The Test of the Country with Facebook: An Ethnographic Study in A Medıterranean Village / Taşranın Facebook İle İmtihanı: Bir Akdeniz Köyünde Etnografik Keşif Çalışması1

• Main Authors: Tezcan Durna2, Nehir Durna3
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cyprus International University 2015-08-01
• Series: Folklor/Edebiyat
• Subjects: New media; Facebook; the country; village; community; socialization
• Online Access: https://www.folkloredebiyat.org/Makaleler/533200544_fe-83-5.pdf

Becoming widespread in recent years, social media networks have already become a crucial aspect of everyday life and socialization in rural settings. Among other networks Facebook has the biggest number of users. This is why the use of Facebook in rural areas is an important issue. Rather than examining urban users, this study focuses on how and why villagers/ country people, who have narrower social networks and are based more on community relationships, use their facebook account. It also explores what kind of sociabilities they want to build through facebook use. Nine in-depth interviews were conducted for the study. Semi-structured question forms were used during the interviews and also audience ethnography was used as a method. Main questions were: Which contents are shared? Which contents are liked most? Who are accepted as friends? Do contents shared in Facebook become subjects of daily conversations? Do Facebook relations with different individuals and groups cause any real divides or problems? Besides entertainment, is Facebook used for exchange of experience for solving daily problems? The study shows that in the village Facebook is used as “a blog of everyday life”, “an idle away time tool for alikes”, and “a medium for having some nice time”.