"The state of the media and democracy in Turkey faces critical challenges that hinder freedom of expression and pluralism, due to restrictive legal frameworks, economic instability, and cross-ownership in the media sector. Although digitalization has transformed news consumption, the government’s
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control over online platforms increases concerns about censorship and reinforces practices of self-censorship. Public trust in the media continues to decline, driven by perceptions of political influence and biased reporting. Similarly, democracy is plagued with issues, as global rankings point to decline in Turkish democracy, while concerns about judicial independence persist. While elections with high voter turnout do occur, this may only be interpreted as a pattern of practicing democracy rather than a sign of democratic strength. Urgent and comprehensive reforms are needed to ensure judicial independence, create a pluralistic media environment, increase transparency, and protect press freedom." (Executive summary)
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"Turkey’s network media economy witnessed substantial growth between 2019 and 2021, especially in the wireless, digital music, digital games, and internet advertising sectors. All told, revenue increased sharply over this period from TRY 65.7 billion to TRY 95.1 billion. This, in turn, was nearly
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a five-fold increase from 2011, when a previous iteration of this study put total revenue across the media economy at TRY 20.4 billion. At the same time, however, traditional content media such as broadcast radio and television, newspapers, magazines, and books experienced minimal growth. The growth in digital content media is the outcome of a number of factors, including but not limited to the increase in mobile device ownership and internet access as well as the shift towards consumption of online information and entertainment. In telecoms and internet access services, Turk Telekom, Turkcell, and Vodafone consolidated their dominance across wireline, wireless, and ISP sectors due to the wellknown forces that drive high levels of concentration within each of these industries—extremely high fixed costs of investment, economies of scale and scope, and network effects—as well as the absence of cross-ownership restrictions. In broadcast television and newspaper sectors, Kalyon and Demiroren, two major conglomerates known for their close ties with the AKP government, wield significant influence. In broadcast television, state-owned TRT maintained its status as one of the key players. Foreign companies secured substantial market shares in various sectors, such as Vodafone in wireline, wireless, and ISP sectors; beIN Media in multichannel video distribution, and CJ Group, UIP, and Warner Bros. in film exhibition. Tech giants Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft dominated core internet sectors." (Conclusion, pages 50-51)
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"The current legislation should include a direct expression of hate speech and expand the scope of hate speech in terms of person and subject as much as possible. The anti-discrimination state bodies should focus on protecting the human rights of the most vulnerable groups, broadening legal protecti
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on and eliminating the hierarchy between discrimination grounds. The Government should adopt codes of conduct prohibiting hate speech and the authorities should encourage political parties to do likewise. The parliament should change the procedure in the laws regarding the participation of NGO monitoring and countering the hate speech and disinformation in media in the proceedings to support the victims of hate speech and disinformation as Turkish law does not recognise the standing of NGOs to bring claims in support of victims of discrimination. In order to distinguish which institutions or individuals benefit from impunity for hate speech, a monitoring mechanism should be established to render the judiciary’s different interpretations of the boundaries between hate speech and freedom of expression visible." (Policy reommendations)
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