Political economy of energy news in Turkish media

The media industry is structured in dynamic relationships with economic, political, social, and cultural systems. This unstable structure has a decisive effect on news reality. Within the thesis, it is aimed to examine the effect of the ownership structure of media companies integrated with the energy sector and political connections on news reality. This problem has been investigated through news analysis. Media ownership, which are among the news filters of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, dependence on official news sources, and the relationship of flak with news production are examined. In data analysis, John Thompson's operating modes of ideology, and within the framework of the politics of signification, Stuart Hall's fetishism and the analysis of the system of culturally established equivalences were applied. In the news analysis, Teun van Dijk's critical discourse analysis and some propositions of semiotics were used. The intertwined structure of energy and climate crisis policies has been accepted, and a paradigmatic change has been envisaged. As a concrete example of this paradigmatic change, Turkey ratified the Paris Climate Agreement in 2021. Within the research, policies aimed at protecting the ecological balance were evaluated in the context of social ecology. The ecological balance has considered in relation with social problems. In the research, in the context of media capital's investments in the field of energy and its relationship with energy policies, news about nuclear energy, Soma mine disaster, Yırca-Kolin thermic power plant, filter exemption for thermic power plant chimneys, renewable energy power plants: RES, JES, GES news, and in the context of the HES protests news about the death of Metin Lokumcu, and the ratification of the Paris Agreement were examined. The research findings showed that the presence of the media in the energy sector, its political relations and ideological determination have an impact on news reality. The findings have revealed the dialog structure of news plays an important role in the continuity of the reproduction of hegemonic powers. In the news, it has been observed that the reproduction of the system is intertwined with the ideological functionalization of cultural hegemony as well as economic determination. Keywords: Political Economy, News, Energy, Social Ecology