American Public University
Turkey has been experiencing a change in the governance in the last 12 years after the current Turkish government came on the power. The current government could continue its public support over ten years and the social classes the party on the power receives the support is around 45% of the entire voters. The closest opponent party receives around 30% of the entire votes. The opponent people to the current government find the opponent parties weak to represent the opponent voices in the Turkish Community.
The political situation explained above influences the media setting in Turkey. The media include the digital media and the conventional media. There are two main political approaches in Turkey, and there are two mainstream conventional media representing the side supporting government and the side opponent to the government. However, the social media are completely different media platform where the individuals can represent and express themselves more freely compared to the conventional media authors. The conventional press companies have a company political approach depending on the owner of the company; therefore, the journalists working for a press company have to follow the company strategies. Subsequently, many of the journalists working for these press companies are not freely writing. Contrarily, the individuals in the social media can express their thoughts and beliefs relatively more freely.
The Turkish government influences the conventional media and the social media through using different strategies because these are naturally separated media platforms. Turkey has a tradition of media censorship. In the 91 years history of Turkey, the governments have intervened the media organs, and the most important evidence for this is a state-owned television and radio organization TRT. TRT has always served the governments. Also, the Turkish Republic history provides us many examples of censoring on the Turkish press.
There are two governmental organizations that determine the suitability of the programs, the news, and the articles on televisions, radios, newspapers, and journals. Determining whether a program or an article is suitable or not is further than a technical issue, and more it is a political issue. The issues those the government is relative more sensitive determines the principles for the suitability in general. Thus, we observe the generalization of the censorship to the national level. However, that does not mean that the government intervenes the conventional media every day, but it means that the government has the institutional structure to control the media.
The government is relatively harsher against the people on the social media. Some people started the Gezi movement in 2013, and that was a strike against the government based on the social media. The individuals have organized the strike on the social media, and the Turkish government has learned about the strength of the social media. The Gezi strikers have used the social media tools very efficiently and informed the whole world what was happening in Turkey. Even we have observed that some simple actions taken by the Turkish government during the Gezi strike has been exaggerated through the social media interactions.
The Turkish government has realized the power of the social media and new legal regulations have been amended by the government. The legal regulations enable the government and the political actors to sue the people on the social media writing against the government or the political actors. Consequently, the conventional media and the social media are under control in Turkey. However, some people support this control over the media while the others are against it.
References
Democratic Progress Institution. (2014). DPI Roundtable Meeting: The Relationship
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Öncü, A. (2014). Turkish Capitalist Modernity and the Gezi Revolt. Journal of Historical
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Time Keeper. (2013, April 6). Not So Free; the Press in Turkey. The Economist.
Time Keeper. (2011, March 12). A dangerous place to be a journalist; Press freedom in
Turkey.(Concerns over press freedom in Turkey)(the arrests of journalists Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik). The Economist.
