Authoritarian Turn or Continuity? Governance of Media through Capture and Discipline in the AKP Era.

Since coming to power in 2002, AKP has exerted a range of legal and financial pressures on critical media organisations and professionals, including acts of direct intervention. While the growing literature on Turkey’s media system has explored the influence of political and economic pressures on media freedoms, recent developments necessitate a re-examination that tackles the upsurge of direct government intervention in the country’s commercial media landscape. Through the framework of media capture, this article analyses the disciplinary strategies deployed by AKP and argues that the party’s media capture at recent political junctures (Gezi protests, corruption scandal, coup attempt) is continuous with its past policies and practices and does not necessarily represent an ‘authoritarian turn’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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