Critical Policy Analysis and Legal Interpretivism On Freedom of Expression and Media Freedom in Contemporary Turkey

Sammanfattning: New media policy and regulations have become a democratization problem especially in most of the developing countries. By the time new ICT developments bring more new media channels on a wider spectrum, the states policies are struggling between the implementation of the democratic tools evenly and protecting their own authoritarian state. Turkey has been governed by an authoritarian state for ten years, coming along with the years, the media policies and the regulations have been threatening media freedom and freedom of expression intensively around the country. There emerged a regulation problem, which is a major outcome of treating new media tools the same as traditional media channels. Since the state owes its success mostly to its media propaganda, the stabilization of current state power has been managed by the restrictions over media freedom, which results in a great danger of violating human rights in the country. The media has been imposed by the main dominant political ideology, which is the combination of conservative values, patriarchal mentality and the authoritarian system. The media coming along with many features has protected the ultimate state power in Turkey. The media power in the country has become an intense ideology supporter, which has been accomplished by media regulator bodies, media monopoly owners, and press independency over political conservative attachments. The analysis presented in this thesis consists of many cases in relation to the media and state relationship; which has recently experienced an uprising in Turkey, revealing the struggle between the power structures due to those recent media developments over ideal, ethical, political and cultural polarization across the country.