Communications in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire: A Critical History by Burçe Çelik (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• Communications in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire: A Critical History by Burçe Çelik
• Sirri Emrah Üçer (bio)

Communications in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire: A Critical History
By Burçe Çelik. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2023. Pp. 254.

Burçe Çelik’s book represents a novel and bold contribution to the field of Turkish studies by providing a comprehensive two-century-long history of telecommunications. Instead of focusing on individual networks, she introduces a conceptual framework that unifies singular networks within a temporal continuity. This contribution brings to mind Horwitz’s Communication and Democratic Reform in South Africa (2006), as Çelik adds topics of ownership and the development of material telecommunications infrastructure to the discursive analysis of communication. Her study is also in close resonance with the accounts of other critical Turkish communication scholars like Haluk Geray and Funda Başaran. The strength of the book comes from its long-term and multinetwork approach to Ottoman/Turkish communications/telecommunications history. However, this also exposes some areas open to criticism.

Çelik’s analytical framework comprises both geopolitical and social elements. The geopolitical aspect encompasses topics such as the peripheralization of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey in the global capitalist division of labor, the material development of the telecommunications network, and the shift in ownership from the government to international companies. The social element of Çelik’s analysis divides Ottoman/Turkish history into two periods: what she calls the “non-capitalist modernization” before 1950 and the “transition to capitalism” after World War II. The social element also introduces “silenced communities,” including Armenians, Kurds, women (particularly working-class women), and progressive youth, as key actors in communication history, beyond the more prominent “noisy actors” such as the state, military, political elites, and “top-down” modernizers. Çelik argues that the “non-capitalist modernism” of the late Ottoman and early [End Page 1015] Republican periods was closely linked to reform efforts aimed at restoring the “circle of justice” within a social context characterized by an “oriental political society” where communities opposed the government, rather than a “Western-style civil society” with individuals opposing the government.

Çelik introduces the concept of “capitalist imperialism” and mentions “noisy actors” such as international companies and organizations. However, her proximity to a political stance that views the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic as a militarist colonizer rather than a passive periphery limits the role assigned to international capital markets, companies, and organizations in the geopolitics of telecommunications within the book’s narrative—from the International Telegraph Union (later International Telecommunications Union) to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. This limitation stems from the book’s tendency to isolate Ottoman/Turkish modernism from global capitalism until the 1950s, reflecting a theoretical position with a narrow definition of capitalism and adherence to the outdated circle of justice argument.

Çelik’s book provides an illuminating analysis of the challenges faced by Turkish import substitution in developing a national informatics industry. By tracing the trajectories of NETAŞ and Teletaş from their inception in the 1960s and 1970s to their privatization during the Özal period in the 1980s (pp. 105–12, 125–27), readers gain insight into the historical constraints of Turkish developmentalism through the lens of telecommunications history. However, the book does not consistently align the geopolitics of communications with the general narrative of Turkish history. In essence, the book presents a history of Turkey with short, separate fragments of communication history. In other words, the book falls short of renarrating Turkish history through the prism of communication history.

When discussing the recent period, the book surprisingly overlooks the role of mobile telephones, a notable shortcoming. The mobile telephone network stands out as the first communication network initiated by the private sector rather than the government. Furthermore, with the integration of the mobile telephone into the internet as a mutant smartphone, it has evolved into a significant medium of popular culture. In Turkey and the broader peripheral world, the true popularization of the internet surged through mobile telephone networks. In Turkey, a small portion of the population has access to the internet via fixed lines, while for the majority, the internet experience—encompassing social media, digital platforms...