Interview with Asst. Prof. Dr. Aslı Kasar
An interview was conducted with Asst. Prof. Dr. Aslı Kasar who is The Head of Communication and Design Department at Istanbul Gelisim University, Fine Arts Faculty.
Hello, first of all, could you briefly tell us about yourself and your academic work?
Hello. As a person who loves to talk since I was a child, my goal has always been to study communication. Since being a newscaster is my biggest dream, I graduated from Istanbul Ticaret University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Media and Communication Systems in 2009. While I was studying, I started to get enthusiastic about being an announcer with the voices I made in the local channel of the Ticaret University and the voice-overs I made in the sector. During the years of my internship at the TRT news center, the serious changes in the working conditions in the sector started to change my perception of wanting to do this profession. Meanwhile, the "Interpersonal Communication" graduate program was opened at Marmara University. I was very interested in this program, I applied immediately and was accepted. In this process, I was also the producer and presenter of the program called “Şehir” on TR1 channel. At the same time, I was in the graduate course stage. At this stage, I realized that dealing with science made me more happy than doing the profession that I had dreamed of since I was a child, and I left television and headed to academia. After graduating from the Department of Interpersonal Communication at Marmara University, Department of Public Relations in 2011, I started to work as a lecturer at a private university in 2012. In 2020, I received my doctorate in the Department of Public Relations and Publicity at Marmara University.
Can you tell us about the work you have done in the sector apart from your academic career?
As I mentioned in your previous question, I did voice-overs in the sector and produced and hosted the program called “Şehir” on TR1 channel for about a year. Apart from these, I gave "Corporate Communication" trainings to TOKİ Real Estate Management employees.
In your thesis, you mentioned that you are working on the concept of “FeedForward” and that you have included this concept in the international literature. Can you explain a little bit?
With the new communication technologies, the limitation of time and space in the communication process has been removed and the target audiences, who are only passive as the receiver of the message in the communication with traditional communication tools, have become active in communication activities with new communication media. In this context, the use of feedback, which provides bidirectionality, is of great importance in today's conditions where the concept of relationship and two-way communication are prominent and important. However, since the proliferation of social media, digital content and mobile devices today creates target audiences, stakeholders and publics that are constantly waiting for communication, institutions have to communicate with their target audiences, stakeholders and publics in increasingly shorter time frames in order to meet this demand. At the same time, since most institutions operate in rapidly changing, competitive, irregular and chaotic environments, they perceive actively receiving effective feedback as a waste of time.
Therefore, in today's conditions, where the time and space boundaries have disappeared with globalization and the competition race has accelerated, the feedback should not overwhelm the receiver too much, the receiver must understand the capacity of receiving the feedback load at once and be fast. In addition, even if institutions receive feedback, constantly changing external pressures arising from economic, technological, demographic, social and political factors in the system in which they operate, cause unpredictable situations on the internal systems and control systems of the institutions. These unforeseen circumstances can affect the activities of institutions. As a solution to these reasons, it is aimed to bring the concept of “feedforward” to the public relations or corporate communication literature, and to adapt to the changing paradigm in today's conditions, institutions to be effective and successful in their communication processes.
Can you tell us about your book titled with “How Do You Convince Your Boss? Persuasion and Impression Management in Employee-Manager Communication”?
This book shows how employees can use persuasion techniques to overcome and solve the most common challenges they face every day in business. One of the important areas of interest and study of the discipline of corporate behavior is the active efforts of employees in professional life to influence their work environment as active participants rather than passive. Interpersonal influence in all its forms is frequently used in corporate life dynamics.
In this dynamic life, the subject of persuasion has generally been studied in the literature within the framework of manager-manager, manager-employee and customer relations. In this study, I examined persuasion techniques and the impression management process in employee-manager, that is, bottom-up communication. In this study, which aims to show the importance of persuasion and impression management tactics, which are perceived as one of the elements of being effective and successful in corporate life, in bottom-up communication, both issues have been examined in detail and have been integrated into most accepted technical studies on these issues.
What are your thoughts on the position of the communication and media industry today?
Today, rapidly changing, spreading and expanding information and communication technologies have caused radical transformations in daily life and business world applications and communication systems. With the new communication technologies, the limitation of time and space in the communication process has been removed and the target audiences, who are only passive as the receiver of the message in the communication with traditional communication tools, have become active in communication activities with new communication media. This situation has created a target audience that produces content and is a participant. Organizations are now aware of the importance of listening to the target audience, both in their marketing activities and at the stages of product development and new product creation ideas. While this change is a threat that cannot be ignored for some institutions; for some institutions, it has been the beginning of an advantage that can add value to their values. Therefore, it has become obligatory for every institution, whether amateur or professional, that wants to walk confidently into the future, catch up with the era, strengthen its bond with its consumers, or incorporate new consumers, to participate in social media. This situation has caused differences in the working conditions of media professionals, the way they do business and the working relations of media professionals, and a new working class has emerged with the new media. This new employee segment, which can also be defined as new media professionals; It refers to flexible and well-equipped employees who are proficient in computer technologies.
What would you like to say to the students of Communication and Design department? Do you have any suggestions for students who will continue their career in this field, both in the sector and academically?
Communication and Design department is one of the departments that gains importance in the changing world with the development of new communication technologies. As we talked about in the previous question, the changing paradigm has created differences in the working conditions, ways of doing business and working relations of media professionals. This new employee segment, which can also be defined as new media professionals; consists of flexible and well-equipped employees who are proficient in computer technologies. Students studying Communication and Design department have both theoretical knowledge in the field of communication and knowledge in the field of application simultaneously. The knowledge gained simultaneously in the applied fields of the new communication technologies, which I mentioned with the theoretical knowledge in the field of communication, trains active, successful communication and designers who can adapt to the changing paradigm and catch up with the era and thus respond to the needs of the sector.
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