Europeanisation Reforms and Early AKP Era

Abstract

This chapter focuses on some key events involving minority language media, mainstream and digital media in the 2000s. After Turkey’s candidate status was accepted in 1999, a set of Europeanisation reforms was implemented by two governments: Democratic Left Party, Motherland Party and Nationalist Movement Party (DSP–ANAP–MHP) coalition, and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government that came to power in November 2002. Public service broadcaster TRT began broadcasts in 2004 and local private channels began to broadcast in Kurdish in 2006. The second tenure of the AKP government began on 22 July in 2007. From 2007 onwards, the momentum of Europeanisation began to decline and media capture and media autocracy intensified. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.