Middle class shame: Sociology of emotion and the social change in 1980's Turkey

Although the importance of emotions has been accepted in sociology for a long time, the approaches analyzing the society by taking emotions as a center are relatively recent in the history of sociology. Instead of making generalized and vague citations, the sociology of emotion, which makes analysis by pointing out that emotions have a social dimension that transcends the field of psychology, exists as an independent subfield. This thesis, which considers the emotion of shame in the context of the sociology of emotions, analyze the transformation of shame with respect to its social meanings and functions in the context of the changing social stratification in Turkey after 1980. This transformation is based on the idea that shame, which gains meaning within social structure and acts as a motive of social actions, transforms in terms of definition and function along with the transformations of the basic components of the social structure. In this manner, drawing upon the literature on the debate of the power's and status' impacts on feelings, I discuss the transformation of middle class shame in 1980s-Turkey. The magazines, which have an important function in the construction of lifestyle, are at the center of the analysis. This study focuses on Hayat, Ses, Elele, Genç Kadın and Kadınca magazines through the Critical Discourse Analysis which is among the qualitative research methods and reveals the transformation of the motives that lead to the emotion of shame by indicating components of the ideal middle class subject and ideal life-style of the middle classes.