Main Newspapers in Turkey

Main Newspapers in Turkey

To understand the media in Turkey first we must check out the media economy and the chronicle of how the newspapers grew up and how the owners changed, the policies, etc. in time. The first time of the Turkish Republic was established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1922. During the first time of the Turkish Republic, the media was assigned with making news stories about the Independence War in Turkey. There was a lot of pressure from the invading armies to the newspapers at that time so many of those newspapers had to run their work undercover.

After many years in Turkey, the media was still under pressure by the coup governments and legitimate governments that’s been chosen by-elections. Media and the newspapers had great power in Turkey. After 90’s because of the spread usage of the internet and technology in Turkey and Turkish media companies, so many newspapers had a hard time with the improvements and economy. Some of them got closed during the time because of cannot catch up to the current technologies. But still, there are so many (5.485) newspapers that are still active and running according to the data in 2019.

Name	Broadcast Frequency	Circulation	Publisher / Partner Company
Hürriyet	Daily	339.113	Demirören Holding
Posta	Daily	323.171	Demirören Holding
Sözcü Sabah	Daily Daily	312.622 312.287	Estetik Yayıncılık Ltd. Turkuvaz Medya Grubu
Habertürk	Daily	252.171	Ciner Medya Grubu
Türkiye	Daily	143.321	İhlas Medya Holding
Milliyet Yeni Şafak	Daily Daily	142.115 113.216	Demirören Grubu Albayrak Grubu
Takvim	Daily	109.919	Turkuvaz Medya Grubu
Güneş	Daily	106.755	Çukurova Medya Grubu
Akşam Doğruhaber	Daily Daily	105.890 30	Ethem Sancak Doğru medya
Star	Daily	104.220	Star Medya Grubu
Vatan	Daily	103.008	Demirören Grubu
Cumhuriyet Yeni Mesaj	Daily Daily	50.657 51.080	Cumhuriyet Vakfı

As you can see 

in the table above, there are some data gathered from open sources such as Wikipedia, which is not a very reliable source to gather information but still can be used. 

The information war between Turkish newspapers is growing up year by year because of the political conflict between the opposition and the current government party. Sadly, because of the extremist fanatics of political parties, the newspapers are also influenced by political ideologies and lost their reliability. In my opinion, there are no reliable sources around the Turkish newspapers, they lost their neutrality because of this situation inside the country.

How the Internet Affected the Turkish Newspaper Industry

One of the reasons for the rapid spread of internet journalism in Turkey the impact of the economic crisis on the media sector and as a result, nearly four thousand media members got unemployed. In the first years of technological devices arrived in Turkey for the media, the media agencies were not that powerful so many of them couldn’t handle the pressure with the economy. And also needs to be noticed that the newspapers were not associated with any holdings back in the days, so they didn’t had funds to continue their work. They also pushed to these big holding who’s holding the funds and power.

Basically, they had no other choice, otherwise they would have to shut down their businesses. First times of monopolizations in the sector and the acquisition of media companies by holdings didn’t get a good comments and reaction by the public so the newspapers who’s now in the hands of the holdings started to do pursued a policy of stealing the hearts of the people with campaigns and various coupons… it continued for a long time, even I can understand those when I was a kid.

Media Ownership and Holdings in Turkey

Table 1: Holdings and The Media Ownerships

Table 2: Holdings and The Media Ownerships

Media Structure in Turkey After 2000

With the liberal policies implemented in Turkey since the 1980s, the media sector needed much more capital compared to its previous periods. The media sector, which was relieved in terms of capital with January 24 and the privatization movements that came with it, was no longer run by journalist families because companies with large capital entered the media sector. By taking their first steps, they suddenly shined in this area. When we came to the 1990s, the press sector shifted from a craft-like mode of production to a 'factory-like' production process. When we came to the 2000s, the effect of digitalization had begun to be felt much more in the world, and there were serious changes in the ownership and capital structure in the media industry in Turkey. With the change in power, there were visible changes in ownership structures.

By 2003, the dominant groups in the Turkish media sector were: Doğan, Çukurova, Uzan, Sabah, İhlas. It is stated that as of 2006, three groups continue to dominate and/or claim growth in the Turkish media sector: Doğan, Ciner, Çukurova. (Adaklı,2006:358) In these processes, the transfer of companies of the Uzan Group, both in the media sector and in the media sector, was effective. With this event, the Uzan family lost a serious power that today Cem Uzan, who is from the Uzan family, resides abroad. In the period between 2000 and after 2000, experienced names in the media were transferred within the sector with high amounts of money.

Sources

     Gülseren ADAKLI – Türkiye’de Medya Endüstrisi: Neoliberalizm Çağında Mülkiyet ve Kontrol İlişkileri (Utopia Publisher, April 2006)

Ata Ahmet Kökçü

Emirhan Enşan