Information or Culture
The Intellectual Dissemination of Americanism as Common Sense
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6094026 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ela Kaçel (Bahçeşehir University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Pages | 171-188 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Perspectives on Turkey (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-6346 • E-ISSN: 1305-3299 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0896634600006610 |
| OpenAlex | W2497638922 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 12 |
The discourse of postwar modern architecture is dominated by historical accounts that easily describe the processes of modernization in Turkey during the Cold War as a unilateral flow of ideas and expertise from the United States. Yet, the relation between benefactor and beneficiary is much more complex. This article explores culture production as a state function and intellectual practice through which bureaucrats and intellectuals representing the state agencies disseminated Americanism as common sense in postwar Turkey. Drawing on the cultural activities of two parallel organizations, the Turkish Information Office (TIO) acting in New York and the United States Information Service (USIS) in Turkey, it illustrates how the intricate relations among ideology, politics, and architecture affect the practices of bureaucrats and their audiences in the process of culture production. Promoting ideologies of Americanism, these organizations simultaneously popularized American architects and their buildings to their audiences. The comparative analysis of two case studies, the photo bookTalking Turkeyby the TIO and the Architecture Series of the Voice of America Forum Lectures, demonstrates how the division created between information and culture as two separate functions of foreign diplomacy perpetuated similar divisions in architectural discourse such as the iconic and the ordinary
Ideology · Media studies · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Law · Photography and Visual Culture · Turkey's Politics and Society · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2023 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |