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Media
Release
Light Millennium
http://www.lightmillennium.org
April 10, 2004, New York
Çolakoglu
redefined the Turkish Media and Turkey's place...
A
Conference titled "The Fourth Emerging Power in the
Middle East: Redefining
the Turkish Media's Role and Future", presented by
Nuri M. Çolakoglu,
took place at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken,
New Jersey,
on April 2nd at 7:00 p.m.
The
conference was organized by the Light Millennium, Inc.,
a not-for-profit
organization which is founded by Bircan Ünver, and
co-sponsored
by Stevens Institute of Technology.
Prof.
Edward Foster, the founding editor of Talisman Journal
of Contemporary
Poetry and Poetics, and teaches the English and American
Literature
at Stevens hosted the evening. In his introductory speech,
Prof.
Foster stated that in conjunction to the preparatory process
of joining
the EU, Turkish parliament is ensuring free speech.
In
his speech, Nuri M.
Çolakoglu, a very prominent figure of the Turkish
media,
presented an extensive summary of the Turkish historical
background and
pointed out the interesting facts about Turkish media.
Çolakoglu, the Chairman
and CEO of the New Media Company TV and Advertisement
Co, the Broadcast
and Print Media Coordinator at Dogan Media Group, and
the General
Director of ANS International/Dogan Media Group in Istanbul,
presented
that Turkey now has become a role model in the Middle
East. He emphasized
Turkey's strategic significance by saying: "Turkey
is not the center
of the world but it happens to be there." He expressed
that Turkey is
at the crossroads connecting Europe and Asia, East and
West, North and South.
He also stated that Turkey is a unique example in Asia
having fought
the first war of independence. Çolakoglu summarized
the economic situation
of Turkey highlighting the past economic crises of 1994,
2000 and
2001. He stated the economic recovery. "Now the economy
is picking up. For
the first time since 1960's, rate of inflation is in single
digits." he
added.
Çolakoglu
said "The problem of Turkey is that we live in a
bad neighborhood.
Since the end of the cold war, everything
happened
around Turkey "crises in the Balkans, Caucassus,
and Middle East."
Çolakoglu
mentioned that AKP, the present ruling party, has strong
Islamic connections.
He suggested that even though they follow a pro-western
attitude,
there are strong doubts amongst the public for their insistence
on
theological schools and access of their alumni to the
universities.
Çolakoglu
also mentioned that the US and Europe want a politically
and economically
stable Turkey to be a role model for democratization of
the Greater
Middle East.
He
summarized the latest local elections that happened to
be on March 28th and
emphasized the ruling party AKPs rise amongst others.
Çolakoglu
stated that the print media in Turkey was introduced at
the same time
with the reform movement during the Ottoman Empire period.
After the Republic
has been established, the Turkish media had to deal with
many coups
and interferences. However, Çolakoglu stated "Today
the media is a careful
watcher of the ruling power."
Colakoglu
mentioned that Turkish viewers spend the highest span
compared to
the other countries. "While the viewer ship rate
is nearly 4 in the US, it
is 5 hours/day per person in Turkey which indicates that
TV in Turkey is
the source of information, entertainment as well as education".
On the contrary,
he stated, USD per capita advertisement spending is very
low in Turkey.
Çolakoglu
declared that Turkish media has the most colorful, most
exciting media
environments in a region stretching from the Balkans to
India with 21
nationwide, 15 regional and 220 local TV stations, 28
nationwide distributed
daily newspapers, hundreds of magazines. He added that
the newspaper
circulation in Turkey is now over 4 million.
Çolakoglu
referred to that Turkish media was once interested in
the West, whereas
today they are more interested in Balkans, Caucasus and
Middle East.
He stated that "Turkish media is flourishing day
by day," and he anticipated
"In 10 years nobody should be surprised if there
are more international
media in Turkey."
He
ended up his informative presentation with these words:
"Turkey is a stepping
stone on the way to expand into the regions which are
on top of the
global agenda today."
Following
his speech, Çolakoglu responded questions from
the audience as an
answer to the question about the dimension of the influence
of media. "Media
does not have the power of converting the world; if they
had, we wouldn't
have seen the change in Russia. Media can be powerful
only when their
message has already been in the mind and heart of public."
commented Çolakoglu.
Çolakoglu
also expressed his "faith in Turkish public. Turkey's
values have
been established under the secular ruling and can not
be changed overnight."
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Special
Thanks to all our volunteers below: Video-taping by Patrick A. Berzinski; audio-recording
by Figen Bingül and Gokçe
Ilsever, Hande Ilsever; photographs by Ilkan Taskin, Aysel
Toprakli, Baris Ünver; for publicity materials
of the event, to Buket Sahin, and also to Pinar
Senveli.
We
are also grateful to below institutions, e-publications/yahoogroups
and press for their support related the conference:
Stevens Institute of Technology-Public Relations Department;
FTAA,Turkuaz.net; Vizonshow.com.tr, Snetaca.org, MezunUsa,
ZamanUSA and Forum weekly newspapers, also
to tadf@yahoogroups.com, belcikadayasayanTurkler@yahoogroups.com,
teknoiktisat@yahoogroups.com, Cleveland_Turkish_Community@yahoogroups.com
and Daughters_Of_Ataturk@yahoogroups.com
For
more information:
Bircan
Ünver
The
Light Millennium
E-mail:
contact@lightmillenniumorg or
bircanunver@earthlink.net
http://www.lightmillennium.org
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