Journalism in Antalya: Local and Global Perspectives, International Conference in Social Sciences ICSS 2010, 8-9 Ekim 2010, Kuşadası

Journalism in Antalya: Local and Global Perspectives Assist. Prof. Dr. Fatih Bayram Akdeniz University, Faculty of Communication Prof. Dr. Ümit Atabek Yaşar University, Faculty of Communication

Abstract This paper investigates the professional profile of local journalists in Antalya. Local journalists are very important agents of social change, which has obvious local and global issues. Although Antalya is regarded as the cosmopolitan capital of Turkish tourism, current standing of local media environment is not satisfactory. There are more than 20 local newspapers in Antalya, but total circulation is very low and newspapers are noticeably dependent on official advertisements. This dependency predictably results in the insufficiency of public criticism on local political affairs. Local advertisers on the other hand are hesitant to utilize the possible potentials of Antalya media. This creates the continual lack of finance for most media enterprises. All these negative circumstances are more gravely evident in a global touristic hotspot. A questioner, applied to 100 Antalya local journalists reveals the basic characteristics of local journalists in Antalya. Additionally, 20 local media-related people are interviewed on Antalya media. This paper presents the findings from these data. It is found that the local media problems in a global cosmopolitan city are not much different than other cities in Turkey. Furthermore, we can argue that local media problems are not merely local, most of these problems are closely related to global media problems. Therefore, local media problems require global political economy perspectives for further analysis. Literature Journalism is no exception for being effected substantially from globalization. As the communication technologies being the most important component of globalization, all communication related businesses and professions have radically been changed through unprecedented global impacts. As Servaes (2009) incisively puts forward “we are all journalists now” in this new era, and professional organizations and educators must face this challenge inevitably. Local journalism witnessed many changes in last decades and the term “glocal journalism” draws our attention to these changes. It is agreed that concepts, “globalization” and “glocalization” are introduced to the literature by Robertson (1992 and 1995). Glocal media can simply be defined as local productions done with global forms and ideas (Straubhaar and LaRose, 1999). This paper tries to identify global forms and ideas effecting local journalism. Method A questionnaire is applied to 100 members of Antalya Association of Journalists (AGC). Additionally deep interviews are realized by 20 local media-related persons in Antalya media sphere in 2009. Antalya Association of Journalists was particularly helpful in reaching to its

members through Antalya Press Academy1. Antalya Journalists Association is a professional organization with 300 members and comprises most of the journalists in Antalya. Findings As stated in our previous paper (Bayram and Atabek, 2009) in detail, most of the journalists are male (74 %), this figure complies with findings in the literature on Turkish Journalists (see for instance Öke, 1994 and Altun, 1995). However, as the number of female students in faculties of communication in Turkey increases, the ratio is rapidly improving for a better balance for gender equality. On the other hand, most of the female journalist (64%) is young journalist possibly indicating that they tend to leave the profession earlier then men because of their traditional roles in Turkish society (mean age of men journalists is 35,30 and while mean age of female journalists is 32,83). However this needs further investigating. Number of years at work is another indicator of gender imbalance. Only 7 % of female journalists have longer than 20 years of total work while percentage of men over 20 years of work is 15 % which is more than double of female journalists. However, it should be noted that mean of total work years is as low as 12 years for all local journalist. This is quite short in comparison with several other professions. Furthermore, the average years in present work is as low as 5 years. This can be interpreted as a negative impact of globalization on media workers; transformation of journalism into an unstable profession.

In relation with this, we also observed that percentage of journalists working under Law number 212 is very low (44 %)2. Most of the journalists work under general work law or even work unregistered. Another study revealed that only 7 % of local journalist is members of trade unions (Çiçek and Atabek, 2008). All these findings point to the apparent negative impacts of globalizations on labor conditions in general and media labor in particular. Local journalist could not escape from these negative trends while professional associations and unions are somehow helpless.

It is also found that local journalists are working in quite small enterprises. Average number of persons working in local media organizations is 19 while most of them has only 9 workers (mode is 9). This is not unexpected. However, some of the interviewees said that number of 1

Antalya Press Academy is an educational project of Antalya Association of Journalists in collaboration with Faculty of Communication, Akdeniz University, Antalya. 2 It is obvious that this figure is even lower among journalist who are not member of Antalya Journalists Association).

workers decreased during the recent crises. Temizel, Bayram and Yilmaz (2009) investigated the effects of recent global crisis on Turkish media and revealed that even the largest Turkish media group could not escape the crisis. These negative effects resulted in the loss of advertising revenues and eventually many workers lost their jobs. However, the job cuts are not as high as previous 2001 crisis in which thousands of Turkish journalists had lost their jobs. This may be due to the 2009 local elections, which provided some kind of a kiss of life. Some of the interviewees also admitted the role of local elections as postponing the effects of the crisis on local media. Immediately after the local elections, it is observed that loss of jobs has increased particularly.

Finally, advertising is of another glocal issue for local media in general and local journalism in particular. We found that only 30 % of journalists (those who strongly agree and agree) believe that Antalya local media receives sufficient advertisement form local advertisers (while 56,7 % disagree or strongly disagree). The total amount of advertising spending in Antalya is expected to be around 10-15 m. USD. This is quite low in comparison to 3 b. USD in Turkey (2007). However this is not a particular situation for Antalya local media. Global media conglomerates usually receive bigger advertising shares. Doğan group alone for instance, receives more than 60 % of all print advertisement share in Turkey (Cristensen, 2007). Advertising is a vital source of finance for local newspapers. It is obvious that small support from official advertising through BİK3 is not enough for healing weak financial structure of local news papers.

Globalization has also some positive effects on Antalya journalists. Among them, the international professional relations take the first place. Antalya Journalists Association has many international professional contacts and bilateral agreements. Possibility to work for foreign media may be considered as another positive impact of globalizations. Several journalists act as contracted correspondents of foreign media in Antalya or they service their news on certain occasions. Antalya’s globally renowned reputation is obviously an important factor on these impacts. Therefore these privileges may not be possible for many local journalists in other parts of Turkey. However it is clear that globalization facilitates such international possibilities in different degrees.

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Basın Ilan Kurumu: Press Advertising Organization for official advertisements.

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Conclusion

Local journalists are not able to avoid the negative impacts of globalization on their professions. Our study revealed that Antalya journalists are no exception. The local journalists profile is not much different from national or even from global levels in terms of problems. Journalists, their professional organizations and educators too must face these challenges. The solution for all these negative impacts requires more professional solidarity merged with new political perspectives.

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