ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the importance of freedom of the media for democracy in general, and, in more detail, on structural characteristics of the media landscape and the status of media freedom in Turkey since Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP)'s rise to power in November 2002. It shows how the re-distribution of state-seized media assets and political and financial pressure changed the media ownership structure in favour of incumbents over the last decade and selective allocation of public ads and discriminatory policies of regulatory agencies worked to further change the equilibrium in favour of pro-government media. The chapter provides a brief outline of the historical development of the media sector in Turkey and discusses recent developments in the media ownership structure. It discusses the rise of press-party parallelism and the failure of the Turkish media to function as an effective public forum during the election campaigns.
