Tabloidization of Turkish news

174 ABSTRACT This article is called "Tabloidization of Television News " and it comprises of three sections. In the first section, historical development process of news is described and the concept of news, which is the core of this study, has been elaborated. Next, basic criteria for news preparation have been discussed. Building on these basic criteria, the properties of television journalism are examined. A distinction has been made between television and newspaper journalism in the first section. In addition to that, presentation of reality in television news has been examined. The subject has also been discussed within the theoretical framework of communication studies, namely within liberal pluralist approach and critical approach. In the second section of the article, in order to understand the fact of tabloidization of television news in an integrated manner, the basic relationship which has a crucial effect on this fact has been analyzed. After presenting the relationship between the jargon of television journalism and the discourse of tabloid journalism, gradual domination of tabloid journalism's language in television news has been introduced as a proposition. Moreover, the introduction of tabloid journalism to the television world through the process of its development has been described. Also, the tabloidization process of television news has been discussed via critical approach. In the final section of the article, the emergence of television in Turkey, its development through the years, emergence of private television stations at a later stage and changing face of television journalism due to this new fact have been described. Especially after private television stations' entrance to broadcasting, public broadcasting in general has been forced to a retreat and thus commercialization of broadcasting has affected television news adversly.175 Private television companies in pursuit of their commercial goals have transformed the underlying aim of the television news from simply informing public into informing and entertaining. In order to test this general proposition, a content analysis of main news bulletins of Kanal D, ATV, Show TV and NTV, which are among the privately owned television companies broadcasting in Turkey, has been conducted. Random sampling procedure has been used as the selection method of the news bulletins for a period of ten days. The data of the content analysis supported the hypotheses. According to these findings, the news channels, by using traditional news gathering methods and by covering important public issues, largely fulfill their information providing functions. However, other commercial channels mostly tabloidize the news and thus abondon their social responsibilities. ^^