Media and Politics in Modern Turkey

In the 1990s, Turkey’s media environment changed drastically when the national economy opened to the world. After years of a state monopoly on television and radio broadcasting, the Turkish government decided to open the country’s airwaves to private broadcasters. Since the 1990s and this transformation in the broadcasting regulation, technological development and economic change have resulted in major transformation of the mass media environment in Turkey. During this same era, the Turkish political sphere also underwent significant transformations, including the end of military rule in 1983, the rise of Islamist politicians in the 1990s, and the dawn of the AKP era in early 2000. The relationship between the media and political actors has long been a key point in understanding politics and power, yet the relationship between media organs and state or non-state actors can be difficult to determine. What is the relationship between the transformations in the media environment and political development in Turkey? This paper seeks to answer this question by exploring media-political relations in Turkey from the 1980s to the current day. The paper draws on archival sources and interviews conducted during thirteen months of field research in Turkey.