Abstract
Many factors form the collective memory of societies and play a role in cultural change. In this study,
the process of Turkey's acquaintance with television, in particular the relationship between cultural change and technology, is discussed with the oral history method. In the study, the answers to the questions “How did
society say hello to television and how did television affect the daily life of society?” were questioned from the
point of view of folklore, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 informants who witnessed
this process, in other words, who experienced cultural shock, between 2012 and 2019. Television in terms of
communication technology; is at a leading, critical point in cultural change. Television has been characterized
as “the video radio, home theater, invention of the devil, invention of the infidel, Christ, antichrist, opium of the
people, wasteland, time thief, fool's box, magic box, painkiller, white noise, companion of loneliness, ordinary,
low, electronic giant, farsighted technology, window to the world, myth, contemporary storyteller, culture production machine, cultural garbage” in social memory, from positive and negative viewpoints. The process of acquaintance with television in Anatolia took place approximately between 1970-1985; verbal expressions of
television such as fairy tales, stories, legends, and folk songs; taking an active role in children's games, entertainment and replacing ordinary daily conversations. It is seen that people adjust their daily or weekly plans and time according to television. In particular, the elderly showed resistance to meeting with TV, and this caused tragicomic memories in terms of folk humor; the fact that TV also affects neighborliness and hospitality, and travels are made even outside the province to watch television; that the financial difficulty of buying television creates a memory in the public economy; it has been determined that expatriates and people with good economic status take an active role in meeting with television and this situation gives them prestige and status. It is seen that traditional folk theater such as Karagöz-Hacivat was used in the first period domestic broadcasts, and besides, television negatively affected traditional conversation meetings and coffeehouses, which are the performance environment of minstrels, in the context of cultural change. In addition, television causes para-social interaction; people tend to identify themselves or those around them with people on television, especially in matters related to their appearances, such as clothing, speech, and hairstyle, and thus television directs fashion. It has been determined that people give names or nicknames to their children, spouses, friends or animals based on the characters on the television, and this affects children's games. It has been determined that television also affects handicrafts, and people give names to hand-knitted models based on the people they are influenced by television. It is seen that an important event such as the coup in 1980, which profoundly affected society in terms of politics, took place in memory as an oral history record concerning television. In this period, in the marriage rite of passage, while the television turned into a dowry object for the man, the girl was expected to knit a television cover for her dowry. In addition, when the bride is taken to the groom's house, she does not get out of the vehicle and asks her mother-in-law or father-in-law for an asset with material value, called "drop off" or "donation for the road". It is seen that television is donated to the bride for a discount besides properties such as fields, vineyards, and houses. The arrival of electricity in Anatolia for the people who use the car battery as a solution to watch television and get electricity after TV. "Television came, electricity came." is expressed. In this process, it is seen that coffee houses have an important spatial function. Words such as television tea, television tingling, television evil eye, antenna forest, and telesapphire show the emergence of television jargon. In addition, it has been determined that television is included in verbal expressions such as riddles, manis, and folk songs. It is concluded that television is functional in social and cultural change in terms of carrying the local to the national and contributing to nationalization, as well as accelerating globalization. It is thought that this study
will contribute to research that will analyze cultural changes in folklore and technology.