This paper was presented in the Alliance of Civilisations 2nd Forum in
İstanbul on the 7 th of April 2009. Working Session: ”Citizenship for the
Information Society”.
Turkey, a country which has not yet completed it’s process of
democratisation, is still far away from being a media literate society with the
slow advances taken for the development of it’s infrastructure, debates on
human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Media Environment
In Turkey
In particular popular TV has a very big
influence on the daily life of citizens in Turkey. According to a study by
UNESCO in 2005, Turkey is the second country in the world watching TV on an
average 3.5 hours per day. Turkey has directly passed to the audio-visual
culture without completing the transition process from the oral to the written
culture. As a result, the circulation of newspapers is quite low (4-4.5 million
per day) for a population of 75 million. Even though the population of the
country has doubled since 1960, this rate has stood still. Although more than
300 private TV stations (24 of them are nation-wide), more than 1000 private
radio stations and 700 newspapers exist, this does not signify that there is
pluralism within the media. There are mainly four big groups controlling the
mainstream media, which do not give any chance for local ones to survive.
Turkish media is over-dependent on technology and importation is required
to replace by investing on qualified human resources and
productivity.
With the rise of globalisation, the structure of media ownership in
Turkey changed under the pressure of new media technologies and commerce. The
traditional media owners totally disappeared from the sector. The new media
moguls have started to use their newspapers and TV channels for their own
benefits focusing on ‘power’ and ‘profit’. CEO’s of these corporations were
working for these moguls shared the same benefits since they mostly came from
the elite class. This metamorphosis
led to sensationalism, manipulation, disinformation and misinformation in the
news media, for the very best interest of the media conglomerates instead of
citizens’ interest.
Freedom of communication and press are guaranteed by the Turkish
Constitution. (Articles 22 and 28).These freedoms can only be restricted on the
grounds of; national security, public order, preventing crimes, public health
and public morals.Turkish
Criminal Code, Law No. 5237 provides; legal basis
for combatting illegal and harmful content on the Internet under the same
provisions with media and press. The definition of “by means of media and
press”also covers the Internet (Article 6/1-g).
Turkish Criminal Code prohibits; Child pornography (Article 226), Propaganda of terrorist
organizations(Article 220/8), Interception of communication (Article
132) and Prevention of communication (Article 124).
Internet Use In
Turkey
A protocol has been signed between Ministry of National Education
and Türk Telekom in order to block such contents of pornography, terror, drug
usage, weapons, gambling, violence, through a filter mechanism.
The Circular on Internet Ethics
(No.2004/61) issued by the Ministry of National Education supports widespread usage of Internet and new Technologies at
schools,emphasizes safer use of Internet, gives teachers and administrators
responsibility to take care about students to use Internet in a
safe and proper way,ıntroduces a guideline or “code of conduct on Internet” which
defines practical usage of Internet in a safe and useful way. Students
are informed about negative effects of pornographic contents by
their instructors.
The use of the
Internet in Turkey is stil in the infancy period.Only %8.66 of the households and %19.93 of individuals
have internet Access and it’s hard to say that Turkey has become an internet
society with 5 million PC users.Besides,the advances of Internet infrastructure
are very slow and Turkey hasn’t still established the legal background demanded
by Internet.
Some Comments On
the Usage of Appropriation of Internet Literacy Handbook in Turkey
Within the framework of studies carried out under the Council of
Europe, “The Internet Literacy Handbook” has been prepared by the Group of
Specialists on Human Rights in the Information Society.The Handbook has been
translated into Turkish and published(2000) by RTÜK(Supreme Board of Radio and
Television) experts and has been
sent to the
Council of Europe in order to be publicised in its official website.The
Handbook(900 of them) is being
distributed to five pilot schools by Ministry of National Education and it’s
being planned to be distributed to all the primary schools in 2007-2008
academic year. It’s a very useful guidebook for the students as well as for the
parents and teachers.Below are some suggestions on the internet literacy
handbook:
1-Since the booklet has been prepared
by the European Council all the the
links are in English and reflect
the international perspective of the
council. It is advisable that the links should be reviewed and analysed from the point of view of the local
perspective.
2-Points apearing in the ‘Best
Practices’ section should be enriched and adopted by specific applications which are valid to the country
in question.
3-Correlation must be established with
the human Rights element as this will allow
the children to comprehend the legal aspect of the subject. During the
course of the study special emphasis must be placed in simplifying the
complexities of legal language into a simple and easy to understand language ,
which will enable better comprehension of the children.
In
in 2006-2007 media literacy education started in five primary schools selected
arbitrary for testing purposes. Media Literacy in the school curriculum of
2007-2008 as an elective course at sixth, seventh and eight-grades only for
once in 35 thousands primary schools in Turkey.
At
this point, there are some questions to be asked:
1-
“Who will teach the media literacy courses?” The Ministry of Education assigned social
science teachers to give these courses. Since the primary schools’ social
sciences teachers have no background on subjects like main structures/
historical backgrounds of media, theories and effects of media and the methods
for reading a text in terms of semiotic analyses, rhetoric and other related
subjects which are the requirements for teaching media literacy, this project
has a high risk to turn into an unsuccessful one. In a very short time (3-4
days) of teachers’ training one can’t expect any efficient result.
2-In
we have 38 universities with Communication Faculties. I believe that each year
thousands of graduates from these faculties –most of them are jobless- are the
best candidates to teach media literacy.
3-The
curriculum was prepared with the aim to protect the children from the harmful
effects of the media which can result with the perception of children as “passive
objects” in stead of their participation in the course.
4-There
is a lack of consensus on the content of the course, RTÜK / Ministry and
Education must have opened a discussion platform among the media professionals,
citizens, academicians, as well as the parents before the implementation of the
course.
Media Watch Platform
Another significant media literacy
education attempt is a non-formal civil initiative in Turkey is Media Watch
Platform, inspired by Media Watch Global. With the initiatives of ILAD
(Communications Researchs Association) and TGC (Turkish Journalists’
Association) and universities, the Media Watch Platform has been established in
April 2007 with the participation of NGO’s, media scholars and journalists. The
Media Watch Platform aims to monitor all undesirable developments in daily
papers, radio and television stations, to ensure various topics covered in the
local and foreign news on the contents of culture, economy, social affairs and
politics that are not purposely distorted or partially covered and to take
action if necessary, to ensure that all violations are conveyed to the public
and to organise discussion panels on subjects which are considered to be highly
sensitive to the public.It’s also obvious that all these attempts must be
supported by “civic journalism” where the citizens are active and participative
in the production of the news.
To
conclude,
With an implementation of a successful
Media Literacy Project the New Generation of Turkish citizens will find the
chance to develop their critical thinking skills by achieving higher degree of
freedom and right to information.Participating
in democracy as active citizens rather than passive consumers will be the most
important outcome of media literacy in Turkey.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-Akyürek Z, “Media Literacy in Turkey”,Graduation -Thesis, University
of Yeditepe, School of Communications, 2006-2007.
-İnceoğlu Y, “International Media”, Der Publications, İstanbul, 2004.
-İnceoğlu Y-Çınarlı İ, A
Critical Analysis of Turkish media Landscape for a Better Media Literacy
Education, Media Literacy and Citizenship
Conference,Fudan University,China,7-9 December 2007 and also available at www.yasemininceoglu.com
-İnceoğlu Y-Çınarlı İ, “Why It is so critical to Democratisation
process in Turkey”, www. esocialsciences.com, 2006.
-İnceoğlu Y, “The Introduction
of Media Literacy Course in Turkey’s Curriculum”
(This paper was presented in the international meeting on Media Education held
in UNESCO,21-22 June 2007 in Paris and also was published in the Medienimpulse
September 2007/number 61).
-Usun S, “Educational Uses of Internet In the World and Turkey (A
Comparative Review), TOJDE, July 2003, ISSN 1302-6488, Volume:4 Number:3.
*Professor Dr. Yasemin İnceoğlu
Galatasaray
University/This paper was presented in Alliances Of Civilisations 2nd Forum in
İstanbul on the 7 th of April 2009, Working Session:”Citizenship for the
Information Society”.