Ergin Bulut And Can Ertuna - Journalism during the pandemic, authoritarianism and precarious labor

In this episode, I talked to two media and communication studies scholars, Ergin Bulut and Can Ertuna, about their new research on journalism during the pandemic in Turkey. Although the pandemic had an overall negative effect on journalism, their research also showed unexpected social effects of the pandemic. Due to the public interest in accurate information, sensational journalism and the media coverage of pseudo-experts took a hit and the crisis opened up a space for real journalism, which allowed journalists to ask questions to authorities. We also talked about their individual research projects. Bulut’s book A Precarious Game: The Illusion of Dream Jobs in the Video Game Industry, an ethnographic study of a video game studio in the US Midwest, discusses how the gendered and classed forms of labor, workplace inequalities, and racialized production cultures are rendered invisible with a discourse of “labor of love”. Ertuna’s work on journalism under an increasingly authoritarian regime following the 2016 coup attempt shows the dire conditions of journalism as a labor form at the intersection of political and economic insecurities. Ergin Bulut received his PhD from the Institute of Communications Research at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Currently, he works as an Associate Professor at Koç University's Media and Visual Arts Department, where he teaches classes on media industries, video game studies, media sociology, and media and populism. He researches in the area of political economy of media and cultural production, video game studies, media and politics, and critical theory. Can Ertuna has a PhD in Media and Communication Studies from Galatasaray University. He is currently working as a full time lecturer at Bahçeşehir University New Media department. He has also been working as a journalist for the last 20 years. Currently he is also working as a freelance journal for mainly international news organizations. Ergin Bulut: https://ku.academia.edu/EBulut https://mysite.ku.edu.tr/ebulut/ https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501746536/a-precarious-game/#bookTabs=1 Can Ertuna: https://bahcesehir.academia.edu/CanErtuna https://www.canertuna.com/akademi/