Media in Turkey
The media in Turkey include numerous newspapers , television stations , radio stations and online media, both private and public. The state's influence on the media is the basis of an ongoing conflict that intensified under the AKP government and President Erdoğan . In 2015, Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 155th out of 180 in their press freedom index.
Media landscape in Turkey
Press
The press landscape, like the entire media landscape, is economically highly concentrated. Most media groups are multisectoral and are active in other business areas such as banking, power generation, mobile communications and other industries. This applies to the large media groups, the Doğan , the Doğus , the Çukurova, the Merkez, the İhlas, the Feza and the Çalık groups .
The largest media group is Doğan Media Holding, which includes Turkey's largest daily newspaper, Hürriyet and Milliyet, and Turkey's largest tabloid, Posta . The sports newspaper Fanatik (circulation over 200,000 copies) and the analysis sheet Radikal belong to Doğan. The television station Kanal D , CNN Türk and other special interest programs also belong to the group. The newspaper with the highest circulation in Turkey was Zaman until its takeover in March 2016 . She belongs to the Feza group, which is closely related to the Gülen movement .
The German Axel Springer SE is also involved in the Doğus Group .
In the course of corruption investigations against the Erdoğan government in 2014, wiretapped phone calls were made public, from which it emerged that a group of entrepreneurs was buying up some media on the instructions of Recep Erdoğan.
After the attempted coup in 2016, the media was banned. See list of media banned in Turkey after the 2016 coup attempt .
broadcast
Daily television consumption in Turkey is quite high, whereas the market for television advertising is comparatively small.
Public service broadcasting is the dominant program provider with 13 (as of 2016) television programs. In 2009, TRT-6, the first state-run Kurdish-language broadcaster, went into operation.
Since the state monopoly for radio and television was lifted in 1993, the broadcasting landscape has diversified. In addition to commercial, private television stations often also pursue political interests.
Digitürk is the leading provider of pay TV with a user number of over one million customers. The company, founded in January 1999, began broadcasting in April 2000. Most of the programs are broadcast on Eutelsat 7A , some also on Türksat 4A .
Radio in Turkey is determined by many specialty and regional programs (Boelgesel Radyolar) from TRT. There are also a number of small local and regional private broadcasters, most of which are limited to a light music program ( Türkür, among others).
history
Press
Under the founder of “modern Turkey” Kemal Ataturk , a number of newspapers were created in Turkey after the War of Liberation (1919–1923).
An important representative of the modern Turkish media was Yunus Nadi Abalıoğlu, born in 1888 . He supported the Kemalist liberation movement and was therefore imprisoned, yet wrote for various newspapers. Together with the poet and professor Halide Edib Adıvar , he founded the Anadolu Ajansı news agency on April 6, 1920 . In 1922 he founded the Cumhuriyet ("Republic") newspaper, which still exists today .
watch TV
In the 1960s, the then government discussed investments in television. At that time there was no national FM network for the existing radio programs, nor was there any financial means for television. Nevertheless, TRT broadcast the first test programs that could only be received in Ankara and theoretically reached around 1,000,000 citizens. A television set, however, was still one of the luxury items that few could afford. The metropolitan areas of Istanbul, Izmir and Edirne were only served with terrestrial transmitters in the 1970s. In 1977 television programs only reached 60% of the population.
The first color television broadcast was the New Year's Eve Gala on December 31, 1981. Color test programs such as news broadcasts, weather reports, children's programs, and the President's speeches followed, alternating with black and white broadcasts. In 1984, TRT-TV finally switched all programs to color. Furthermore, the end of the broadcast was postponed and the program was recorded earlier in the morning.
In 1993 the state monopoly on radio and television was lifted. As a result, a large number of private television stations emerged, which pursue not only commercial but often also political interests.
Press supervision
The Turkish broadcasting supervisory authority RTÜK ( Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu ) is the “Supreme Radio and Television Council” and thus the regulatory authority for private broadcasting in Turkey. The majority of the council is made up of government representatives. RTÜK grants and withdraws licenses for radio and television broadcasters. He can also issue temporary broadcast bans. RTÜK also intervenes if, in their opinion, blasphemous content is distributed.
The press is no longer regulated by the state, but most print products are subject to voluntary self-regulation by the Turkish press council . He also handles complaints about online media.
After attacks in Turkey, courts have in some cases imposed a message block on all media. This also happened after the attack in Reyhanlı in 2013, when a court in nearby Antakya imposed a four-day blackout.
Freedom of the press
Freedom of the press is enshrined in the Turkish constitution . The German Foreign Office writes in its assessment (as of March 2016): “In practice, however, there are always serious problems for reporters. The freedom of the press is being massively attacked by politicians again and again. Journalists are often faced with legal proceedings, both in the area of criminal and civil law. Journalists are repeatedly arrested, although the figures are viewed very differently here. ” In 2011, the American organization“ Committee to Protect Journalists ”counted almost 5,000 criminal cases against Turkish journalists.
The freedom of the press was "massively attacked", particularly in the action taken by government agencies under Erdoğan's government and presidency against the Gülen movement (assessment by the Federal Foreign Office). According to Reporters Without Borders, the Erdoğan government “put some direct pressure on the media”. Members of the government called editorial offices and demanded that reports critical of the government be removed from websites.
Turkish public broadcasting service
The public television broadcaster TRT is subordinate to state organs in its reporting. Observers criticize the fact that TRT actively campaigns for a certain political direction in elections. The media scientist Asli Tunc from Istanbul Bilgi University examined TRT's program during the 2014 election campaign. She calculated that TRT gave Erdoğan almost nine hours of airtime on three election days, while the two opposing candidates, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Selahattin Demirtaş, together during the same period didn't even come up to four minutes.
Private sector media
A frequent starting point for public prosecutor investigations are critical articles or representations of the state president that are perceived as abuse. “The criminal offense of 'supporting terrorism' is deliberately expanded in many cases in order to initiate investigations against journalists,” writes the Federal Foreign Office.
Smaller media such as the “ Taraf ” newspaper, the left-Kemalist newspaper “ Cumhuriyet ” or the left-wing “ BirGün ” were sanctioned from 2014 onwards for reporting critical of the government. According to the newspaper "Taraf", arbitrary tax claims from the tax office were served and its reporter Mehmet Baransu was temporarily arrested for "insulting public officials".
Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey 149th out of 180 overall in their 2015 press freedom index. In 2014, Turkey was in 154th place, behind Iraq and Russia .
Social media and internet services
During the Gezi Park protests from 2013 onwards, parts of the Turkish population and foreign observers noticed that the reports in the conventional media did not adequately portray the situation. The reporting on social media was superimposed on that of radio and television as well as that of the press. It eluded the state's ability to influence and control. In this context, the government tightened the legal situation for the use of social media several times. In February 2014, the Turkish parliament approved a law to tighten internet control. The telecommunications supervisory authority (TIB) has since been allowed to block websites without a court order. In addition, all providers operating in Turkey were obliged to store user data for up to two years.
The Turkish government has temporarily blocked the short message service Twitter and the Internet platform YouTube since 2014 . One of the reasons for this was an audio recording in March 2014 about the staging of a pretext for the entry into the civil war in Syria .
Reactions
In its “Progress Report 2015”, the EU Commission criticized the restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of expression as worrying. After journalists Dündar and Gül were arrested, the Council of Europe and several international journalists' associations criticized this measure in 2016.
literature
Werner Faulstich: The media history of the 20th century . 2012, 461 pp., ISBN 9783770552689 .
See also
- Kurdish media
- List of Turkish newspapers
- List of Turkish media banned after the 2016 coup attempt
- Freedom of the press in Turkey
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georgius Terzis: European Media Governance: National and Regional Dimensions. P. 290
- ↑ a b Turkish media landscape under Erdoğan soft focus. Der Tagesspiegel , August 12, 2014, accessed on March 3, 2016 .
- ↑ Restricted freedom of the press in Turkey. In: DW online. Retrieved April 8, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/DE/Aussenpolitik/Laender/Laenderinfos/Tuerkei/Kultur-UndBildungspolitik_node.html
- ↑ Hakan Tanriverdi: Turkish Media and #Occupygezi: “The first to keep silent” . In: sueddeutsche .de . ISSN 0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on March 30, 2016]).
- ↑ a b Reporters Without Borders: Turkey. Retrieved March 19, 2016 .
- ^ Bayerischer Rundfunk: Internet censorship in Turkey: “A dictatorial intervention” | BR.de. In: www.br.de. February 6, 2014, archived from the original on April 1, 2016 .
- ↑ Ankara: Turkey increases censorship of the Internet . In: The time . ISSN 0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed on March 20, 2016]).
- ↑ Hasnain Kazim: New video leaks: Erdogan has YouTube blocked. In: Spiegel Online . March 27, 2014, accessed July 20, 2016 .
- ^ Frank Nordhausen: Freedom of the press in Turkey: Trial of journalists critical of the government begins . In: fr-online.de . ( fr.de [accessed on January 9, 2020]).