Self-censorship: Foreign journalists’ reportage of Turkey

Abstract

This article examines the roles of the hierarchy of influences and the imagined audience on reporting. This article uses five interviews with foreign journalists to examine how both the hierarchy of influences and the imagined audience affect foreign journalists’ reportage of Turkey. Both freelance workers and fulltime employees of newspapers were interviewed to gather data.

Keywords

Freedom of press international journalism media sociology Middle East news values online/digital journalism

Introduction

“There are more than 100 journalists in jail at the moment. But, there is another figure – it’s not just the number of journalists in jail, it’s the number of journalists who work like they are in jail. I am talking here about censorship and self-censorship, that takes the numbers up into the thousands,” says Ahmet Şık, journalist at Cumhuriyet (Al Jazeera, 2016).

Turkey is a country that in recent years has become known as the top jailers of journalists in the world, ranking 154 out of 179 sovereign countries (Reporters Without Borders [RSF], 2020). Additionally, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 26 journalists and media workers have been killed, with motive confirmed, in Turkey from between 1992 and 2016 (Committee to Protect Journalists [CPJ], 2019); of those 26 murders, CPJ reports that 16 went unpunished. Once deemed by the West as the pioneer for democratic Islam, Turkey has been sliding arguably toward authoritarianism since 2013, with the eruption of the popular protests surrounding the government’s destruction of Gezi Park and the disproportionate police responses that followed. A further, and perhaps faster, slide into authoritarianism followed the July 15, 2016 attempted coup d’état against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Following the coup attempt, some 160 news media outlets critical of the AKP have been shut down (Tastekin, 2019). Even before the attempted coup, several western journalists (The Guardian, 2016) were either deported or denied reentry into Turkey due to their reportage, stoking concern among other western Turkey-based journalists. American journalist David Lepeska was allegedly given no reason for his denial of reentry and Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink was accused of disseminating terrorist propaganda for her coverage of Kurdish issues. Geerdink faced 5 years in prison for her reportage (Green, 2015). Later, Geerdink, as well as two British journalists working for Vice, were deported after being detained after interviewing Kurdish activists (Albayrak, 2015). Given this apparent hostile between the AKP government and the press, this paper endeavors to examine the pressures under which foreign journalists work.

Much of the research surrounding Turkey’s press (Arsan, 2013; Tufekci, 2014) examines Turkish-domestic press workers. However, because of the favor the West had given to Turkey and the AKP in the past, it is worth looking at Western journalists’ experiences while working in that capacity. In a seminal study regarding foreign correspondents’ experiences, Hannerz (2004) examined the experiences of reporters working abroad for publications based out of their home country, primarily the United States. This paper, however, adds to the literature by focusing on foreign journalists who either worked for domestic Turkish publications or who worked as freelancers for both foreign and domestic Turkish publications.

The practices examined include being cognizant of possible dangers, such as being doxed or deported, that may come with the stories they select to report. Schudson (2001) noted that norms are articulated under four conditions: two Durkheimian – based on group identity – and two Weberian – based on institutional norms. For this paper’s purposes, Schudson’s articulation of the Weberian condition that regards complex institutions’ need to “control subordinates” (Schudson, 2001: 152). This is relevant in that this paper argues that these types of external pressures ultimately serve as mechanisms to coerce self-censorship. “Subordinates” in this regard refers to any member of society who maintains the status quo.

Literature review

Hierarchy of influences

Reese and Shoemaker (2016) introduced the hierarchy of influences (HOI) model describing how forces impact journalism practice called the hierarchy of influences HoI. They used this model to account for how news is shaped at varying levels. They posited that news is shaped at: individual, communication routines, organizational, institutional, and societal (social systems) levels. At the individual level, the news worker (reporter, copyeditor, etc.) shapes news through the values one associates with the profession of journalism, such as impartiality, and use their relative autonomy in carrying out those attributes. At the routine level, practices, such as the beat system, one can begin to see institutional influence, insofar as these practices – such meeting deadlines for press – shape journalism as a profession. The next level is that of the organization itself. The organizational level includes all of the parts of the newsroom that come together to create a product (the news). Beyond that, they stated that news as a product is socially constructed and contextualized, rather than solely the transmission of facts. The penultimate level is that of the social institution, which they described as the outside institutions that affect the journalism industry. This level includes “audiences, powerful sources, public relations, or even technological forces” (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016: 402), but does not refer to any one specific organization, thus including external forces external forces that help fund news production, and as such, holds influence in deciding what is newsworthy and what is not. The final level is that of the social system itself. The final level is the social system, which they succinctly “traditional theories of society and power” (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016: 403). Regarding journalists who work for news organizations, all but the social systemic influences will be considered – to include Turkish social systemic influences on the other levels of news production would be beyond the scope of this paper. The interviewees who worked for domestic publications explicitly speak of their own experiences as relatively autonomous individuals within routines and organizations, and their negotiation with the more concrete social institution. The social systemic influences on freelancers, however, will be considered, given its potential for direct antagonism against the individual.

In a separate article, Reese (2007) more closely examined the structure of the HoI on the individual level. He did so by tackling the notion of objectivity or neutral coverage. Reese stated that – at least outside of the profession of journalism – this notion is outdated, noting that journalists, when possible, select their employers based on that particular news organization’s history and political leanings. Though not discussed by Reese, this is even true for journalists who prefer to work as freelancers, insofar as there is less constraints on what they can cover. Furthermore, freelancers can and do, select the publications to which they send their stories or pitches. In a similar vein, Gans (1979) also wrote about how ideology determines what content makes it into the news, both on individual and organizational levels. To the former, he cited journalist’s self-perceived autonomy and to the latter he cited an instance in which Time rejected a story about Spanish communists during the regime of Francisco Franco on the grounds that the story showed communists in too positive of a light.

In line with the social system level, Hanitzsch (2007) wrote that the trend toward globalization carries with it the Anglo-American traditions of journalism of professionalism, impartiality, and objectivity. Though he stated that these are shared values among journalists and newsrooms, these values instantiate themselves in different ways, shaped by the respective culture in which the newsroom or journalist is situated. Hanitzsch stated that, broadly, culture can be thought of as a combination of ideas, practices, and artifacts. He then asserted that the culture of journalism is articulated on different levels: the cognitive – “the attribution of news value to events” (Hanitzsch, 2007: 369) – the evaluative, and the performative, or the way journalists do their work. Hanitzsch continued by stating that the culture of journalism is composed of three factors: institutional roles, epistemology, and ideology. These three factors are then divided into: “interventionism, power distance, market orientation, objectivism, empiricism, relativism, and idealism” (Hanitzsch, 2007: 371). These different conceptions will be utilized in the discussion section to analyze interviewee responses and their greater implications for journalism and self-censorship. This, again, harkens to the HOI that describes the social system level, insofar as the social system level pertains to government and culture. For this paper’s intents and purposes, Hantizsch’s (2007) conceptions of the role of social system level in the HoI. This is so, given that this paper examines how Turkish culture and sociopolitical systems affect the way that foreign journalists conduct their reportage. The sociopolitical system has the strongest hold on what can and cannot be reported in Turkish news. Both the literature and the interviews suggest massive amounts of self-censorship. This censorship occurs both among freelancers and the interviewees who worked for Turkish domestic publications. The usage of self-censorship by foreign freelance journalists is largely driven by being potentially deported or imprisoned. As for censorship – in this case, differentiated by reporters being censored by their editors, in the newsroom – the fear is driven both by fear of imprisonment and of lawsuits with the government.

Self-surveillance

Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975) explored the idea of the panopticon – an efficient prison system characterized by the practice of prisoners surveilling themselves. Foucault’s idea is such that if all inhabitants within a society/prison are aware that they are being surveilled, they will police themselves. Foucault’s panopticon provides a theoretical framework with which to examine self-censorship. Given the Turkish government’s monitoring of social media sites, such as Twitter, and arrests made on the basis of such practices, it is not controversial to regard the Turkish state as a surveillance state (Freedom House, 2018; Yesil et al., 2017). Especially given the nearly 2-year-long state of emergency (Kenyon, 2018) imposed after the attempted coup of in 2016. As noted by Yesil et al. (2017), Turkish governmental surveillance on its own citizens did not begin with the attempted coup, but rather intensified. Their history of surveillance begins in 1997 when the government first began enacting laws to regulate Internet content. By 2011, the government began making inaccessible content ranging from pornography, to insulting various facets of governmental authorities (i.e. police, military, the government, and long deceased founder of the country, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk).

In tandem with self-surveillance is the act of self-presentation. Goffman (1956) argued that actors modify their behavior and presentation in accordance with their audience. Goffman posited that there is a frontstage on which the actor consciously playacts their role, whether that role is that of “friend” or “journalist.” The actor’s behavior is contingent upon their audience and the role they are playing at the moment. Of the frontstage Goffman wrote, “the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” (Goffman, 1956: 13). Goffman also asserted that there exists a backstage on which the actor rests or is at ease and stands as a contradictory platform to the frontstage. Whereas the front and back stages tend to be more easily separated in the physical realm, it is less distinguishable on digital platforms.

That the frontstage and backstage are less distinguishable on digital platforms is important to this study insofar as the interviewees, especially those who work as freelance journalists, describe using their Twitter profiles both for their personal lives and as a means to promote or disseminate their work. Litt (2012) expanded Goffman’s presentation of the self to include the digital realm with the imagined audience. She wrote, “The imagined audience is the mental conceptualization of the people with whom we are communicating, our audience” (Litt, 2012: 331). This becomes potentially problematic for journalists on Twitter, given that, unless their profile is made private, anyone can read the content of the post, thus the audience can include anyone from an authoritarian government to a family member or friend. This situates Twitter in a space that is somewhere between the public domain and the private sphere in that Twitter is a private company. Tufekci (2017) noted another potential issue in this regard – because Twitter is a private company and its users agreed to their terms and conditions, the company is within its rights to turn over any sort of information or content on their platform to authorities. To further emphasize Twitter’s ability to both threaten journalists and restrict information, a report compiled on Twitter’s capitulations to the Turkish government (Yesil et al., 2017) notes the willingness of Twitter to comply with requests to remove content. The interviewees in this study reported having to police the content they produce on social media and straddle the line between being a private citizen versus a semi-public figure. Indeed, two interviewees mentioned being doxed by, they presume, private citizens. In considering social media’s role in disseminating their work, freelancers who write for smaller, often digital, publications, may draw unwanted attention to their work by disseminating their stories on their social media accounts on which some of the interviewees have a sizeable following. This is further complicated when one takes into account the networking nature of social media sites, such as Twitter, insofar as a lesser known journalist may have networked with a more well-known journalist, and from that network, attracted unwanted attention.

Reese and Shoemaker (2016) wrote of the role of the HOI in the networked (digital) public sphere. Because of the increasingly networked and connected world in which we live, Reese (2007) suggests that another level of the HOI ought to be added – that of the global level. This is pertinent to this study because this global level could potentially affect – and, as reported by the interviewees in this study, has affected – the content created and stories they chose to cover. Thus, paradoxically, the global level of the HOI has the ability to turn a tool that spreads information into a potentially self-incriminating (in the eyes of authoritarian regime) weapon against journalists. This, again, calls to mind Foucault’s panopticon (1975), insofar as Foucault articulated the panopticon as the metaphorical “perfect prison” due to the self-surveillance committed out of fear of repercussions. With the global level of the HoI taken into consideration, one sees – as articulated by interviewees below – that, especially freelancers, limit which stories they report on out of fear of punishment. When expatriate freelancers work in foreign countries, it is not uncommon to work for publications based in countries different than the one in which they reside (often due to a more profitable currency). For instance, if a freelancer is semi-employed by a paper that focuses on cultural feature pieces, concern may be present that if they cover more controversial/political issues, they may lose future employment opportunities because of concern with being associated with a critically oriented journalist.

Censorship and self-censorship

Gans (1979) wrote of the phenomenon of self-censorship among journalists as a biproduct of anticipating the reaction of the audience, either the state or the layperson. Gans wrote that there are three types of pressure that are exerted onto journalists: political, ideological, and commercial. Gans described the former two pressures as indicative of censorship, whereas the latter is self-censorship. Gans also noted that self-censorship is not always a conscious decision, but a phenomenon that may occur when framing stories. The types of pressures that may result in self-censorship most applicable to this study are political and ideological – both of which are interrelated, insofar as ideology most exhibits itself through hegemony. Regarding political pressure, Gans subdivided political pressure into five subcategories, though for this study, the two subcategories of governmental investigations and legal repercussions are the most relevant and will be explored in more depth in the discussion section.

Along with Gans’s analysis of self-censorship, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s theory of the spiral of silence (1974) is relevant regarding journalists’ personal and professional ethics. Noelle-Neumann’s theory states that when an individual holds an opinion or political persuasion that they perceive to be a minority held belief, that individual is less likely to voice that opinion, thus engaging in self-censorship. Noelle-Neumann stated that this is the case because that individual fears being castigated by those who hold the perceived majority opinion. Assuming that Noelle-Neumann is correct, one can see how this would directly conflict with the role of journalism – that being informing society on public and political matters (Christians et al., 2009) – matters that, while factual, may be unpopular with the public. Thus, in societies hostile to journalism, there exists a tension between the normative theory of journalism put forth by Christians et al., the pragmatic route of the spiral of silence for self-preservation, and Hanitzsch’s (2007) categories of ethical journalistic culture. For Hanitzch, journalistic ethics fall under either one or two categories – contextual or universal The former is in line with Noelle-Neuman’s (1974) spiral of silence in that it promotes self-preservation, while the latter adheres to Christians et al.’s (2009) theory of how journalism ought to be conducted.

The need for a critical, dissident form of journalism in Turkey in service of the public good is demonstrated in by Tufekci’s (2014) examination of social media use during the 2013 Gezi Park protests (henceforth referred to as “Gezi” for the sake of brevity). She compared the use of social media as an organizational tool for dissent in Cairo and Tahrir Square with the short-lived popular uprising that started in Istanbul and spread throughout Turkey in the summer of 2013. As an example, Tufekci related the anecdote of the disparate coverage between CNN Türk’s airing of penguin documentaries versus CNN International’s coverage of the demonstration. Before continuing, it bears noting that the use of “CNN” by CNN Türk was licensed by then-media mogul Aydın Doğan, rather than having a direct connection to CNN – as such, it was still a Turkish company and more beholden to the government than was CNN International. Outside of Istanbul, knowledge of the demonstrations was disseminated through social media such as Twitter, rather than traditional news media. Tufekci also demonstrated the manner in which social media can effectively usurp, or at least force the hand of mainstream media, with another anecdote of a journalist who went to the Kurdish village of Roboski to report an incident in which the Turkish military bombed and killed smugglers passing from Iraq into southeastern Turkey. The military claimed their intelligence suggested that the smugglers were militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). After the bombing and the subsequent revelation that civilians were killed, there was no mainstream media coverage of the incident until this journalist funded his own trip to the village and shared images of the town on Instagram. Tufekci wrote of the bombing, saying it, “was widely known within Turkish newsrooms, but was being censored until editors received government approval to cover the event” (Tufekci, 2014: 3), until shortly after the Instagram photos went viral. This demonstrates the ability of social media to potentially serve as an alternative source of information in countries where the government has a stranglehold over traditional media.

Arsan (2013) conducted survey research among Turkish journalists in order to gauge the extent to which censorship and self-censorship occur in Turkish newsrooms. She gave an overview of Turkey’s history of censorship (see Yesil et al., 2017 for a detailed history) with examples of ways violence has been used to censor oppositional press, citing the targeting of the Kurdish press in the 1990s, from forced closures, to bombing newspaper offices, to the murders of Kurdish journalists. Her survey, however, was conducted in 2011 across 17 newspapers and four broadcast channels. It is worth mentioning that the newspapers include a mixture of far leftwing to Islamist rightwing newspapers. Her most telling finding are that 91.4% of her respondents answered affirmatively that Turkish journalists engage in self-censorship. This is important when considering the above repercussions faced by journalists and media organizations in Turkey. As stated above, Reporters Without Borders (RSF, 2018) counts Turkey as the top jailer of journalists and the CPJ’s (2019) statistics that 26 journalists were murdered between 1992 and 2016, with 16 of those murders going unpunished. Thus, the following research questions present themselves:

RQ1a: How do Turkish social systems influence content produced by journalists?

RQ1b: What influences foreign journalists in Turkey to self-censor?

Turkey’s complicated history with journalism

Turkey’s tumultuous relationship with the dissemination of information is not limited to traditional media, but includes both the digital and print media as well. Turkey has banned and reallowed access to Twitter multiple times since 2014 (Dockterman, 2014; McGoogan, 2016; Turkey Blocks, 2020; Wong, 2016; Yesil et al., 2017) for an extensive overview of Turkey’s social media blackouts, despite the Turkish High Court ruling that such a ban was unconstitutional (Pamuk, 2014). Turkey had also blocked access to Wikipedia for more than two-and-a-half years (Zaveri, 2019). Given the authoritarian nature of the AKP government, it can be presumed that the Turkish authorities have blocked these platforms because they are facets with which to challenge the official narrative. This general lack of access to information in Turkey stems from two main sources – from governmental censorship driven by a desire to have the monopoly of information and the precedents of violence and retaliation by both the state and private citizens. This hostile media environment has proven effective in journalistic self-censorship, and in this way resembles Foucault’s (1975) panopticon. Even where censorship has not been enacted by the state apparatus, the threat of being jailed, deported, or murdered is has shown to be effective in prompting self-censorship, as demonstrated by Arsan’s (2013) findings and the data garnered from the interviews below.

To further complicate the matter of researching the press in Turkey, a recent, though not necessarily reliable study estimates that 635 press workers from 34 countries work in Turkey (Akan, 2018). Even if an official list of journalists had been provided by the official General Administration of Press and Information (BYEGM), those numbers would fail to include freelance journalists who have opted to work without an official press pass.

Methodology

The time period of this study encompasses the years 2009–2019. Four out of five of the interviewees continue to work in Turkey, though one no longer works in journalism, but for a public relations firm. Two of the interviewees no longer work in journalism as content producers, but rather as aggregators of news. Regardless of where the interviewees currently work, all of those interviewed have previously worked in the field of journalism. One interviewee has worked as a freelance journalist throughout their tenure of covering Turkey, one interviewee has worked both as a freelance journalist and for a newspaper, while the other three interviewees all worked for a newspaper – two of whom currently still work in the field of journalism, but as aggregators of news, rather than original content producers. These specifications will be further discussed and made relevant below.

To conduct this study, five in-depth interviews were conducted with native English-speaking journalists born in the West. Three of the interviewees are Canadian, one is American, and the other is English. Of the five interviewees, four are male and one is female. Each of the interviewees speak Turkish to varying degrees, from near-native fluency to levels of intermediacy. The ability to speak Turkish, though not requirement for recruitment, demonstrates a knowledge of the culture and political landscape found in contemporary Turkey. The sample of interviewees was collected through a convenience sample.

Because none of the interviewees are currently in the United States, the interviews were conducted over either Skype or WhatsApp and recorded with Audacity. The interviews were later transcribed and analyzed by the researcher. Despite both the researcher and the interviewees’ commands of Turkish, interviews were conducted in English, as everyone in this study is a native English speaker. The average duration of each interview was roughly 45 minutes. The interview protocol was such that broad, open ended questions were posed to the interviewee. Though the interviews were formed on the foundation of general questions (e.g. How many years have you worked as a journalist? How many of those years were in Turkey? Did you work as a freelance journalist, for an organization, or both?), loosely following Ferrucci’s (2017) example, interviews revolved around an individual’s particular experience in their respective capacity. So as to avoid overtly steering the interview toward the topic of self-censorship, the researcher deliberately avoided using the words “self-censorship,” but instead chose questions that might encourage the interviewee to speak about the topic on their own, albeit influenced, volition (e.g. When you’re making editorial decisions about framing, do you keep your audience in mind? Has your experience affected the kinds of stories that you chose to report?). The researcher guaranteed the interviewees that sensitive information, such as their names and organizations for which they currently work or previously worked for in the past, would be kept confidential and anonymous. After conducting every interview, the researcher then analyzed the transcripts to look for recurring topics – the themes discussed below.

Findings

Across all five interviews, three identifiable themes presented themselves, consisting of: self-censorship on social media, professional versus personal ethics, and the broad category of loss. Brief explications of these themes and examples are discussed below.

Social media

Each interviewee referenced the importance of social media to their profession in some manner or another. Each interviewee made mention of the potential dangers that can arise from Twitter, specifically. Most of the interviewees in some manner or another spoke about Twitter in connection with surveillance. For example, when asked about reentering Turkey, one interviewee said:

At least at the airport, there are so many people there that police never have any chance to ask you what you’re doing or what your job is so, unless your name has been added to a list and your passport brings up your name . . . there isn’t going to be a problem at the airport.

Three of the journalists also mentioned negative attention garnered through “trolls” on Twitter, based on their work disseminated through Twitter. Of the reported experiences, the worst occurred when one journalist tweeted a photograph of the December 10, 2016 Vodafone Arena bombing in Beşiktaş, Istanbul. This interviewee cites this tweet as a primary cause of being labeled an enemy of the state, having their visa revoked, and ultimately being forced to leave the country. The interviewee reports the below experience:

So someone made a thing with my photo and name with, I think three other journalists. It was just really weird argument of, “The explosion was at this time and then 3 minutes later there were photos of it on Twitter, which is just, of course, how is that?” I guess the idea is, “Well, they must have known beforehand and been ready and waiting to make (sic) a photo,” but it’s Beşiktaş Stadium (Vodafone Arena). There’s thousands or tens of thousands of people who are within sight of it.

One interviewee points to content posted to Twitter as a potential to cause trouble for oneself, citing examples of fellow Western journalists who lost entry access to Turkey. They say:

Those guys were more active on Twitter and had more followers and were also just generally posting more . . . I personally don’t think it had something to do with a story, I personally think it had to do with Twitter . . . I think honestly, before that (colleagues being denied entry into Turkey), that was the turning point, when I got really scared. Even when I was working at the newspaper, for some reason I didn’t think they would go after a Western journalist, because they really hadn’t.

One interviewee stated in a more direct way the manner in which attracting negative attention on Twitter can cause issues for journalists, stating that their name and photo were publicized through Twitter regarding their work. They report:

It’s easy to say, “Oh, it’s just Twitter,” but these are real people and these are people somewhere tweeting and I’m bound to be recognized sometime and who knows what could happen.

A separate instance of this occurred when one interviewee published a review of a fiction book written by a jailed Kurdish politician. The review was published in the newspaper for which they worked. Following its publication, a large Turkish-language daily with ties to the AKP published their name and photograph on their webpage. Following that incident, this interviewee expressed concern for their wellbeing, given the negative attention they had received from pro-government media and individuals on Twitter. The concern expressed reflects Tufekci’s (2017) point – that the Internet does not create new human behavior, but can serve as a mechanism to amplify behavior, in this case malevolence, to larger audience.

As seen through the selected quotes, social media, especially Twitter, can have real world repercussions. One interviewee cites their use of Twitter as the primary cause of losing their residency status and being barred from the country. Another interviewee had their picture published on Twitter with the severe allegations of being a spy, and all interviewees expressed concern with their use of Twitter. These concerns echo Foucault’s (1975) panopticon and Goffman’s (1956) frontstage. These journalists feel compelled to present themselves inconformity with the political and social norms enforced by both the government and its supporters, especially considering Litt’s (2012) observation that in the digital age, content consumers are not constrained by time and space.

Professional versus personal ethics

Concerning when, how, and whether to engage in self-censorship, all four interviewees stated that ethics, both professional and personal, is a factor they contemplate. One interviewee, who previously worked for a news organization but currently works as a freelance journalist, explicitly stated that their professional ethics is informed by their concern of being deported from Turkey. Thus, they report on critical topics – in this case gentrification/urban transformation – but stay within topics they perceive to be within the threshold of what is tolerated. They say:

It’s not that I don’t want to cover those topics, but I’ve decided and yeah I’ll censor, I’ll admit that, and I’m not happy about that, but one: there are things that I’m more interested in, which are these more local urban issues, and two: I just don’t see the point of pushing my luck with a story that might get me kicked out of the country. There’s already that risk anyway. I don’t know what can get me kicked out of the country, so I have to act accordingly.

One interviewee, who was denied a visa renewal, said despite their tribulations, they would not fully compromise on critical, political coverage, but are more careful in choosing which stories they do cover. In an anecdote concerning this matter, they said:

So, it has affected a certain level of self-censorship. I mean, everyone writes stories, reporting that is critical of the AKP, but I’m sure most people at least somewhat self-censor when it comes to, like, those really (close to the government) . . . So yeah probably it affects me at least in some way in terms of what stories I do.

Two interviewees, both of whom worked for a newspaper, spoke about their organization’s instances of censorship and their professional ethics regarding adhering to those rules. As both interviewees were then working in the capacity of copyeditors, theirs were some of the last eyes on the stories, and the acquiescence toward self-censorship was self-imposed. One interviewee gave a list of topics for which guidelines were given regarding how to frame stories involving such topics. They said:

I wanted to add that, especially after the elections, and especially after the newspaper was told there were even more changes (coming), and especially with the fall of the lira, we couldn’t say that the lira was falling; we had to say the dollar was rising. We couldn’t say that the lira was being devalued or anything like that, either.

One employee, who had worked for the same news organization for 8 years, spoke of previously having the ability to frame stories with more of an oppositional political agenda, but said that after the end of the ceasefire with the PKK, there was more organizational inspection imposed by the Turkish societal level, in terms of the HoI, and control regarding how stories were framed. They said:

After 15 Temmuz (July 15, 2016 – the coup attempt), there wasn’t necessarily, I didn’t notice any major change. If anything, I started to notice the change after the peace process (with the PKK) ended in 2015. That’s when I had far more – I fought with the editor-in-chief once. I was so mad about the blatant lies that we were writing in the newspaper. After 15 Temmuz, I think there was probably a pervading sense of self-censorship starting far up the chain of command and just the realization that you’re not going to write about all sorts of stuff that you would have written about before.

During this argument, this interviewee expressed anger in the newspaper he worked for, stating that the paper was essentially repeating the official government line. This instance occurred after the Turkish army occupied Cizre, a predominately Kurdish city following the peace process with the PKK. The newspaper published the government’s narrative that the citizens of Cizre were happy the Turkish army had come to the city, whereas international news outlets, such as the BBC published stories about the army’s alleged killing of Kurdish civilians (Bowen, 2016).

In each of these scenarios, we see the HoI’s system-level (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016) affect how reportage has been conducted in Turkey. The interviewees all felt compelled, in some way, to not challenge the government. Those who did challenge the government, whether reporting on cultural affairs – such as reviewing the book written by the Kurdish politician – or outright political events, such as the bombing of Vodaphone Stadium, were punished either by the government, such as having their visa denied, or had a threat of punishment (violence) by citizens aligned with the government.

Loss

What the researcher refers to as the “loss” is meant to be a wide category. The “fear of loss” refers to either a fear of deportation, fear of losing one’s employment, or fear of being kept out of Turkey as a result of their work, and an overall fear for their overall wellbeing. The fear of deportation was mentioned in several interviews. This topic was often accompanied by sentiments of Turkey being their adoptive home through the time spent in Turkey and the establishing of their livelihoods, friendships, and significant others. One interviewee mentioned the pervasiveness of the concern of being deported and its strain as such:

When I write something like this, I think, “It seems okay, maybe? Am I going to get in trouble for this?” . . . So it’s (deportation) constantly, constantly something that’s on my mind. It’s something that I think about every day, for much of the day.

Hearing of colleagues’ experiences with deportation, being denied visas, or denied re-entry into Turkey increased awareness of the possibility of deportation. Two interviewees referenced American journalist David Lepeska, one of the first western journalists to be targeted by the AKP government being denied re-entry into Turkey (The Guardian, 2016) as validation for their concerns. Hearing of a colleague’s deportation raised concerns for yet another subsection of this theme: the fear of being separated from loved ones, exacerbated by ambiguity (several interviewees stated they were not sure whether deportation/punishment was due to arbitrary decisions and/or incompetence). Three interviewees specifically mentioned concern of being forcibly separated from their significant other by deportation. Four of the interviewees expressed having established their lives, that is, friendships and significant others, from whom they feared being separated. In acknowledging the possibility of separation, one interviewee talked about the comparative lack of protection one receives as a freelancer, despite the relative privilege one has as a westerner. They contrasted the freedom to report on what they want to report with the lack of organizational protections. They said:

So, as a freelancer, it’s easier to stay under the radar, but you have less protection; both because you don’t have an agency protecting you and because (there is) less of a backlash against the government if they do kick you out, especially when it’s under ambiguous terms and you’re not really sure if it’s just a bureaucratic thing or an article thing.

This concern is precisely what Litt (2012) wrote regarding the ambiguity of knowing their audience, combined with Foucault’s panopticon (1975) regarding self-policing one’s journalistic behavior, we see a systemic coercion into covering “safe” topics, rather than critical ones. Furthermore, these sentiments echo what Hannerz (2004) wrote, saying, over time, foreign correspondents/reporters may begin to feel more at home from where they report, rather than their native country, and thus enforces the fear of being removed from, in this case, Turkey.

Discussion

Common among all three themes found in this study is a sense of surveillance. In some instances, interviewees expressed concern about government surveillance regarding either their reportage or their social media presence, though sometimes both in tandem. Two interviewees recounted stories of their names and faces being published on account of their work. In both instances, each interviewee expressed concern for their safety. Four of the five interviewees expressed concern of coming onto the government’s radar. One of the five interviewees was told they were a “threat to national security” on account of their reportage. The fear of being surveilled by the government or its followers is only one facet of surveillance expressed by interviewees; the other was that of self-surveillance manifest through the practice of self-censorship. In either case, the threat of punishment coerces silence not unlike -Neumann’s spiral of silence (1974).

Theories regarding audience (Goffman, 1956; Litt, 2012) state that actors shape and adjust their behavior according to their audience, but the issue of the imagined audience (Litt, 2012) is doubly complicated for journalists working in a country hostile to journalists (RSF, 2018) during the digital age. Access to digital platforms increases access to journalists’ work, especially if the journalist’s work is available at no additional cost to the reader. Theoretically, such a wide audience would be ideal for someone in the business of disseminating information; however, in an environment that is both authoritarian and hostile to journalists, such as Turkey, this is potentially dangerous for the journalists themselves. Particular to freelance journalists, this sometimes results in the passing of lucrative stories in favor of preserving their own wellbeing. In light of this, of those interviewed, five out of five people stated that they do consciously engage in some form of self-censorship or another. This self-censorship occurs either in the form of choosing which stories to report on and how to frame the stories they do report on. The fear of retribution from, again, either the government or citizens, directly inhibits the ability to uphold the primary function of the normative interpretation of journalism (Christians et al., 2009) – that journalism’s primary object is to inform the citizens of public and political topics of importance. If societal level factors affect which stories are “acceptable” for publication through their content, then journalists cannot do their job. Concerning the global level of the HoI, due to the ever-connected world in which we live, the audience is made up of the global population, provided the citizen has access to the Internet. In this way, a global, democratic dialogue is also hindered insofar as the types of information allowed through the gates are decided upon by the threat of punishment.

The varying motivations for self-censorship in this context all fall under one umbrella: concern for one’s livelihood. This can be further divided into concerns for: one’s wellbeing – either through deportation or concern of threat of physical violence – one’s employment, or one’s loved ones. According to the data obtained through this study, these variables often work in tandem, rather than independently. One can look to Reese and Shoemaker’s (2016) HoI to better understand this phenomenon. Each level of influence reinforces the level of influence above it: the individual is reinforced by their routine, which reinforces the organization, which reinforces the social institutions (through the maintenance of the status quo), which reinforces the social system (the ideology). In return, there is also a top-down system of reinforcement: the social system (authoritarian system that does not tolerate dissent) reinforces the social institution (the apparatus that enforces authoritarian ideology), the social institution enforces its authoritarianism onto the organization through threats (or actual) closures of the media organization, the media organization enforces this same authoritarianism through enforcing routines (news stories that reinforce or at least do not question the status quo), and finally the routine enforces this more micro instantiation of authoritarianism through threats of firing the journalist for breaking from the status quo and voicing dissent.

This study suggests self-censorship will occur in high stake environments. In doing so, this study adds further credence to -Neumann’s spiral of silence (1974) insofar as her theory states that when one’s political persuasion is in the minority-held belief, the person who holds that minority belief is more likely to remain silent out of fear of castigation. In the case of foreign journalists working in Turkey, castigation can range from losing their employment, to detention or deportation, or in the worst-case scenario, physical violence. This paper is not to suggest foreign journalists will save Turkish journalism nor that journalists who engage in self-censorship are at fault or acting unethically in their professional choices, but rather serves to provide data that self-censorship is a commonly occurring practice under this particular authoritarian regime. Though Arsan’s (2013) research had previously demonstrated that self-censorship occurs among Turkish journalists, this article is meant to demonstrate that foreign journalists based in Turkey also engage in self-censorship.

One can return Schudson’s (2001) theory of socialization regarding norms to help explain the phenomenon of self-censorship regarding journalists working in foreign countries. To recall, Schudson points to the Weberian notion of authorities, whether the government and/or, in the case of journalists, the organization for which they work, to teach and enforce norms. However, in the case of Turkey, the imposition of these norms does not result in objectivity, considered the primary tenet of journalism in liberal democracies, but in conforming to the governmental line. This coercion results, as indicated by the interviewees, in the building of Foucault’s (1975) panopticon and self-censor to avoid any number of the consequences reported above. To further complicate matters, several interviewed journalists reported being uncertain which content is acceptable and which is not. This ambiguity is enforced by the seemingly fluid mores that appear contradictory, given that punishment is seemingly meted out in an arbitrary manner.

Of the HoI’s role in journalism, Reese (2007) stated that despite the role of the journalist in spreading information and speaking truth to power, regardless, of occupation, there exist structures that dictate what is and what is not permissible, either through law or mores. The primary structure utilized by this study is the system-level and how the system-level affects the reporters’ coverage at an individual level insofar as the system and fear of retribution affect what should or should not be discussed in the public domain. This, in turn, has an effect on the global level of the hierarchy of infrastructure given that if information from the ground cannot be disseminated due to the concern of punishment, a global dialogue is inhibited. All told, these structures demonstrate that if not followed, there are consequences. An oft cited adage is journalism is required to promote a healthy, flourishing democracy. When taken out of the context of Western liberal democracies, however, journalism is seen as a dangerous challenge to power, and the HoI becomes a tool with which to quell opportunities of dissent through a monopoly on information.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Miles P Davis

Author biography

Miles P Davis, MS Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) is a PhD student in the Department of Journalism in the College of Media, Communication, and Information at University of Colorado-Boulder. His research involves political economy of news and media sociology.

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