Media Groups and Their Market Shares in Turkey during Globalization

Resumo

The theorists of democracy have observed a fundamental contradiction between the idea that public media should function as a public sphere and the fact of private ownership. Thus, the
media proprietors can restrain the information flow by using their ownership rights. Nevertheless, as Wiener indicated, the organization level of a society depends on the amount of information in a system; entropy; on the other hand, is the measure of its deterioration. Therefore, information flow should be maintained. An increase in entropy denotes a regression in development. Regression or prevention of information in this sense produces negative affects on informing the public from  ethical point of view. Hence, the state constructs its own agenda by using the media. It is observed that the definitions and functions of journalism, newscasting, radio and television broadcasting are changing. In fact, although the media is supposed to monitor and control legislation, administration and jurisdiction in the name of the citizens in a society as the fourth power, today it has been the “power” of the media proprietors.

Being either national or international, while considering the media monopolies, now it has been quite normal to mention media moguls too. One of the primary  factors increasing the monopoly in the world media industry is the necessity for an enormous capital to invest in this relatively ludicrous sector. Such a necessity to access to the market, high costs in production and delivery, competition among the media companies, limitation in advertisement revenues, vertical and horizontal corporate amalgamations, wrong policies of governments and inflation
are the factors that increase  monopolization. Since the media products have a temporary nature, the time pressure exercised in production and distribution stages is the primary reason obliging media companies for vertical amalgamations. Paper production and the ownership of press companies or advertisement agencies are the examples for vertical amalgamations. Partnership in media-related related activities,  that is, the merger of the companies in the activity field is an example for horizontal amalgamation.

With the liberal economy policy exercised after the 1980s in Turkey, the free enterprise was granted a great opportunity and the media companies got involved a vicious competition like
the other companies. One of the negative effects that the conditions of free market have produced on the media is monopolization. In  the 1980s, media ownership passed out of the
hands of families in the press sector and the Turkish economy began to be controlled by the powerful states. The fundamental reason for that is to be able to use the press as a weapon for
their interests and to exercise lateral diversifications by using the power of the press. Therefore, the press companies that are not ludicrous by themselves, has become the press releases of the holdings by being amalgamated with them. In the 1990s; on the other hand, it was observed that the media owners turned their companies into industrial complexes. Along with different media enterprises, including newspapers, magazines as well as book, radio and TV companies and banks, such media companies somehow transformed into the holdings comprising several enterprises functioning in miscellaneous industries and services. Parallel to the introduction of incredibly new technology to the media sector, the scales have considerably got bigger. Through vertical and horizontal amalgamations, product variety has been introduced. In addition, marketing and delivery organizations have been reshaped. The struggle to get the biggest share in the advertisement profit has become violent. In this study, the market shares of the biggest media groups in Turkey, namely Dogan,  Merkez and Cukurova have been analysed. In  the same way, evaluating the other activity areas of these groups with respect to the limitations of the Turkish Press Law,  the role of the
media monopolies in the formation of the public sphere in Turkey through the globalization process will be determined.