Keyword – journalism

Somlyai, Özge:

The Changing Scope and Role of Alternative Media in Countering Authoritarian Narratives in Turkey

This article examines how fear has been institutionalised in Turkey’s media environment under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) headed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and how alternative news outlets, created and managed by professional journalists and including Bianet, Medyascope, and T24, exhibited resilience in countering the regime’s authoritarian narratives. It also explores AKP’s systematic efforts to transform mainstream media into propaganda tools through legal, economic, and regulatory measures. Relying on semi-structured interviews conducted with journalists from these news outlets, media scholars, and political scientists, it studies the evolving scope of alternative news media in Turkey. While Medyascope and T24 now view themselves as pioneering actors creating and shaping space for ‘new mainstream media,’ Bianet remains an important representative of alternative media in the country. By embracing digital platforms, fostering investigative practices, and amplifying voices unheard or suppressed, these outlets challenge the AKP Government’s fear-driven narratives and create space for democratic dialogue. Thus, this study contributes to broader debates on the role of media and more specifically on the role of professional journalists in sustaining (counter-)public spaces in authoritarian contexts by emphasising the resilience of journalists and the evolving nature of alternative media in Turkey.

Keywords: alternative, journalism, mainstream, media, Turkey

Tófalvy, Tamás:

Is journalism in a permanent crisis?

If one happened to be immersed in the professional and academic discourses on the nature of journalism, they would find that the debate on the assumed crisis of the profession is permanent. In the narratives discussing the potential causes of crisis there are, among other ones, economic, business, political and technological factors. This paper, focusing on the technology-centered narratives, attempts to reconstruct overarching rhetorical themes and framing patterns in crisis narratives, and tries to answer the question of whether it is possible that journalism is in a permanent crisis.

Keywords: crisis, journalism, narratives, professional norms, technology

Bátorfy, Attila – Bárdos, Kata Kincső:

Digital security awareness and device use among Hungarian journalists – research findings

Our online questionnaire and focus group research looked into the knowledge of Hungarian journalists and of newsrooms about digital security and digital safety. Our findings suggest that Hungarian journalists are little informed about digital security; some form of online harassment is the most frequent; 43 per cent of respondents do not use any tools for digital protection; and journalists are mainly not concerned about their own safety, but that of their sources, investigations and family; and most of them consider online harassment and attacks natural parts of their work.

Keywords: digital safety, harassment, journalism, security, surveillance

Bajomi-Lázár, Péter – Boldog, Dalma:

The telegraph and the internet

Media scholars studying the origins and impacts of the rise of the internet and exploring interactions between communication technology and society often seek historical analogies. The parallels offered by comparisons of the electronic revolution marked by the telegraph network and the digital revolution marked by the internet are particularly often remarked. This paper follows this tradition. Based on a critical review of the literature, it compares the histories of the telegraph and of the internet, the first and the last binary and digital networks. While finding a great number of similarities, it also suggests that they differ in their impacts upon journalism and its role in society, among other things.

Keywords: globalisation, internet, journalism, telegraph, technology history