Popular Music and Everyday Life – HaberVesaire
Faculty: Pınar Üzeltüzenci
Participants 2025-2026 Fall:
Ayda İrem Kumla – Türkçe Pop Nasıl Dönüştü? Bizi nasıl Dönüştürdü?
Ayşe Betül Mubarak – Filistin Müziğinin Dijital Yükselişi
Berk Sarıkaya – Türkçe Rap Nasıl Bu Kadar Popüler Oldu?
Çağla Çubuk – Türkiye’de K-Pop Hayranı Olmak: Aidiyet, Direnç ve Dijital Emek
Esra Gün – Arabesk 2.0
Sinem Sıla Başkurt – Türk Pop’unda Kız Grupları ve Duygusal Bağın Mühendisliği
In this module of C-LAB, we explore popular music through the social worlds in which it circulates.
Students may choose a music scene, platform, listening practice, affective theme, or cultural phenomenon, such as playlist culture, fandom, viral songs, wedding music, protest music, remix and sampling practices, nostalgia waves, or the role of TikTok and Spotify in shaping musical visibility. Genre can still be part of the project, but it will be approached through broader social and cultural dynamics.
We will address questions such as how class, gender, migration, labor, and identity shape the production, circulation, and reception of music in everyday life. We will also consider why certain songs, sounds, or music practices become widely meaningful at particular moments, and what they reveal about society.
This project is suitable for students interested in the intersection of music, society, and media culture. No technical musical knowledge is required. Students should be prepared to combine critical research with creative production and to explore how everyday listening connects to larger social questions.
Projects are dossier-style and public-facing, designed for publication in the Culture and Society page of HaberVesaire. Students are encouraged to use interviews, short videos, photo essays, audio pieces, data visuals, and transmedia storytelling to communicate their research. The aim is to combine analysis with clear and creative public communication that speaks to both ordinary listeners and a more informed audience. Suitable for students who are curious about popular music, media, and everyday life. Openness to fieldwork, interviewing, and experimenting with different media formats is a plus.
What you will practice:
• Critical research on music, media, and society
• Audience and platform analysis
• Cultural journalism for public audiences
• Creative mixed-media production
• Research-based storytelling across formats
Students may choose one of the following directions while developing their dossier
• Platforms and virality
• Scenes and local cultures
• Emotion and everyday listening
• Politics, identity, and music
• Memory, nostalgia, and revival
• Remix, sampling, and digital circulation
Final output: a publishable multimedia dossier on a chosen genre, showing both its social background and why people connect to it today.