TURKISH STUDIES, cilt.11, sa.4, ss.521-537, 2010 (SSCI)
This article sets out to examine the linkages between the media and politics in Turkey. It argues that, rooted in the world of politics from the outset, Turkish media has always been marked by a high degree of political parallelism. As regulator and funder, the state, making up the political majority, exerted strong control over the media. In the 1990s, the shift to a globalized market and the explosive growth of private broadcasting did not decrease the high degree of political parallelism. Instead, it enabled media owners to use their media properties to intervene in political decisions that have a central role in capital accumulation. Today, deeply divided into two camps, media is the principal locus of bitter political strife.