Restructuration of radio and television broadcasting in Kazakhstan and problems encountered: A comparison with European Union and Turkey

The study consists of six chapters. In every chapter, we attempted to review the literature on the related subject, to reflect the ideas regarding practices and to justify our personal position. The first chapter of the thesis summarizes the history of Kazakhstan and Turkey, with respect to their political, legal and economical structures, and their place in international arena before proceeding to the analysis of media service providers. The second chapter mentions `the freedom of (speech) expression? and the restrictions of the freedom of expression is explained. The practices of Kazakhstan and Turkey differ at this point. The importance of the freedoms of thought and expression in the mass communication is stressed. In the third chapter, we briefly mentioned the definition and the history of radio and television. We mentioned the beginnings of television broadcasting throughout the world, the development of television broadcasting in Turkey and media regulations on visual and radio media, and studied the developments. The fourth chapter discusses the radio and television broadcasting in Kazakhstan that embraced the pluralism after the collapse of Soviet Union and the gaining of independence. In the fifth chapter entitled `Supervision in Radio and Television Broadcasting?, we defined the term `supervision? and discussed its pros and cons. We reviewed the supervision practices in Turkey on visual and radio media. When discussing the main theme of the study namely legal supervision on radio and television broadcasting in Kazakhstan, we began from the monopolist practice in the Soviet Union and proceeded to the supervision practices after pluralism embraced together with independence by comparison to Turkey. The sixth chapter, also the last chapter of the thesis, compares the radio and television broadcasting systems in Kazakhstan and Turkey. This chapter compares the Law 6112 of Turkey and the law 451-I of Kazakhstan starting from the definition parts and determining the differences and deficiencies in supervision system. Comparison includes the structure of regulatory supreme body (RTUK), the missions and competences, and sanctions on infractions. In conclusion, we proposed a supreme board for Kazakhstan where there is no regulatory and supervision body on radio and television broadcasting, and probed several solutions. Key Words: 1. The freedom of expression (speech), 2. Radio and television broadcasting in Turkey and Kazakhstan, 3. Supervision in radio and television broadcasting, 4. Radio and Television Supreme Board (RTÜK), 5. International media regulations.