ABSTRACT
The rapid development of new communication technologies is often cited as a key dimension of contemporary globalisation phenomena. It is especially their potential to circulate information and intensify communication across state borders that has been stressed within this context, and this seems to be particularly relevant for migrant populations. However, technological change has also transformed the conditions for electronic broadcasting on local and national levels in nation-states such as Turkey and Germany. Beyond satellite television imports that have become available to Turkish migrants all over Western Europe, there exists in Germany and particularly in Berlin a vibrant landscape of Turkish-language radio and television programmes produced locally. A part of this programming, such as for example the Turkish-language programme on Berlin's Radio MultiKulti, owes its existence to the older, so-called 'guestworker programmes' that were produced by public-service broadcasting corporations in Germany from the 1970s onwards (Kosnick, 2000). Another part, however, has come into being through the initiative of migrants themselves, in the domains of private, commercial and open-access broadcasting. Today, Berlin also has its own 24-hour Turkish radio station, a 24hour Turkish television channel, several small commercial Turkish television projects broadcasting a few hours per week, and a host of Turkish-language programmes on Berlin's open-access television channel, the Offener Kanal Berlin (OKB). Much of this programming could not exist without the political support of Berlin's federal state parliament or crucial institutions such as the state media council for Berlin and the adjoining state of Brandenburg (Landesmedienanstalf). The reasons given for this support tend to centre on one major theme, that is, the local dimension of these Turkish-language broadcasting projects, as distinct from the satellite imports that are available to migrants from Turkey. Locally produced Turkish programming is expected to discuss the local dimensions of migrant life, thereby tying people closer to their place or country of residence. Satellite imports, on the other hand, are seen as an obstacle to integration, since programmes from Turkey have little to say on life in Germany, or tend to convey a rather negative image (Becker, 1998 and 2001; Greiff, 1995; Heinemann and Kam^ili, 2000).
