News production in the context of journalists' class consciousness who work in alternative media

This study consists of three parts. The view of social classes was addressed in the first part of the study. It has been presented on the axis of examples in Turkey and the world that the concept of class maintains its currency rather than losing its importance. Next, how the concept of class was handled by Marxism and approaches that derived from Marxism was examined, processes of subjective class formation was discussed detailed, certain factors which may interrupt this process was included. The chapter come to an end with the examination of class structures which is changing-transformig in 21st century. New media concept was handled the second part of the study. Certain things that opened the door to the development process of the alternative media were discuused. Lastly the efforts which create conceptual framework for alternative media were analyzed. In the third part five establishment that suit conceptual framework of altenative media was identified, in these establishments depth interviews was carried out with twenty journalists which are different ages and positions. Interview questions was prepared with materialist historical perspective, in order to understand a diffucult phenomenon such as class consciousness, various subjective elements such as class identity, class interests and common cultural practices were included to whether alternative media is a suitable environment for class-oriented news production. The analyses of the depth interview records was made with depth hermeneutic thus the role of the meaning in current power relations was revealed. It has been seen that the class phenomenon is not an effective factor in determining the identities of the journalists, it has been determined that journalists cannot create a common class culture and they develop an economic corporate consciousness rather than a hegemonic-inclusive class consciousness. In this context, it was seen that the relationship between the class consiousness of journalists and their news production is quite low and it was determined that journalists do not tend to make class-based news. This situation mainly due to adoption of the journalists' mainstream liberal journalism principles. Making class based news and reflect class consciousness in the news can not receive favorably to damage principles of the "freedom" and "truth". Class can only be the subject of news for certain reasons (such as workplace deaths, strikes, dismissals). In this way it was seen that alternative media journalists do not tend to reflect their class consciousness in their news, it was understood that adopting ethical principles such as "fredom" and "truth" serves to re-establish existing power relations.