BABALIK DA YAPARIM KARİYER DE!: BLOGGER BABALAR VE ERKEKLİĞİN KURUCU ROLLERİNDEN BABALIK ÜZERİNE

Abstract

Gender roles, which are specific to a traditional family structure and accepted as a societal norm, are transforming in Turkey and all over the world. The father role of a man is affected by this transformation on both individual and societal levels. Today, the internet and communication technologies serve as a medium for the realization, representation, and propagation of transformations experienced in the perception of fatherhood through online domains where fatherhood performances are exhibited. Given this, the study focuses on online and public sharing practices on blogs according to the meanings attributed to gender roles by blogger fathers in Turkey. Based on this focus, the study addresses how men, who choose to publicly discuss fatherhood as a role associated with masculinity, perceive it, and why and how they use blogs for the exhibition of their fatherhood experiences and performances.  As a result, it was found that fathers adopt the relevant fatherhood model, consider that traditional masculinity roles constitute an obstacle to their participation in fatherhood, and they have motivations such as questioning certain norms related to fatherhood and gender roles, or becoming agents to behavioral changes as well as keeping records of memories of child’s development with posts shared on blogs.