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Özyaşar, Ferzan (2013) Press freedom, violence and the role of the media in Turkey: case studies. Masters thesis, London Metropolitan University.
Between the election of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) as the ruling party in 2002 and the beginning of the Ergenekon trials in 2008, both the army and the media made significant efforts to influence media coverage. This research examines the army-government-media interdependency and how it diminished editorial freedom. The historical analysis of the dichotomy between Kemalism and Islamism explains why the army and the government increased their media influence. Domination of the Turkish media sector by conglomerates, owning non-media enterprises, is also analysed in a historical context. This analysis explains how the conglomerates' reliance on governmental legislation damaged the editorial freedom of their own media institutions. The effects of the changing nature of Turkish journalism in this corporate era is further discussed by focusing on job security, removal of small publishers, the increasing number and influence of columnists, and the editorial policy of the Turkish public broadcaster, TRT. The assassination of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink on 19 January 2007 and raid of the Aktütün Gendarmerie station by the PKK on 3 October 2008 are analysed as case studies. These cases carry symbolic importance for Kemalism and 'the Kurdish problem', two issues used by the Turkish army to justify its political interference. These case studies show that conglomerates' relationships with the government results in political bias in corporate media coverage. To keep their military accreditation, corporate media also consider the army's political position. The editorial freedom of Turkish media institutions was damaged by the army's media influence, the corporate ownership and the legislation by the conservative Islamist government. This dissertation modestly contributes to the under-researched area of Turkish army-government-media relationships and their long term effect on Turkish editorial freedom.
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