Browsing by Author "Taştan, İrem"

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Citation - Scopus: 1
Grieving & Swiping: Online Dating as Consumers' Post-Breakup Resolution
(University of Rhode Island, 2024) Ozdamar Ertekin, Zeynep; Kural, Salih; Taştan, İrem
This study explores the underlying motivations of consumers’ usage of online dating applications after the breakup of romantic relationships. The experiences of young-adult consumers who went through post-breakup grief are investigated through in-depth interviews. Findings resulted in twelve categories of motivations that participating consumers had regarding their usage of dating apps, in relation to managing the grief after breakup. Motivations are grouped under the categories of coping, updating, and desiring. Moreover, findings also demonstrated diverging pathways in using dating apps for emotional resolution. The study contributes to our understanding of dating app usage by highlighting important insights from consumers who benefitted from these apps to manage their post-breakup grief. Furthermore, we suggest managerial implications for the online dating application industry drawing from the link between romantic breakups and dating app usage to design marketing strategies that can better relate to shifting consumer expectations. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Ideological Capacities in Consumer Communities: an Exploration of the Presenteers Tribe
(Emerald Group Publishing Ltd, 2024) Taştan, İrem; Özdamar Ertekin, Zeynep
PurposeThis study aims to explore how a postmodern tribe enacts and re-interprets ideologies as a part of consumers' collective experience, to enhance our understanding of consumer communities in conjunction with ideological capacities.Design/methodology/approachThe community of presenteers is conceptualized as a self-organized tribe with heterogeneous components that generate capacities to act. Netnographic observation was conducted on 18 presenteer accounts and lasted around six months. Real-time data were collected by taking screenshots of the posts and stories that these users created and publicly shared. Data were analysed by adopting assemblage theory, combining inductive and deductive approaches. Firstly, a qualitative visual-textual content analysis of the tribe's defining components was conducted. Then, the process continued with the thematic analysis of the ideological underpinnings of the tribe's enactments.FindingsFindings shed light on the ways in which consumer communities interpret the entanglement of religious, political, and cultural ideologies in shaping their experiences. In the case of the presenteers tribe, findings reflect a novel ideological interplay between neo-Ottomanism, post-feminism and consumerism.Research limitations/implicationsThe study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of presenteering and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.Originality/valueThe study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of presenteering and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.
Self-Organization Theory of Gentrification: Exploring Individual Branding Practices in the Emergence of Gastro-Urla
(İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi, 2022) Taştan, İrem; Uzunoğlu, Ebru
Bu araştırma, Urla'da filizlenen fine-dining markalarının bölgede süregelen değişim sürecinde oynadığı rolü araştırmaktadır. Urla'da yapılan saha çalışması ve uygulama kuramı (practice theory) doğrultusunda sosyal medya üzerinden toplanan verilere dayalı olarak, bu çalışmada, birden fazla markanın markalaşma etkinlikleri bu markaların bölgedeki değişim sürecindeki aracılıkları açısından analiz edilmiştir. Veriler, görsel araçlar kullanılarak odaklanmış etnografi, netnografik gözlem ve katılımcı gözlem yollarıyla toplanmıştır. Elde edilen veriler, belirlenen markaların ilişkide bulunduğu heterojen dinamiklere vurgu yapılarak, öbekleşme kuramına (assemblage theory) dayanan özgün bir yaklaşım ile değerlendirilmiştir. Bulgular, özellikle markalaşma çabalarının yerel bir alanın yeniden konumlandırılmasını nasıl etkilediğine dair yeni görüşler ortaya koyarken, genel olarak mutenalaşmanın (gentrification) ortaya çıkışındaki çetrefilli nedenselliğe de eğilmektedir. Bağımsız bileşenlerin doğrudan veya dolaylı olarak gelişen birbirine bağımlı etkisini vurgulayan bu araştırma, kendi-kendini organize eden mutenalaşmaya dair veriye dayalı bir kuram sunarak mutenalaşma üzerine köksap çalışmaları (rhizomatic studies) için yeni teorik açılımlar sağlamayı hedeflemektedir.