Qualifying Inclusion: Photo-Sharing Initiatives in Turkish Periodicals of the 1920s

Periodicals of the early twentieth century offered their readers an avenue for discovery as well as entertainment. Illustrated serial publications in particular provided a means for readers to connect with one another, share, and learn from each other. Most striking among such efforts were the photograph sharing initiatives that gained popularity in the 1920s during the initial years of the Turkish Republic, demonstrating the existence of an audience eager to participate in a public-facing activity. This article draws from a study of twelve such promotional competitions that generated over three thousand individual photographs of readers. By focusing on trends across initiatives as well as the practices and processes involved in organizing, managing, and displaying (publishing) the reader submissions, this article reveals the complex networks of interests motivating publishers and readers alike. This study delineates the many standard or typical submission pathways while also exploring the varied ways in which atypical or anomalous approaches to these initiatives were taken by the participants and publishers alike. As periodical-bound events, these initiatives illustrate how the popular press functioned as a connective substance between individuals and a broader, national community. However, as mediators, periodicals bear the signs of their manufactured and curated dispositions, undermining any pretense of organic assembly. In this way, this study invites a discerning gaze to the many photographic spreads generated from these initiatives, while acknowledging their critical role in representing a constructed and imagined community rendered visible and public through the requisite union of photography and the popular press.