Media Capital and Ultra-Cross Media Ownership
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
18 Heinrich Böll Stiftung / Türkiye CAPITAL AND CAPITALISTS IN TURKEY Media capital and ultra-cross media ownership Gülseren Adaklı In Turkey, a dependent capitalist country, the stepping into other media. For instance, a media displays ownership and control patterns holding company dominant in the music different from those in other parts of the world. industry might invest in book publishing or cable TV industries with a view to compen- Across the world, large media outlets tend to pursue sate the cyclical slowdown in the former by profit just like companies in other industries, and proting from growth in the latter. Once a media production accounts for a large part of taboo, the wave of neoliberalism turned this 2 their growth strategies. In Turkey, this is not the into a legitimate aspiration. Ultra-cross media ownership is when a case. In Turkish capitalism, media investments are holding invests in the media as well as other “instrumentalized” towards ulterior goals such as industries. In general, Turkish media outlets securing investments in other sectors and gaining guarantee investments outside the media. Such holdings may capitalize on their power political clout. in the media to take part in public tenders, government incentives and allocations, and privatizations. is “new media architecture” has been In the wake of the capitalist crisis of the gaining momentum in Turkey and across the 1970’s, media investments gained momen- world since the 1980s. 3 Some claim that the tum and expanded in the 1980s and 1990s. 1 media should not serve the interests of the Media outlets, whose number dwindled, government or business, but that of the ge- followed expansion strategies which accele- neral public; the media should contribute to Gülseren Adaklı rated three main types of integration. an egalitarian and democratic social order. Born in 1966 in İskenderun, Horizontal ownership occurs when a cor- However, the new media architecture disre- Adaklı graduated from poration in a certain sector strives to control gards public good. e relationships of me- Gazi University’s Faculty of Communications in 1988. She target audiences and markets in di3erent dia companies with other industries make went on to work at the pro - subsectors with multiple products/compani- media outlets cautious about any content duction and news departments es. For instance, a corporation running a TV which might jeopardize such joint interests. of media outlets such as TRT, Hürriyet Production, THA and channel that appeals to the general public Power hubs (i.e., governments, bureaucracy, ATV. In 1995, she joined the may also set up a news channel or speciali- companies, and regulatory agencies) capi- Faculty of Communications zed newspapers with specic target groups. talize on their media power to gain prot or at Ankara University as a research assistant. Adaklı Vertical ownership is when a corporation political clout. submitted her master’s thesis tries to control the entire supply chain, from entitled Reality Shows in Turkey in 1998 and her PhD the procurement of raw materials or basic in- thesis Ownership and Control puts to the delivery of the end-product to the “Pro-AKP media”: Media outlets in Turkish Media Sector consumer. When a single company manages (1980-2003) in 2003. Since instrumentalized more than ever 2010, she has been giving to control the entire production process, a lectures at Ankara University strong tendency towards monopolization After the military coup in 1980, consecutive on media policies, the history appears in the sector. Motherland Party governments allowed ca- of communications, and politi - cal economy of the media and Cross-media ownership refers to streng- pital to enter the media sector and the integ- cul ture. thening control in a certain medium by ration of the latter into the banking and - Heinrich Böll Stiftung / Türkiye 19 31 Mayıs gecesi anaakım medya Gezi protestolarını vermektense “Penguen Belgeseli” yayınlayarak direnişi görmezden geldi. Penguenler Gezi eylemcilerinin simgesine dönüştü. nance industries. Under AKP rule, the media distribute oil in Iraqi Kurdistan. 9 How would These identical headlines are taken from pro-AKP industry has completely merged with manu- it be possible for this media boss to support newspapers on 7 June 2013, facturing and services, resulting in a media an editorial line critical of the government’s during Gezi Park Occupation. complex dependent on the government. Kurdish policy? e example of Mehmet "I would sacrifice my life for democratic demands". e media has become more instrumen- Emin Karamehmet will illustrate this, as will talized than ever before in Turkish history, that of Ferit Şahenk, owner of the Doğuş displaying not only political parallelism, 4 Group, which drew criticism for its coverage but also upholding the objectives of the AKP of the Gezi protests. government regardless of its own policies. 5 Oil investments of Genel Energy in Iraqi Accordingly, instead of the popular expres- Kurdistan. e company is a subsidiary of sion “biased media” (yandaş medya), I use Çukurova Holding, former owner of Show the term “pro-AKP media,” which denotes an TV and Akşam newspaper. ensemble of political, social and economic Ferit Şahenk, owner of the TV channel relations. e media owes its presence and NTV, was designated the richest man in clout to AKP, occasional conict with the Turkey in the Turkish edition of Forbes ma- government in the last ten years. 6 gazine in 2011. Şahenk also made it to the During the Gezi protests, pro-AKP media headline of the Zaman newspaper on April outlets’ headlines were almost identical to 26, 2009. 10 one another, as can be seen in these publica- e ways in which these media outlets tions of June 7, 2013. act are very similar. For instance, according Under AKP rule, certain media outlets to the Law No. 3684 concerning the Radio su3ered from economic repercussions, such and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), as hefty tax nes. Two cases are the tax pe- media companies were unable to participate nalty of TL 3.7 billion handed to the Doğan in public tenders. In 2001 the Doğan Group Group in 2010 7 and the economic hardships lobbied to allow media outlets to submit imposed upon Taraf newspaper for its criti- such tenders and to raise the limits on the cal stance. 8 foreign ownership of these outlets. Until the Pro-AKP media outlets, which became Law No. 6112 passed in March 2011, the le- signicantly visible from 2007 onwards, gislation was ambiguous and thus unreliable generate media content which serves go- in the eyes of investors – especially foreign vernment purposes. ey dene the terms companies. All media companies expended of political debate through news reports and immense e3orts to amend the law. Today debate programs, but their inuence extends business groups that own TVs, radios, etc., beyond this. For instance, the Çukurova can submit public tenders without any Group, which once controlled Akşam news- problem as a result of this joint political paper and Show TV, succeeded in producing campaign. Holding companies can step a new billionaire (Mehmet Sepil) in a single in and out of a critical industry such as year thanks to its subsidiary Genel Energy, the media without hurdles, because which was granted the right to extract and these “collaborative cartels” 11 have left 20 Heinrich Böll Stiftung / Türkiye Yıldırım, and the Prime Minister’s son Bilal Erdoğan urged the Cengiz-Limak-Kolin con- sortium to acquire not the media assets of Çukurova Group but those of Sabah-ATV. 14 When Umut Oran, an Istanbul MP from Republican People’s Party submitted a par- liamentary inquiry on this acquisition the, Presidency of Telecommunication and Com- munication demanded that the text of the inquiry be removed from the MP’s personal web site! aside their disagreements to support politi- Transfer of the media companies of Çuku- cal initiatives that pave the way for strategic rova Group: Obliged to abandon his banking investments in construction, contracting and investments in 2002, Mehmet Emin Kara- energy. erefore, it is necessary to investi- mehmet was left with Turkcell and Digitürk gate who operates these holding companies, as his most important companies. Media how they are enriched via public tenders, outlets such as Show TV, Skytürk and the Ak- what kind of networks they create, and the şam newspaper posted huge losses, and were role of the AKP government in this context. unable to pay employee salaries for months on end. On May 24, 2013, the Security Depo- sit Insurance Fund seized the Group’s media Prominent cases of ultra-cross companies, and almost immediately, Show media ownership TV was sold for a ludicrously low sum to Turgay Ciner, who enjoyed strong relations e handover of Sabah-ATV: e Sabah-ATV with the government. e other media out- handover sparked signicant debate. Estab- lets such as Akşam newspaper and Skytürk lished by Dinç Bilgin, Sabah-ATV was ac- channel 15 were rst bought by a consortium quired by Turgay Ciner in 2002 before being among the construction companies Cengiz- seized by TMSF (Security Deposit Insurance Limak-Kolin, which had also been awarded Fund) in 2007. In 2008, it was transferred to the public tender for the construction of the Bottom: The owner of NTV the pro-AKP Çalık Group almost like a gift third bridge over the Bosphorus. As soon as television Ferit Şahenk was listed number one in 2011 through a highly controversial payment met- the news of the acquisition became public, Forbes Wealthiest People hod. 12 In time, the Çalık Group came to su3er Limak’s owner Nihat Özdemir announced in Turkey. Şahenk was on the front page of Zaman huge losses but was saved from its demise by that they had cancelled their decision to buy newspaper on 26 April 2009.