By Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The ruling party has strengthened its control of the Turkish media in recent years. Television remains the most important source of news in Turkey while social and digital media are widely used and important outlets for alternative and critical perspectives.

Note: Data are from more urban areas, rather than a fully nationally representative sample. These will tend to represent richer and more connected users.

Top Brands

Changing Media

Although online news is widely used by our urban-based sample, across Turkey as a whole television remains the most important source of news. Print newspapers also continue to be well read by international standards, though use is declining. Smartphones are now easily the most important device for accessing online news.

Trust

Overall levels of trust in the news increased by nine percentage points although there doesn’t seem to be any obvious explanation for such a change. TV news sources like Fox and NTV – along with critical voices like Cumhuriyet and Sözcü – tend to be most highly rated for trust. Pro-government media tend to be trusted less, though they have higher scores from those that use them regularly.