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Satellite Television and its Discontents: Reflections onthe Experiences of Turkish-Australian LivesGokcen Karanfil

Online Publication Date: 01 March 2007To cite this Article: Karanfil, Gokcen (2007) 'Satellite Television and its Discontents:Reflections on the Experiences of Turkish-Australian Lives', Continuum, 21:1, 59 -69To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/10304310601103968URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304310601103968

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Satellite Television and its Discontents:Reflections on the Experiencesof Turkish-Australian LivesGokcen Karanfil

Homelessness is coming to be the destiny of the world. (Martin Heidegger, 1947.In Basic Writings, 2003)

Introduction: a Unique Migration Experience with its Commonalities

Compared to the centuries of migratory flows experienced around the world, the

history of Turkish migration is quite a short one. It began with the turn of the 1960s,when Turkey opened a chapter of its own in the annals of international migration, andhundreds of thousands of Turks started going abroad, particularly to West Germany,

to sell their labour power mainly under the so-called guest-worker scheme. Of thesenumbers, ‘only a small proportion (estimated 1 per cent) migrated to Australia’

(Icduygu, 1990, p. iv) in the late 1960s and early 1970s but, as this essay will show, withsignificant consequences for the diasporic experience.

Substantial Turkish migration to Australia occurred between 1968 and 1974 whenthe movement was largely through an assisted migration programme based on the

1967 migration agreement between the Australian and Turkish governments. Aftertermination of the agreement in 1974 the migratory flow from Turkey slowed, and it

took the form of chain migration and family reunion.Despite being a small proportion of the worldwide Turkish diaspora, I believe they

provide a unique opportunity for the study of the migratory process by a resourceful

group of people. Its uniqueness is derived from matters that are profoundly influentialto the migratory experience. Firstly, unlike the spatial proximity of Europe, there is the

issue of geographic distance, which renders it unfeasible for the migrants to make

ISSN 1030-4312 (print)/ISSN 1469-3666 (online)/07/010059-11 q 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/10304310601103968

Gokcen Karanfil is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Cross-cultural Research at Australian National University.

His PhD research has been focused on identity construction and negotiation of the Turkish diaspora in Australia

and their media use. Gokcen’s broader research interests range across transnationalism, nationalism, diaspora

studies, media studies and identity politics. Correspondence to: Gokcen Karanfil, Centre for Cross-cultural

Research, W.E.H. Stanner Building 037, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. E-mail:

gokcen.karanfil@anu.edu.au

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Vol. 21, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 59–69

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frequent return visits to their homeland. Then there is the socio-historical difference ofAustralia in terms of international migration. With its multicultural policies from

above and its diverse society from below, as a host land it offers a quite different andmuch more accommodative cultural space in respect to the European countries. And

finally, I believe the smallness of the Turkish population in Australia itself proves to beanother major aspect that makes the migratory dynamics amongst Turks in Australia

considerably unique as regards their counterparts in Europe.I highlight these nuances concerning the Turkish diaspora inAustralia at this very early

stage in this article, as they will be important later on for accentuating my argumentsfurther. But for now I want to tease out some commonalities that Turkish migration toAustralia holds with many migratory flows around the world, paradoxically, to

complement the concerns that I will raise with regards to its uniqueness that I havementioned above.

It is easy to make a list of statistical differences showing striking contrasts betweenTurkey and Australia as regards the two countries’ economic, political and social

contexts. Even merely recognizing the particular migratory movement at hand beingfrom a developing country in the north, such as Turkey, to the most developed country

of the south, Australia, sheds some light on the contrast that the migrant walks into.This gap is even more striking in the two societies’ cultures: i.e. in language, religion,folkways, morals, and customs. For the Turkish migrants it has not been easy to

engage, in the dynamic interplay of all these differences, just as it has not been easy forany other migrant population around the world. Becoming international migrants has

meant uprooting themselves from their old established past and confronting anunknown new future in an entirely different environment. As Mandy Thomas puts it

so well, ‘a home left behind is never completely forgotten or abandoned, as elements ofthe past continue to be remembered and experienced in new lands, in times and places

far away’ (Thomas, 1999, p. xii). The case has not been different for the Turkishpopulations moving to Australia. Handling the contrasting features of their past and

the future has been an extremely challenging task, as is common with all migrationstories.

Life in Diaspora: Attachment/Detachment and the Mythical Homeland

According to Stuart Hall, identity for diasporic groups is not fixed or permanent:

‘Identity becomes a “moveable feast”; formed and transformed continuously inrelation to the ways we are represented or addressed’ (Hall, 1996, p. 277). This

certainly fits the Turkish migrant in Australia. Neither Turk nor Australian, they fallsomewhere in the middle and move back and forth between both cultures, all the whilecreating a new place for themselves. For instance, when asked whether he felt like a

Turk or an Australian, one respondent replied:

I am neither trying to live like a Turk in Australia nor like an Australian in Australia.I am trying to live in Australia like a person with Turkish origins. I am trying tojuggle both cultures and both ways of life. I neither want to jettison my Turkish

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heritage nor to isolate myself from the Australian way of life because of my Turkish-ness. (Serkan, 27, migrated in 1992 at the age of 15)

When living a life in limbo, full of ambiguities, connection to a familiar realm becomesof utmost importance in a migrant’s life. Diasporic groups, who feel a need to preserve

and reproduce their identity in a place away from the one they might consider home,seem to be tempted to turn to the mass media where they search for their reflections,

even for small signs and messages that make them feel at home. And again the case isthat usually these minority ethnic groups feel that the mainstream media do not meet

their needs. It is at this stage, I believe, that they start looking for alternatives, be itcommunity newspapers, local radio broadcasts, video shops or satellite television.

For the Turkish diaspora in Australia, up until about five years ago, this sense of

connectedness was, on the one hand, reproduced and kept alive, and, on the other,tried to be satisfied through various practices such as ‘Turkifying’ the spaces within

which they lived, circulating local community papers, reading Turkish dailies fromtime to time, consuming Turkish cultural products and participating heavily in a video

culture. Even though these cultural practices were essential in proliferating Anderson’ssense of ‘imagined community’ (1991) and establishing ties with the homeland, none

of them were particularly efficient in synchronizing the diaspora with the ongoingchanges in the homeland. In other words, the connection had been established andreproduced but only with the Turkey of the 1970s rather than a constantly changing

Turkey. For instance, when interviewed one respondent said:

I think here Turks are usually stuck in the times that they left Turkey. Or even worse,for instance they come here in the 80s and try to live like they’re in the 60s. Forinstance I could not take someone’s daughter (a Turkish family’s daughter) to a cafeor a bar, maybe it is my misperception but there is so much gossip and you end upgetting in trouble if you do that. (Erinc, 24, born in Australia)

In not being able to experience and follow the changes taking place in the homeland,

the migrant builds an imaginary portrait of it and clings to that image no matter howirrelevant it may be to the actual socio-historical conditions of the homeland whichare continuously undergoing a process of change. Morley and Robins, in their work

‘No place like Heimat’ (1993), make the following comments:

Heimat is a mythical bond rooted in a lost past, a past that has already disintegrated:we yearn to grasp it, but it is baseless and elusive; we look back for something solidto lean on, only to find ourselves embracing ghosts. (1993, pp. 7–8)

What Morley and Robins are suggesting above has indeed been the case for the Turkish

diaspora in Australia up until the very end of the 1990s. I say up until the end of the 1990sbecause, for these people, the turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed a new mode

andmeansof connectionwith the homeland,which I believe hasbeenhighly influential inproviding for their transition into what Nina Glick Schiller and her colleagues refer to as

‘transnational communities’ (Basch et al., 1994). For the last five years the televisions inthe homes of the Turkish diaspora all across Australia have been dominated by satellite

channels broadcasting fromhomelandTurkey. This has been anutterly newphenomenon

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and, as Aksoy and Robins articulate, for the Turkish speaking-populations in Europe ‘hashadvery significant implications forhowmigrants experience their lives, and for how they

think and feel about their experiences’ (2003, p. 89).It is these implications and the impact that this new phenomenon has had on the

identity formations of the Turkish migrants in Australia that I wish to attend to in thisarticle. However, I feel it is important, first, briefly to elaborate on some changes that

the Turkish broadcasting environment—and in relation to this Turkish society—hasexperienced within the last decade and a half. There are two reasons why I believe

tracking these changes is a worthwhile task for the concerns of this study. Firstly,because these developments in Turkish cultural life, along with the transition withinthe Turkish broadcasting environment, which Sevda Alankus Kural has referred to as

‘mass media disorder’ (1994), have had profound effects on the contemporary Turkishsociety. And, secondly, because as Aksoy and Robins so bluntly put it: ‘these are the

channels Turks in Europe’ and in Australia ‘now watch’ (2000, p. 354). Rather thanmerely declaring that the Turkish migrants around the world are now watching

Turkish television, I believe it is crucial to deliberately scrutinize what this Turkishtelevision actually is, and/or how Turkish this Turkish television really is.

Changing Times in Turkey: Diversity within a Nation

Neil Postman suggests that ‘the media of communication available to a culture are adominant influence on the formation of the culture’s intellectual and social pre-

occupations’ (Postman, 1987, p. 9). Prior to 1990s the broadcasting arena in Turkeywas state dominated through the monopoly of TRT,1 the only television channelbroadcasting in Turkey. According to Kırık, ‘TRT had committed itself to a mission

whichmightbe referred toasnation-building and/or citizen-forming’ (Kırık, 1999, p. 87).It followed a broadcasting tradition that has always been elitist and paternalist,

designing programmes with regards to what the state elite believed the public needed.2

According to Aksoy and Robins, TRT’s intention was to forge ‘a cultural industry that

would work to create a Turkish cultural identity in conformity with the elite’s modernand now “official” image’ (1997, p. 1944).

The acceptance and legalization of private televisions and the emergence of satellitedishes and uncountable foreign channels in Turkey have undoubtedly played a role inpushing Turkey towards globalization. Globalization in Turkey has increased the range

of sources and resources available for identity construction, allowing for theformulation of hybrid identities in the context of a post-traditional global society.

The privatization of broadcasting in Turkey started with the launch of a privateTurkish channel established in Germany (Magic Box), which was very rapidly followed

by others.3 The ‘squatters’ almost overnight invaded Turkey’s broadcasting spectrum(Aksoy & Robins, 1993). There are currently more than 50 privately owned television

channels broadcasting in Turkey locally and nationally. Most of these channels areestablished and owned by some of the major Turkish financial and industrial groups

and are motivated by profit. However, some of these channels are religiously oriented

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and pro-Islamic in nature and are not motivated simply by commercial logic—although this is obviously important. These channels define their operational codes

and target audiences in relation to ideology and values. The ownership patterns ofthese Islamic/alternative channels are based less on economic considerations than on

cultural and political interests.Along with the changing context of broadcasting in Turkey, the privatization

process was also very efficient in changing the content of the media. In the course ofthese developments the increased number of imported programmes coincided with

local productions, resulting in Turkey becoming an open arena in which global as wellas local cultural values began to compete. With the pouring in of American actionseries, British dramas, Brazilian soap operas, game and quiz shows, news and current

affairs programmes, and reality shows, Turkish audiences met with the global, local,traditional and national at the same time.

In short, it is argued that the period beginning with the last decade of thetwentieth century has been an epoch in which Turkey has taken its first steps into a

dramatic transition period in relation to the political, economic and social realms.4

‘Putting together the nostalgic turn in tastes, the declining hold of secularism on

everyday life and politics, and the growing precariousness of national unity, it ishard to avoid the impression that Turkish modernization reached some kind ofturning point in the early eighties’ (Kasaba, 1997, p. 16). The era has been one of

contradictions. The clash of national, traditional and global ideologies, the re-emergence of fundamentalist tendencies within the nation, along with the economic

and political impotencies of successive governments, have paved the way towardsthe emergence of various contradicting identities within Turkish culture. According

to Kırık, ‘an individual Turk found her/himself surrounded by a multiplicity ofcultural identities. One could now identify himself with the Ottoman past, the

Islam, with an ethnic origin or with Western-ness. Thus, Turkish-ness gained a newmomentum’ (Kırık, 1999, p. 244).

In the light of all these developments it is now possible to speak of a quite diverseand heterogeneous Turkish culture, Turkish identity and Turkish media that veryeffectively produce, reproduce and distribute these values nationally. What is crucial

for the concerns of this study is that since as early as 1990 this distribution has beencarried on to a transnational level as well. In 1990, TRT launched its first transnational

channel—TRT INT—which started broadcasting to Turkish migrants living inWestern Europe. It was a politically and ideologically state-oriented project. Two years

later, in 1992, the second transnational channel of the Turkish public broadcastingservice was launched. TRT Avrasya targeted the Turkic Republics of Central Asia that

had emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to Aksoy and Robins,‘this channel was a weapon of foreign policy in a newly reactivated, and strategicallyimportant, geopolitical region’ (2000, p. 346). Later on, in 1999, TRT broadened its

reach and its programmes started to be received by Turkish migrants in Australia aswell. According to Aksoy and Robins, when we look at these developments of the last

decade and a half it is now possible to claim that

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TRT—as the agent, effectively, of the Turkish state—has been involved in asystematic strategy of cultural transnationalisation. It is a strategy that has aspired toconnect together the imagined community of Turks at a global scale. (2000,pp. 346–347)

With the emergence of commercial channels, TRT started to lose its monopoly status

and also lost its appeal amongst its transnational viewers as well. The first commercialchannel explicitly to target Turkish migrants in Europe was the expansion of Show TV

as Euroshow in 1995. Soon after, Euro D in 1996 and ATV Avrupa in 1997 beganbroadcasting to European-based Turks. These channels pursued only an economic

agenda and their broadcasts consisted of selections from the schedules of their originalcounterparts that they were broadcasting nationally (ATVAvrupa was an expansion of

ATV and Euro D was an expansion of Kanal D). Since 2001, along with TRT INT’sprogrammes, Turkish migrants in Australia have been able to receive these commercialchannels from Turkey as well.

Turkish expatriates now have access to these new media—hence the changednotions of Turkishness that are offered through them. This, in turn, is said to be

synchronizing the migrant with the homeland. However, the migrant is much morevulnerable to these changes in comparison with the individual living in the homeland

as she has not been personally involved in the dynamics of change that Turkey hasbeen experiencing in the last decade and a half. Until about five years ago, migrants

merely had the experience of eavesdropping, at best. Transnational communicationtechnologies, however, have very effectively changed this status quo by including

the migrant in the ongoing process of change, and it is this precise provision oftransnational media that distinguishes it from its predecessors.

Going Glocal: Transnational Media for the Transnational Individual

Karim claims that ‘It is clear that the terrain of broadcasting nationally and globally isin the process of undergoing remarkable changes’ (1998, p. 15). He suggests that

Despite the expressed fears by developed as well as developing countries that digitalbroadcasting satellites would erode their sovereignty by transmitting foreignprogramming to their populations in unregulated manners, this technologyis providing remarkable opportunities for diasporic communities. (Karim, 1998,p. 9)

I shall now consider what these remarkable opportunities of transnational mediaconsumption might be and how (and whether) this new phenomenon affects the

migratory experiences of the Turkish diaspora in Australia. Alejandro Portes claims thattransnational communities are made up of a ‘growing number of persons who live dual

lives, speaking two languages, having homes in two countries, and making a livingthrough continuous regular contact across national borders’ (Portes et al., 1999, p. 217).

For the purposes of the present paper the core issue inPortes’definition is ‘making a livingthrough continuous regular contact across national borders’. My main concern will be to

consider how and whether contemporary frameworks of global/local media and the

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two-wayflowof cultural practices and values between thehomeland and the host country,alongwith the virtual disappearance of the special cleavage betweenAustralia andTurkey,

are forging a transnational Turkish diaspora in Australia.Most of the emerging literature on transnational television can be located in two

general categories. First there is a paradigm that is critical of these developments, withconcerns that transnational media proliferate cultural ghettoization and ethnicization

among their viewers. Then there is a newer line of thought emerging through culturalstudies scholars such as Kevin Robins and Asu Aksoy that is quite celebrative of the

provisions this new phenomenon offers viewers in terms of forcing them to ‘thinkacross spaces’ (Aksoy & Robins, 2000), and/or to help them make ‘deconstructionistcritiques of the media culture they consume’ (Aksoy & Robins, 2000, p. 364). Within

this line of thinking, some benefits of transnational communication for the migrantsaround the world have been marked as the synchronization of the migrant with the

homeland (Chalaby, 2003), the countering of migrant conservatism (Aksoy & Robins,2003), the diminishing of spatial proximity between the homeland and the host country

(Ogan, 2001), and so on.I agree with all of these arguments and, furthermore, believe that there have been

many other considerable benefits of these new phenomena to deterritorializedpopulations around the world. However, I also think that it is still very early to sit backand celebrate the advantages of transnational media before further scrutinizing the

issue from different perspectives and through different sets of questions.I choose to engage with these ongoing discussions from a slightly different point of

view by suggesting that transnational television significantly counters nostalgia for the

homeland and the myth of return. As Ogan claims in her study of Turkish migrants in

Amsterdam, ‘these days, one of the functions of the television programs from Turkey is

to serve as a reality check on how things really are in Turkish society’ (Ogan, 2001, p. 52),

a reality check, I would argue, which usually results in disappointment. I believe that in

the case of Turkish-Australian lives it is possible to claim that satellite television

functions both to isolate the migrant from the host society and distance the homeland

from the migrant. Satellite television consumption, while hindering the engagement of

the migrant with the host culture by helping him live the homeland in diaspora, also

makes tangible and obvious to the migrant the fact that there is no home to return to

through reminding him of a spontaneous change he has missed—a process that took

place while he was away. One of my respondents, when asked about her future

settlement intentions, was very open about the setback that her dreams of settling back

in Turkey had received from satellite television:

Our place is here now. We wanted to go back and settle in Turkey for many years; westill talk about it with my husband but we don’t fit there anymore. The Turkey we leftwhen we came here is long gone. I sometimes cry when I watch Turkish television.All these years I had thought that once the time came we would buy a house andsettle back in our village but we both know now it is not possible. Our Turkey wasmuch more beautiful than what we see on television today. (Neriman, 61, migratedin 1972 at the age of 29)

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As Aksoy and Robins state, ‘for many Turks, to become synchronized with Turkishrealities through satellite broadcasts can be to put themselves in a very unsettling

position—to become removed, and even alienated, from the thing that they thoughtwas theirs’ (2000, p. 361)

Turks in Australia, who watch Turkish satellite channels, tend to watch them to beable to keep track of important events occurring in Turkey and because they are

looking for something familiar, something to remind them of their imaginary Turkey.However, there are times when these attempts turn out to be in vain, as their

expectations are rarely met by the Turkish transnational channels. A Turkish migrantwith whom I had a chance to open up this topic in one of my interviews was verydisappointed with his experience of watching Turkish satellite television. He

complained about the foreignness of the programmes he ended up watching:

I see nothing Turkish about Turkish television, but I still watch it because it has

become almost like an addiction. I feel as if I have missed something if I don’t watch

Turkish television regularly. But every time I tune into one of those channels I get

frustrated. The programs are of very low quality and they don’t reflect anything

about Turkish-ness. Even the language is not Turkish. They use so many foreign

words I don’t know how a non-English speaking viewer could follow them. (Adil, 65,

migrated in 1972 at the age of 33)

At this point I would like to draw attention to this individual’s remark about howwatching the television channels of his homeland becomes almost like an

addiction. I have encountered many similar comments throughout my interviewswith Turks living in Australia, and on many occasions my conversations with

them have led from this point to how they stopped engaging with Australianmedia. I believe that this is another problematic issue in the case of satellite

television consumption patterns amongst Turkish migrants in Australia. It takesthem away from what is tangibly there (the Australian media), thus hindering

their engagement with the host society, and ties them to a distant and far awayland which they can only watch but have very little chanceof engagementwith. Iwillnot go so far as to argue that transnational television consumption leads to cultural

ghettoization but I do think, to some extent, it hinders the engagement of the migrantwith what is there and around her/him. For instance, when talking about how his

grandparents have been negatively affected by the availability of satellite television, arespondent said:

When my grandparents migrated here in 1973 neither of them spoke a word ofEnglish. They learned enough of the language, to keep them going, in thefactories that they worked and through some courses the government organizedfor them. They are both retired now and their English is worsening everypassing day. My grandfather, for instance, watches TRT-INT every day.Whenever I go to visit them the TV is always turned on and tuned in to TRT-INT. They have completely stopped watching Australian channels. They speakTurkish at home, shop from Auburn5 and are completely cut away fromAustralia. (Erinc, 24, born in Australia)

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When elaborating on these interviewee responses, I believe it is important to keepin mind some unique aspects of Turkish migration to Australia that I have tried to

outline at the beginning of this article. Because of the geographic distance of these twocountries, for instance, most of the first-generation migrants I have talked to have

visited Turkey only once or twice since their departures 30-odd years ago. This, in turn,can be taken as an indicator of the severity of their rupture and isolation from the

Turkish way of life. Unlike their counterparts in Europe, Turkey has literally been avery distant land for them. Because of the small size of their population in Australia

they have not been able to foster strong community organizations, and enjoy thebenefits thereof, that Turkish migrants in Europe have been quite successful in doing.

It is because of these and other various reasons that I believe the synchronization

with the homeland through satellite channels has come a little late for these people.Their long-term isolation, with little chance of countering it, has in turn made them

complete foreigners to the changing dynamics of Turkishness, Turkish culture, andTurkish identity. Hence, the synchronizing effects of satellite television, which are being

celebrated by Turks in Europe, can be said to be quite problematic in the case of first-,and, to a great extent, second-generation Turkish migrants living in Australia.

On another line of thought, along with the uniqueness of the case of Turkishmigrants in Australia, what really makes this whole process problematic is itsmultilayered complexity. Firstly, it is important to recognize the insufficiencies of a

national cultural model transposed to a national media model, a model that presumesthat there are homogeneous communities out there sharing a static common culture.

Aksoy and Robins, for instance, argue for a ‘new kind of media culture that hasbecome de-linked from a singular national reference point’ (2000, p. 343). They

suggest that

Global, regional, national and even local circuits of programme now overlap andinteract in a multifaceted way, no doubt with a great variety of cultural effects whichare impossible to conceptualise within the more concentric perspective appropriateto previous decades. (2003, p. 8)

In the contemporary world it seems very difficult to talk of even small communities,let alone nations, being homogeneous. Individuals tend to form their subjectivities

with reference to much more local and diverse registers such as tradition, religion,ethnicity, and/or gender in the case of migrant generations, for example. As Appadurai

puts it so well:

When the story of mass migration is juxtaposed with the rapid flow of mass-mediated images, scripts, and sensations, we have a new order of instability in theproduction of modern subjectivities. We see moving images meet deterritorializedviewers. These create diasporic public spheres, phenomena that confound theoriesthat depend on the continued salience of the nation-state as the key arbiter ofimportant social changes. (Appadurai, 1996, p. 4)

This is complexity at the level of consumption, and is only one of the layers of themultifaceted intricacy at hand. I argue that it is worthwhile looking at the content and

context of media production as well.What really constitutes the so-called Turkishmedia?

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It might have been possible to talk of monolithic media content in the case of Turkishbroadcasting up until the late 1980s. Today, however, as I have tried to articulate above,

Turkish televisions are flooded with global images, which produce highly heterogeneousand diverse media content. This diversity, in turn, is considerably un-national—national

in the sense of a migrant’s point of view being conservative, static, monolithic etc.—andthis gives rise to the insufficiency of national media being representative of the imagined

—and, in the case of the migrant, kept alive—image of the homeland.A third layer of intricacy within the overall sophisticated structure arises with the

fostering of highly localized media targeting identities conceived around highlylocalized registers. It is now possible to view pro-Islamic broadcasts, channels such asMed TV broadcasting in Kurdish, Zee TV broadcasting across Asia in Hindi or MBC

targeting Arabic speakers in Europe, broadcasts targeting mainly males (LIG TV is oneexample), music channels targeting mainly young viewers, and so on. Thus, there is

now access to media which conceive themselves in very much more local references incomparison to national broadcasts.

Ultimately what we have at hand here is the overlapping and crisscrossing of thesemultiple layers of complexity that render the application of a national media model to

the present transnational conditions both insufficient and unfeasible. As theconsumption of a national media within a diasporic context tends to isolate themigrant from both the host society and the homeland, the migrant becomes even more

dislocated and displaced even at a mental/psychological level. As a result we starthaving populations with multiple homes who are, in actuality, homeless.

Notes

[1] TRT is the acronym for Turkish Radio Television, the Turkish public broadcasting service.[2] The first Director-General of TRT, Adnan Oztrak, was able to emphasize the cultural and

educational ends of the public broadcasting service, by paraphrasing the broadcasting principles:‘We are obliged to use this powerful medium in order to advance the revolutions of Ataturkwhich aimed to carry the Turkish Nation to the level of contemporary civilisation as well aspromoting the world view and life styles which were brought about by them.’

[3] Magic Box began test broadcasting on 1 March 1990 via the Eutelsat Satellite, and in May 1990 itstarted broadcasting five hours a day.

[4] The free movement of ideas, capital and goods became the motto and was successfully mobilizedto this end by Motherland Party governments under the leadership of Turgut Ozal, who wasinvolved in the structural adjustment programme during the 1980s and the early 1990s first aschief economic adviser and then prime minister and the president. His contribution wassignificant in many ways, so much so that the period was termed the ‘Ozal decade’.

[5] Auburn is a Suburb of Sydney which is highly populated by Turkish migrants.

References

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