Media in Contemporary Turkey

Abstract

It is a reality that media play very substantial role in the production and social distribution of knowledge. İn addition to that, mass media provides the greatest communication opportunities to the people. Also, contemporary media provides very distinctive weapons to obtain power, wealth and prestige in the society.

This study aims to analyse contemporary Turkish media. Turkey is one of the most rapidly developing and urbanising countries in the world. Parallel to this rapid development and urbanisation, Turkey has lived through a very important media revolution through out the 1990s. Several international and hundreds of local and national television channels, and more than a thousand radio stations have been broadcasting in contemporary Turkey.

As in some other countries, the media are predominantly owned and controlled either by large business groups or the state who dominate economic and political power in Turkey. The Turkish media are financially dependent not only on the state but also on the private entrepreneurs who are the owners of  large scale capital