for you?

Ş.A: There are many responses that make me very happy. However, one of the most impactful was: “I came across this during a very difficult time. I was depressed, withdrawn, and not going outside at all. Then I found your program, and it helped me get back to life.” I was very surprised when I first heard this. Afterward, I was even more surprised to see that it was possible. One listener also said: “It was winter, it was snowing, and I was very unhappy. I was thinking about how I might die. I went outside for a walk, and I came across this program, and it brought me back to life.” This is something that still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. If this program has provided such individual kindness, I believe it is lifesaving and very valuable.

Z.A: Thank you very much for coming. It was a great pleasure for us to host you here today.

The Anatomy of a Scientific Fairy Tale: Didik Didik Freud yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.

“By arguing that ‘the medium is an extension of the human body or mind,’ he described the wheel as an extension of the foot, the book as an extension of the eye, and clothing as an extension of the skin.”

For those less familiar with his scholarly work or theoretical writings, Marshall McLuhan is often recognized by that famous photograph of him standing before a wall of television screens. In the public imagination, he remains a prominent media figure and one of the founding fathers of New Media theory. With the concept of the Global Village he introduced in the 1960s, he foresaw that the internet would become an infrastructure technology; at a time when everyone was focused on content, that is the message he pointed to the tools, or more accurately, the “medium.” Through his provocative ideas, television appearances, lectures, and presence in mainstream media, he elevated his fame far beyond the typical sphere of influence for an academic. He succeeded in reaching a wide audience; with his media critiques, cultural analyses, and distinctive aphorisms woven into his compelling style, he became a well-known figure. Thus, he is recognized as one of the most influential media theorists of his time and as one of the early science communicators, successfully opening up his ideas for public debate. Discussions on how mass media influences human senses and the balance between them continue to follow the path McLuhan pioneered. The media theories and analytical framework he established remain a powerful conceptual tool for studies aiming to interpret new media.

McLuhan is particularly remembered for concepts such as The Medium Is the Message and The Global Village; for this reason, he has faced harsh criticism from academic communities. However, the fact that the internet and social media have evolved into a fundamental communication technology worldwide, as he predicted, serves as proof of how accurate his predictions were. Moreover, McLuhan’s ideas were not limited to books; he reached out to the public through his unforgettable interview with one of the most popular magazines of his time, Playboy (1969). By distilling his media theories down to their simplest terms and illustrating them with examples relevant to everyone’s daily life, he used the very medium through which he communicated his ideas as a tool in the process. Indeed, by stating that “The medium is the extension of man”, he described the wheel as an extension of the foot, the book as an extension of the eye, and clothing as an extension of the skin; he defi ned technology as a natural part of humanity’s process of enhancing its own capabilities. In this interview, he elaborated on one of his most memorable statements, “The medium is the message,” by saying, “Television is not just an entertainment box; it reshapes the way people see, hear, feel, and think,” and he engraved his theory in people’s minds using examples from everyday life. Another medium through which McLuhan continued his efforts to popularize science was television. After his books made it onto the bestseller lists, McLuhan was featured in the episode titled The Medium is the Message from NBC’s documentary series Experiment in Television. Produced with an experimental approach, this episode visualizes McLuhan’s theories through colored lights, rapid editing, and a pop-art aesthetic. The documentary describes McLuhan as the “high priest of pop culture” and a “trendy intellectual.”

“‘Television is not just an entertainment box; it reshapes the way people see, hear, feel, and think,’ and he engraved his theory in people’s minds using examples from everyday life.”

He employed the same strategy in his lectures, conveying his theories through examples that resonated with students’ lives. Rejecting traditional lecture formats, he used everyday details from advertising slogans to newspapers and from popular songs to street signs as examples. He analyzed Coca- Cola’s Things go better with Coke slogan and examined the poetic narrative of advertisements. In this way, he produced theoretical approaches using data gathered from everyday life, translating abstract analyses into understandable language. Through this, he brought academia’s closed discourse into everyday life in a way that the average person could comprehend. While explaining how even typography shapes human thought, he illustrated how every detail from the layout of newspaper pages and street posters to the arrangement of lines in store windows shapes perception. He emphasized that writing shapes the senses not only through its meaning but also through its form.

In his lectures, he effectively put on a stage performance; through humor, irony, and theatrical gestures, he aimed not only to have the audience listen but also to surprise them, make them think, and encourage them to question. From time to time, with unexpected phrases like “Today I’m not speaking to you, but to this microphone,” he conveyed the impact of the medium directly to those watching in that very moment. He described the massive live broadcast Our World in 1967, featuring twenty-four countries, as a communication miracle in which the world had transformed into a Global Village. He characterized The Beatles’ performance of All You Need Is Love as a collective rhythm in which millions of people could share the same emotion simultaneously. In this way, he defi ned a technological revolution as a process that resonates with the public’s senses. Similarly, in that unforgettable scene from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall where a character brings McLuhan into the, his intervention in the characters’ discussion with the line “you know nothing of my work” served as a way to infuse his theory into popular culture. In this way, he brought even an academic debate to the public using the language of humor and everyday life, thereby taking science communication beyond its traditional boundaries. One of his most remarkable works is the book The Medium Is the Massage. Like his other works, this book is based on his own theories, as he explains them.

Unlike standard theoretical texts, McLuhan crafted this book using collage aesthetics, typographic play, visuals, and short passages, thereby embodying the image that form is an integral part of content. He also collaborated on this book with Quentin Fiore, one of the most important graphic designers of his time, producing a visually appealing work that brought it recognition. While the word “Massage” in the book’s title, may appear to be a mistake, he explained that he chose to use “massage” instead of “message,” implying that communication tools stimulate and shape human senses like a massage. Thus, even the book’s title has become an example reflecting McLuhan’s theoretical horizon.

During the years when McLuhan was developing his theories, the prevailing perspective in communication studies was an approach that focused on the content of messages and drew on models of propaganda and attitude change. In contrast to this content-centered approach that took shape after World War II, McLuhan placed the medium at the center, opening a discussion of the transformative role of the medium’s carrier in human senses and social order, thereby distinguishing himself from his contemporaries. Structuralist and language-centered theorists generally found McLuhan’s emphasis on the determinism of media to be reductionist (oversimplifying a complicated issue by trying to explain it using only one single cause), prioritizing the analysis of symbolic orders and cultural codes. Sociological critiques, meanwhile, viewed his positioning of technology as the sole key to social change as incomplete, arguing that he overlooked the cultural context.

Despite all these ideological differences, McLuhan opened up a space for public discourse not only through his conceptual vision but also through the way he shared these concepts with society; he succeeded in popularizing his theory by establishing a broad repertoire of communication, ranging from television programs to radio interviews, and from magazine columns to theatrical performances on stage. He embraced television, the rising medium of the era, before his peers, going beyond merely describing its transformative impact to letting people experience it firsthand. This is because television, especially from the mid-1950s onward, took its place in homes and became the center of daily life.

“McLuhan’s concepts of ‘cool’ and ‘hot’ media among his most important conceptual tools provide a significant framework by explaining the interaction between the user and the medium.”

Television transformed the social steering power that radio and cinema had maintained for many years by offering moving images, sounds, and live broadcast capabilities. With its diverse content ranging from news bulletins to entertainment programs, from series to sports broadcasts, it shaped the daily routines of the masses, transforming people’s agendas and even the way they perceive life. While bringing individuals together around a shared visual culture, it has reshaped the advertising industry from top to bottom, serving as a pillar for the spread of consumer culture on a mass scale. With this effect bringing family members together in front of the same screen in daily life and reorganizing the flow of life, it has also provided a powerful example to support McLuhan’s distinction between “hot” and “cool” media.

McLuhan’s concepts of “cool” and “hot” media among his most important conceptual tools provide a significant framework by explaining the interaction between the user and the medium. Examples of these include radio, cinema, and printed books. These media are defi ned as “hot” tools because they feature high resolution, dense data, and closed meanings. This is because these tools leave no room for the viewer to think, thereby creating a passive perceptual process. In contrast, “cool” tools are media that offer low resolution, incomplete data, and force the viewer to complete the meaning, thereby requiring active participation.

However, McLuhan places television in a very different category within cold media. He compares the viewer’s data flow in a “cool” participatory medium to a mosaic. To understand this method of data transmission, first understanding “what a mosaic is and why he equates television with it” is important.

In its most basic sense, a mosaic is a visual art form in which small, colorful pieces (stone, glass, ceramic, etc.) come together to form a whole. While each piece may not carry meaning on its own, when placed side by side, they create a large and meaningful composition. McLuhan uses this aesthetic structure to describe the modes of perception and thought in the media age. According to him, modern communication media -particularly television, advertisements, magazines, and later the internet- present information not in a sequential and linear manner, but in a fragmented, polyphonic, and simultaneous way. This requires the viewer to do more than just watch; it demands the ability to actively “fi ll in” the missing pieces. Social media feeds are one of the most prominent examples of this mosaic structure today. An Instagram Explore page or a TikTok feed creates a mosaic-like transmission experience where independent fragments are arranged randomly yet form a coherent whole in the user’s mind. Here, the mosaic is not merely an aesthetic element but is regarded as a new form of thinking, seeing, and constructing meaning in the media age.

McLuhan’s mosaic narrative form is directly intertwined with the concept of “cool media.” Just as a mosaic presents a fragmented and incomplete whole to be completed in the viewer’s mind, cold media also expects active participation from the viewer. Such media do not present everything “readymade” in high resolution; rather, they provoke perception, leave gaps, and make the viewer a part of the process. Mosaic structures such as newspaper layouts, advertising collages, or social media feeds do not transmit information directly; instead, they create chains of associations in the minds of their audiences. Thus mosaic aesthetics aligns closely with the fundamental characteristics of cool media. Low definition encourages high participation and, consequently, the production of multiple meanings. Television’s “two-dimensional mosaic” narrative, the constantly shifting content of social media, and postmodern designs constructed through collage techniques all establish a relationship in which the audience is not merely a consumer but also a producer of meaning. In this context, the mosaic structure can be understood as the visual and structural counterpart of McLuhan’s concept of cool media.

Within all these television programs and the institutional frameworks used to communicate with the masses, one of the most symbolic examples of McLuhan’s rise to international prominence was his feature in Time Magazine in 1969. Appearing in such a prestigious publication was an almost unimaginable sign of popularity for a communication theorist. The magazine described him with striking phrases like “the high priest of pop culture” and “the metaphysician of media,” emphasizing that he was a figure capable of speaking to the broader public’s search for meaning in a rapidly changing world of communication. He did not limit his influence to print and visual media; in connection with his work The Medium is the Massage, he recorded an audio album (LP) composed of music, sound, and fragmented narratives, thereby extending his theory into an auditory experience. McLuhan’s influence was not confi ned to North America; his ideas were widely discussed in intellectual circles across Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom and France, and are considered to have inspired the media theories of later thinkers such as Baudrillard.

Marshall McLuhan was not only one of the most influential media theorists of the 20th century but also a powerful science communicator who could convey his theories by bringing them directly into everyday life. His media theory opened a new paradigm in understanding communication by arguing that the medium is more powerful than the message; by viewing technology as a natural extension of humanity, he redefi ned the relationship between humans, the senses and technology. By appearing in popular media, he succeeded in bringing academic thought into the lives of ordinary people; through his conferences, television programs, magazine interviews, and stage performances, he transformed his theory into a spectacle, thereby making science accessible to the masses. McLuhan’s predictions have been largely validated by the rise of the internet, social media, and globalized communication networks, and the concept of the global village has become a reality in today’s world.

Despite all criticism, the analytical framework he developed regarding media remains a fundamental reference point in media studies. His legacy is an intellectual he approaches communication not merely as the transmission of information, but as a dynamic process that transforms human senses, modes of perception, and social structures.

In this regard, McLuhan is remembered as a theorist who continues to shed light on modern communication studies and whose ideas stand the test of time.

Marshall McLuhan: The Mastermind Behind the Media yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.

Prof. Nurdoğan Rigel, one of Türkiye’s leading communication scholars, explores the foundational approaches and critical turning points in communication studies. Her account spans from the establishment of communication faculties in Türkiye and the urban sociology tradition of the Chicago School which played a significant role in shaping the discipline to the American years of Theodor Adorno, an influential figure of the Frankfurt School who paved the way for critical theory.

Aslı Şen: Welcome, Professor Rigel. It’s wonderful to have you with us. Could we begin by getting to know you a little better?

Nurdoğan Rigel: I completed my bachelor’s degree at Marmara University, followed by my master’s and doctorate at Istanbul University. Back then, first-year students were required to do an internship. I started mine at the Turkish News Agency (THA) with great enthusiasm. Once I joined the agency, I grew to love journalism even more, as you realize you’re learning far more than what is taught in the classroom. At the time, the Turkish News Agency was regarded as the best training ground for journalism, second only to the Anadolu Agency. Of course, you learn the profession the hard way. Ultimately, you cannot expect the managers and editors at your workplace to act as mentors; they are under constant pressure to deliver news on time. They are systematic and professional, while you are in the position of a novice, hoping for guidance. In fact, my first news stories often ended up in the trash. Our editor would cross out the parts he disliked with a red pen and throw them away. I would wait for him to leave for lunch, then retrieve the stories from the trash to examine his edits and notes. I taught myself how to write news that way. I learned everything how to gather, conceptualize, and organize a story through that process of trial and error, a real “baptism by fire.” Back then, at university, we mostly took classes from business, economics, and law professors; the field of ‘communication’ did not exist yet. We had only one or two lecturers from TRT or the Cumhuriyet newspaper, and they rarely attended classes. We were essentially emerging from an intellectual vacuum, and we had to fill that void through our own efforts. Every Tuesday and Thursday, foreign magazines arrived at the agency. I learned a great deal from them, particularly Newsweek and Time. Even just scanning the headlines in those magazines builds a significant body of knowledge a realization that truly hits you years later. Moreover, this environment forces you to develop reflexes: to think, read, and write at lightning speed. That muscle memory develops over time. It is a process you don’t notice while you are living it, but you realize how it shaped you years later, when you look back or when asked about it by others. Once that happens, you can never truly leave journalism.

Mustafa Burak Avcı: Professor, what led you to pursue a path in academia?

N.R: While I was learning so much at the Turkish News Agency, I found I couldn’t tear myself away from the university; my intellectual thirst was still very much alive. It was through the late Toktamış Ateş, a prominent professor at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Economics who frequently visited the agency, that I learned about the establishment of the Institute of Social Sciences. I wasn’t about to miss that opportunity, so I applied immediately.

Following my master’s and PhD studies, and I realized I had grown to love Istanbul University even more. Perhaps the influence of the distinguished professors from the law, political science, and business faculties played a role.

At the time, it was clear that Public Relations was closely intertwined with the field of Business School. The academic language of the other disciplines was quite challenging; law, as we know, has its own dense syntax, and political science, while somewhat more accessible, was still demanding. International Relations remains my great love, and because I approached it with genuine passion, political science became easier to engage with. Yet, I could never bring myself to like law even though I knew I had to master its language. Business Administration and Political Science ended up being my favorite areas of study. You see, back in that era, the field of communication science didn’t yet exist in Türkiye. The disciplines were structured as follows: Journalism and Public Relations, and Radio and Television; cinema was added later on. I pursued my master’s degree in Public Relations and Journalism. My master’s thesis was titled, “The Impact of Mass Media on Elections.” The story behind this thesis is quite interesting; in journalism, we have a practice known as pulling a quote. You extract a specific element from the content. Since a journalist must write a headline, they immediately pull out a key point from the text to use as the hook.

“Park was also the first to view the city as a laboratory and to recognize that communication functions as a form of social control. Communication is, in essence, a system of control that operates so subtly you hardly notice it.”

Robert E. Park, 1930s

One day, I came across the term “Political Advertising” in an editor’s column in Newsweek. “That’s it, I’ve found it!” I thought. I decided to base my thesis on this topic. However, there were no available resources on the subject at the time. While I was wondering how to proceed, I attended a fourto-five-day conference in Istanbul as a reporter. A multitude of professors were there political scientists, media and communication scholars… We were there to cover the event, but my mind was occupied with questions for my thesis. There was one particularly significant figure present, the kind of person who possesses a magical touch they might not realize the impact of their influence, but they leave a lasting impression. Betül Mardin was one of them. She was the pioneer of Public Relations in Türkiye, and she was at that very conference. She looked quite stern, but she was an absolutely wonderful lady. I approached her and explained my predicament. one day she called me to her office. “I will bring you an article from Time; you will see that political advertising is right there.”

I honestly thought that someone so incredibly busy and preoccupied would have forgotten all about me. But no, she hadn’t forgotten at all; she had actually brought the article. In essence, that article became the cornerstone of my work. It was a concept that existed globally, yet here, one had to struggle just to uncover it. Indeed, by the 1983 elections, advertisers led primarily by Man Ajans began to enter the fray. At that time, I went to interview Eli Acıman, and he had told me, “Forget about journalism, kid; come join our agency.” I was so intent on becoming a ‘great journalist’ that I declined. I hadn’t yet realized how much creativity and intelligence advertising demanded, or how much it could have contributed to my development. That remains one of my regrets.

I managed to complete the thesis somehow, and it became the very first study in this field in Türkiye. After that, I realized I had become someone who was constantly in pursuit of new concepts. I then pursued my Ph.D. in Radio and Television. After completing my master’s degree in Journalism and Public Relations, I decided to switch perspectives and see what I could learn from the other side of the discipline. My doctoral thesis examined how satellite and cable broadcasting technologies would lead to significant legal challenges, as they would either render existing laws obsolete or simply outpace them.

I used the Gulf War as a case study. I later adapted this thesis into a book titled The Electronic Renaissance (Elektronik Rönesans). Subsequently, I published several other books, including Media Lullabies (Medya Ninnileri), Dream Blindness (Rüya Körleşmesi), News, Children, and Violence (Haber, Çocuk ve Şiddet), and News in Message Design (İleti Tasarımında Haber). Afterward, I had the opportunity to experience three American universities, and these institutions contributed significantly to satisfying my intellectual hunger.

Robert E. Park and Clara Cahill Park, at Chicago Campus.
University of Chicago Photo Archive, apf1-06709.

“Though rarely acknowledged, one of the most pivotal figures in Chicago was Jane Addams, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She led a massive charitable institution and was the primary source of support for the University of Chicago faculty most notably Robert Park in their urban studies.”

The main campus of the University of Chicago, where Robert E. Park
conducted his academic work (Hyde Park, Chicago).

The first was Florida International University (FIU). Compared to others, it had a modest library, yet it was where I first witnessed that libraries did not have to close at five o’clock; they operated 24/7. It felt like a place where you could simply live and never leave. Because I would stay in the library until midnight, my closest friend became the campus police officer.

I still remember sitting down and crying when I counted 360 references for my thesis at FIU. While back home we could find virtually nothing, here, even in a small-scale university library, I could access 360 sources directly relevant to my thesis. That was the moment I realized that the core of the matter had long been settled elsewhere.

Afterward, I went to Texas A&M University. When I joined the doctoral courses on “Digital Storytelling” I saw that two professors could co-teach a single course: one week it was taught by a professor from Computer Science, and the next week I taught it from a discourse-based perspective. It is not exactly easy to conduct a course like that in our system; here, professors would often clash over turf. However, there was no such friction there. I learned a great deal from them as well.

Then there was Brandeis University in Boston another institution that contributed immensely to my development. I supervised a few theses there, too. These experiences likely led me to view communication studies through an American perspective. Of course, years later, one sees one’s own academic trajectory crystallizing. Self-discovery is a process that takes years. Essentially, I found myself shifting from a Francophone perspective to an American one. This was not something I did intentionally; it was a natural byproduct of the fact that the data and information were originating from that source.

During this process, I realized that I was delivering course content heavily rooted in the American tradition of communication studies. Throughout this time, I developed 24 distinct courses. Among these, there are two that I regret most not having had the chance to fully implement: Media and Diplomacy and Communication and Space. You will notice that when I designed the Communication and Space course, I drew heavily on the Chicago School.

Jane Addams with children at Hull House, 1930s.

A.Ş: How did communication studies emerge, and why is the Chicago School significant in this context?

N.R: When you trace the foundations and history of communication studies, you inevitably encounter the Chicago School. They were working primarily on sociology, barely realizing that they were laying the groundwork for what would become communication studies. The key to understanding this transition lies with Robert Ezra Park. If you examine Robert E. Park’s biography, you see he possessed a robust background in journalism. The moment a journalist steps into the realm of sociology, everything shifts. It is recounted in one of the articles about him: while his doctoral students were resting, exhausted from their separate research assignments, Robert Park approached them and famously asked, “How can you sit there? How can you just sit when the city is in constant motion?” This reaction is essentially a journalistic reflex. City reporters are never meant to stay seated. Even in today’s age, you cannot simply sit at a desk and ask Google or ChatGPT, “What is going on out there?” You must be right in the city, the very place where events unfold.

Robert Park’s journalistic instinct stems from this. Park was also the first to view the city as a laboratory and to recognize that communication functions as a form of social control. Communication is, in essence, a system of control that operates so subtly you hardly notice it. The reason this discipline emerged in Chicago is that, at the turn of the last century, the city was a site of profound chaos.

Take Upton Sinclair, for instance a journalist who penned the novel The Jungle, which exposed the horrific working conditions in meatpacking plants. I remember putting the book down after only a few pages, thinking, ‘I cannot go on.’ You simply cannot bear the weight of such reality, yet this was the daily existence for people in Chicago at the time. As a journalist, Sinclair faced intense backlash for documenting these truths. Then there is John Steinbeck, whom we all know well. His Cannery Row similarly depicts the crushing poverty of that era. When you think of “America,” your mind immediately goes to Hollywood; you see no trace of destitution, only a magnificent way of life. You are conditioned to believe that is the reality, but these authors insisted that it was not. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath does exactly the same; he was a ‘narrative journalist’ who laid bare the misery in California. Sinclair and Steinbeck were the pioneers who broke the silence on this poverty. However, that is where the media’s control mechanism kicks in. If you read Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, you notice a staggering contrast. Suddenly, the narrative shifts from an America of misery to one of beauty, wealth, and five-star luxury. These stories were serialized in Travel magazine before being compiled into a book, and it is highly likely the editor told him, “Forget the misery; tell us about the beauty.” And just like that, America transforms into the sanitized version we know from Hollywood.

Thus, the Chicago School, together with Robert Park, positioned communication as a mechanism of social control. Though rarely acknowledged, one of the most pivotal figures in Chicago was Jane Addams, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She led a massive charitable institution and was the primary source of support for the University of Chicago faculty most notably Robert Park in their urban studies. In fact, Jane Addams was the first to treat the city as a laboratory, even before the university did. She dedicated her life to helping street children, single parents, and the marginalized, striving to alleviate their suffering. Although her name appears in few textbooks, she is of profound significance. She meticulously mapped the city’s crime patterns, focusing on which neighborhoods reported the highest rates, the root causes of these offenses, and potential remedies. Addams made these issues visible by analyzing their causes and solutions, while Robert Park translated these into academic language and established them as an academic subject.

However, Park’s work does not aim to generate solutions perhaps because he does not view the core purpose of academia as problem-solving. When we begin to formulate our thesis regarding the Chicago School as the foundational element of communication sciences, two concepts emerge: should the field be approached through the lens of the “Sociology of Communication” or “Media Sociology”? These are not synonymous or interchangeable terms; the Sociology of Communication is a macro-concept, whereas Media Sociology is a micro-concept. When you examine the field through the lens of the Sociology of Communication, the sociological influence is far more pronounced. This is why I believe the Chicago School and the Sociology of Communication should be discussed in tandem. When viewed through the lens of Media Sociology, however, the landscape changes. This concept only gained prominence in the 1960s, as the full impact of television following the Second World War remained largely unrecognized until that decade. It was only after the late 1960s that this influence truly began to be felt. For instance, when the series Dallas began airing in Türkiye in the 1980s, we noticed that the streets were completely deserted during its broadcast. This was quite an anomaly for that era, especially in a city like Istanbul, which is bustling 24/7. Back then, people structured their entire schedules around Dallas. It aired on Thursdays, I believe, and we would deliberately avoid making plans for that evening. Dallas serves as one of the primary examples of how the media transformed everyday life. It demonstrated to those in power how everyday life could be controlled or ‘colonized,’ if you will by media narratives. Whether you label it as power or a control mechanism, the effect was the same.

“When I first started teaching, a student of mine once told me: ‘You are trying to teach us so many things, but first, teach us how to think.’ That was a profoundly important lesson for me. So, how do we teach that? Through critical theory.”

This brings us to Jürgen Habermas’s concept of “communicative action.” The idea of the ‘colonization of the lifeworld’ ultimately belongs to Habermas. If we set aside the Sociology of Communication for a moment and look at the public sphere through the lens of communicative action, we see that these two concepts are foundational and highly adaptable across every domain of communication. Years ago, at a conference, I suggested that the public sphere had essentially morphed into a private sphere. Other academics did not receive this well at the time. But look at us now are we not living in a “private sphere” on social media? Everything that was once intimate and private has become shareable, and this is done entirely with the individual’s own consent. Much like Chomsky’s concept of the ‘manufacture of consent,’ we are participating in this transformation of our own free will.

Foucault’s conceptualization of the “confession” reveals a specific power dynamic, and we have effectively embraced the power of social media, voluntarily confessing our lives to it. We wander about in a perpetual state of confession, and within this framework, our daily lives continue to be as Habermas would put it “colonized”  We are being colonized, quite literally. And we do this unconsciously, under the guise of mere entertainment. But has the experiential mechanism of communication ceased to function? Certainly not. The control and surveillance mechanisms identified in Chicago persist; they have simply mutated. In the past, this control was managed through censorship, propaganda, political communication, and traditional media editorial systems. None of those mechanisms are necessary now. Because we have already granted our consent; we have accepted this regime and allowed it to exploit our data and our very identities. Consequently, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of Habermas’s concepts within a new, emerging paradigm.

Theodor W. Adorno, one of the leading thinkers of the Frankfurt School

Shoshana Zuboff, a retired professor from Harvard, conceptualizes this phenomenon as “surveillance capitalism.” Sherry Turkle, also from Harvard, coined the term “alone together.” They were among the first scholars to recognize how social life and technosociology were being reshaped by the rapid evolution of communication technology in the 1990s. It is no coincidence that these scholars emerged from Harvard. While few of Sherry Turkle’s books have been translated into Turkish, her seminal contribution to the field remains the concept of being “alone together.” Indeed, we are becoming increasingly alienated, transforming into atomized and isolated individuals. We do this willingly, wholeheartedly, under the illusion that we are enjoying ourselves. And yes, perhaps people actually are having fun.

I was watching a game show the other day. One of the contestants was an influencer who, by all accounts, seemed sensible and had a background in health sciences. When the host asked about her ultimate dream, the girl replied, “I want to be famous.” The host, who was quite sharp, responded: ‘My goal in life was simply to do what I love most. I believe that when you do what you love, you inevitably become well-known because you excel at it. Why did you reverse the process? These days, it seems everything starts from the opposite end. How do you become famous now? Through a couple of one- or two-minute clips you post on social media. The late journalist Mehmet Ali Birand used to refer to this as “the man on the street.” It is impossible to ignore how the very demographic captured by that phrase those whose sole ambition is to “become famous” has come to occupy the absolute epicenter of the system. By seizing power, they have turned the entire structure upside down, starting with democracy itself. It is plain to see how this reversal is pregnant with dangerous consequences.

For instance, early news research and media studies were characterized by an inherent elitism. This is where the ‘discourse elites’ stood out against those at the bottom of the discursive hierarchy. Even a superficial glance at traditional news sources revealed that discourse was exclusively manufactured by elites, namely political, economic, or bureaucratic figures who controlled the gates of information. However, if you look closely, starting in the 1990s, ‘third-page’ tabloid news gradually migrated to the core of the media ecosystem. The very sources Birand labeled as “people on the street” have now come to dominate the landscape via YouTube, the internet, and social media. In other words, as the former underclasses of discourse began to dictate the system, less and less space remained for the intellectual elites who were once the custodians of scientifi c and cultural knowledge. This is because the system now services a world engineered not to educate, but to entertain.

If we navigate life purely in the present, without a single thought for tomorrow, we are living under grave danger. If we look for the genesis of this entertainment-centric narrative, the answer lies in “self-help” literature. The foundational ethos of personal development is encapsulated in the phrase: “Now, today, here.” The very moment you anchor yourself solely in the “here and now,” you effectively wipe your memory clean. This tyranny of the present decimates the future while completely erasing the past. Do you retain any meaningful connection to the past? Not at all. I just shared my own life story with you. In that trajectory, there was a relentless pursuit of deeper knowledge and aspirations for the future; there was a perpetual desire to learn and to teach. None of this was bound to ‘today’ it was entirely projected onto the future. Nowadays, however, because an exorbitant amount of energy is invested in the present, our daily lives are colonized, and this tyranny of the immediate is eroding the fabric of society. If we navigate life purely in the present, without a single thought for tomorrow, we are living under grave danger. When we are told that everything in our lives is going swimmingly, that is precisely when we ought to be deeply suspicious. There is even a book titled Only the Paranoid Survive. In this contemporary landscape, we are practically forced to be paranoid. Something is quietly being stripped away from us, even as we are urged to invest more and more of ourselves. We need to pause and reflect. But because we have forgotten how to think in the midst of all this noise, we cannot even manage that.

“After all, Adorno is someone with very little zest for life, who takes pleasure in nothing. You cannot expect someone who uses critical theory as ‘I will criticize everything, I will look at everything from a negative perspective’ to create music that inspires enthusiasm. He uses music solely for his elitism.”

When I first started teaching, a student of mine once told me: ‘You are trying to teach us so many things, but first, teach us how to think.’ That was a profoundly important lesson for me. So, how do we teach that? Through critical theory. And critical theory arrives with the entire corpus of the Frankfurt School. The foundational figure of this thought is Theodor W. Adorno. He is, without a doubt, the toughest nut to crack in the entire field. I recently came across a quote about him that I absolutely loved: ‘The greatest favor Adorno did was to disabuse readers of the notion that they are always smarter than the author.’ That is classic Adorno. In other words, he is implying, ‘You cannot compete with me neither in knowledge, nor intelligence, nor in your worldview.’ There is this distinct aura about Adorno that says, ‘I am brilliant, I am erudite, I am elite, and I don’t really care to accommodate you.’ Ultimately, he is saying you have a great deal to learn from him but only if you possess the patience to endure the first hundred pages, much like navigating an Umberto Eco novel.

(SPOT) So, how do we teach that? Through critical theory. And critical theory arrives with the entire corpus of the Frankfurt School. The foundational figure of this thought is Theodor W. Adorno. For example, Max Weber’s three-and-a-half to four-month journey to America fundamentally transformed sociology. It shifted the entire paradigm of European sociology and demonstrated just how pivotal religion is as a societal element. Yet, this American influence is stubbornly downplayed by the Frankfurt School, particularly by Adorno. It was only toward the end of his life, in a 30-page essay, that he finally conceded America’s profound impact. Without America, after all, the Frankfurt School would not have survived it saved their lives, quite literally. When Adorno returned to Germany, the Americans were understandably furious, thinking: ‘We rescued you and your colleagues, and without a shred of gratitude, you tore us to shreds by labeling us a “culture industry.”’ Had Adorno not witnessed that reality firsthand, he could never have conceptualized the ‘culture industry.’

Foucault, in his work on the ‘intellectual gaze,’ posits that true intellectual vision is only possible when one examines their own world from the outside. By experiencing an alien environment, you gain the rare vantage point needed to look back at your own society objectively. As long as you remain submerged within it, you are blind to its contours; you cannot map its coordinates. But once you step outside, the mind is forced into a comparative state, which is precisely what catalyzes dialectical thought. Consequently, the thinkers of the Frankfurt School owe the evolution of their paradigm to their exile in New York and, subsequently, California, where during their stay, they deliberately insulated themselves within a sort of intellectual ghetto.

(SPOT) By experiencing an alien environment, you gain the rare vantage point needed to look back at your own society objectively. As long as you remain submerged within it, you are blind to its contours; you cannot map its coordinates. But once you step outside, the mind is forced into a comparative state, which is precisely what catalyzes dialectical thought. Perhaps this is also fundamentally linked to Jewish education. Ultimately, Hebrew contains no vowels; it consists entirely of consonants, and a text cannot resonate without someone to vocalize it. The individual who provides that vocalization eventually emerges as the leader of the community. Through their erudition, their ability to decipher the text, and their capacity to narrate it, a structure reminiscent of shamanism takes shape; they regard their language as their true homeland. Language transforms into a sanctuary. When Adorno returned to Germany, he gave an interview. When asked, ‘Why did you return to Germany?’ he famously replied, ‘I did not return to Germany; I returned to the German language.’ In that single sentence, you can feel the immense suffering he endured over those eleven years of exile. He returned to his language because Adorno was a thinker who wrote from the station of the ink.

Max Horkheimer acted as his father figure. He rarely commands the spotlight, yet it is fair to say that without Horkheimer, Adorno could never have truly become Adorno. The tight-knit enclave they established among themselves in California kept them anchored and ensured their collective survival, driven by a mutual dependence that was both intellectual and material. Furthermore, there is nothing more notoriously difficult in academia than co-authoring a book; yet, during the creation of Dialectic of Enlightenment, it is evident that both thinkers possessed such a symphonic alignment of thought that they could virtually complete each other’s sentences. There was absolute equilibrium between them. Operating and writing in a second language is a harrowing endeavor. No matter how brilliant you are, it takes at least four to five years for the cognitive dominance of your native tongue to recede, and Adorno actively resisted that erosion. German was the very matrix that generated the intellectual Adorno. Consequently, he does not look favorably upon English, which he regards as secondary. Nor does he look favorably upon the place. Sometimes his friends criticize him: “Did you see this light in the sky in Germany? Why are you pushing American life so far away?” He replies, “There’s a lack of landscape.” That’s what surprises me. How can there be a lack of landscape in America? What kind of landscape could he possibly have in mind? He has the landscape of German cities in his head. The first thing you notice when you first go to America is the excess of light. The country has a completely different kind of light. His friends even get annoyed with him, saying, ‘You didn’t see this kind of light in Germany.’ But California’s scenery was supposedly insufficient… For instance, if you look at Jean Baudrillard’s America, it’s a sociologist’s America through and through. Adorno’s America, however, is just exile for him. Yet that exile saved your life; it was through that popularity there that you became ‘Adorno.’ Had he stayed in his own country, he would likely have been a failed musician or musicologist. The things he attempted to write about music were not well received anyway. After all, Adorno is someone with very little zest for life, who takes pleasure in nothing. You cannot expect someone who uses critical theory as ‘I will criticize everything, I will look at everything from a negative perspective’ to create music that inspires enthusiasm. He uses music solely for his elitism.

Of course, they all have that rigorous German education in their backgrounds. They owe their perspectives, their critical faculties, and their entire way of thinking to German discipline. In fact, Communication Studies also owes a great deal to German roots. We don’t place much importance on this here, but when you look at it, that academic and cultural cultivation whether from a place of exile or somewhere you went to learn creates very significant differences in you.

Deniz Benzer: You mentioned that Adorno’s view of America was negative. When we look at Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, we see that they also criticize Germany at one point. What are your thoughts on that work?

N.R: Unhappiness isn’t something that leaves Adorno anyway; wherever you go, you carry it with you. The Dialectic of Enlightenment is a first-year undergraduate study. After that, it should lead you to Negative Dialectics. Don’t you need a German education to rethink the Enlightenment? Otherwise, you can’t really imagine an American thinking about the Enlightenment and examining it within that framework. That’s why that German education or perhaps that continental European education is necessary. After all, by the age of twenty, the entire body of macro-knowledge has already formed in these people. After that, it moves toward choosing a direction and producing results. Of course, we must not forget that there is also the impact of the trauma seriously experienced there. The transformation of dialectics into the negative in fact, these two volumes need to be taken together. You can’t just read The Dialectic of Enlightenment and stop there. You have to complete it with Negative Dialectics. Because one was written in America, while the other was written in German upon his return. It’s impossible to create an Adorno framework without seeing both of those. But you can criticize it from this angle: there is discourse, but no action. All of his students criticize him this way. Don’t get mad at Adorno, there’s nothing to be done. It’s clear that we still learn a great deal from every text, every sentence of his…

Not everyone has to be a man of action. Academics have their own personalities, too. Some thinkers have been both men of discourse and men of action. I am also interested in the personalities of thinkers, and from what I can see, an activist character would never have emerged from Adorno. I wish everyone could be like that, but they don’t have to be. Take Herbert Marcuse, for example he’s one of them and a man of action. No one ever told him, “You’re still involved in this stuff even in your 70s.” These people are also the intellectual fathers of the ’68 generation.

The students are angry with Adorno for that reason, too: “We’re here in the squares because of you, with your ideas, but you still aren’t coming out.” Adorno doesn’t feel forced to do this. You don’t have to go out into the square. Learn, think, speak; continue your action in another way. You don’t have to be in the streets. But no one ever told Marcuse, at his advanced age, to “wander around the squares.” It’s entirely a matter of character. We all have a character, an inner drive. Something is pulling you toward it. That driving force is an innate character. If you have siblings, you know that no sibling follows another. They’re all different. There’s a formula from above. I believe in it. We’re all born with that formula, and we strive to fill it out. So don’t be angry with Adorno. He was born that way. There’s nothing to be done.

From Chicago to Frankfurt: The History of Communication Studies yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.