Informal Application of Islamic Rules in Turkey: The Imposition by RTÜK of Islamic Ethics on Television Broadcasting

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article studies Islamisation in Turkey by analysing some performances of the Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTÜK), the state agency with the duty of licensing and supervising the various media organizations. As the article demonstrates, Islamisation at RTÜK occurs with its informal incorporation of Islamic ethical principles in its professional decisions. This instance of Islamisation is significant, for it operates informally by engaging Islamic rules directly. RTÜK demonstrates neatly how a state agency can reference Islamic principles in the very act of justifying the rationale of its official decisions about the content of the media organ under its review. It is with such analyses that this article aims to propose a more rigorous conceptualisation and explanation of Islamisation in Turkey than the ones commonly available in the literature: It provides an in-depth analysis of Islamisation in the news media, a field that Islamist political actors know full well to be strategic in the transformation of a society; and by demonstrating that Islamisation endeavours in Turkey are not confined to the obvious organs of propagandisation like the news media, but they penetrate informally also the supposedly neutral statutory rules and regulations.