Türkçe Haber Siteleri ve Türkiye'de İnternet Gazeteciliğinin Gelişimini Sınırlayan Faktörler

Abstract

As a new global communication and publication medium, the Internet has become the major actor of the 'information society' scenarios which had been advanced since the 1980s. It has been acknowledged that the Internet is a technology which can solve the prevailing troubles in modern societies. It is true that the Internet has unique features which can transform social relations. When considered from the point of view of journalism, the most important form of public communication, the Internet has a special potential to make the news production and distribution processes more democratic, participatory, pluralist and free. However, the realization of this potential necessitates a political context as well as certain social, economic and cultural conditions. In short, the role and the potential that have been attributed to the Internet in the discourse of 'information society' must be scrutinized by national or micro case studies. This study examines, in the case of Turkey, how much the Internet journalism in its present state is capable of activating potential power of this medium. It investigates various Internet journalism applications including primarily those news sites which operate independently of the traditional media. Based on its findings on the institutional and economic structures, news production and news sources of online news sites it also discusses the factors that impede the development of the Internet journalism in Turkey. A series of different research methods have been implemented in order to gather the data used in the study. In-depth interviews conducted with the managers of the news sites are supported with a questionnaire executed with the Internet journalists and with a number of participatory observations carried out in the offices of the news sites. Moreover web pages of the news sites and other secondary sources are also examined.