The state of media literacy in Turkey

AbstractCritical media literacy embodies the issues of participation and critical analysis. Unlike many countries, media literacy education in Turkey has emerged as a state effort rather than a local grassroots movement. This study provides a discursive analysis of ‘media literacy’ as represented on the official web site of the project. We argue that media literacy efforts in Turkey follow “a traditionalist ‘protectionist’ approach”, by aiming to protect children from the negative effects of media, and mainly focusing on the decoding of media texts. We point out that such a narrow definition of media literacy hinders its potential for building a transformative media education