Abstract

Contemporary media markets in Turkey can be described in terms of a number of salient features, including: 1) a very narrowly based but politically active press; 2) overwhelming dominance of commercial/tabloid television in the public arena; 3) media conglomerates with links in diverse sectors of the economy, most notably banking; and 4) political polarization in the public domain, with continuing struggles over media ownership and regulation. These salient features, particularly the first two, are remarkably similar to what Hallin and Mancini (2004) have delineated as the main characteristics of media systems in Southern Europe. However, as I will try to emphasize below, they have interacted with one another in historically specific ways within the wider context of political conflicts in Turkey, yielding a distinctive configuration.