Analyzing alternative sports media in Turkey : a case study on Socrates Magazine and Yazıhane

Abstract

Especially in the last century, sports extended its scope and began to be followed by wider audience. Enhancements in the fields of communication and broadcasting enabled people to be more engaged and knowledgeable on sports than ever before. As a joint result of the expansion of sports and engagement of the audience, media increased its coverage on sports related content. While producing content regarding sports, the main focus was on the factual information from the competitions, simple statistics and relatively superficial commentary for the mainstream media. However, this approach of mainstream media caused some particular topics and branches to remain uncovered. Moreover, mainstream media has been working in line with existing dominant structures, seeking for profit, paying more attention to quantity than quality and limiting the scope of the authors with editorial interventions. These conditions paved the way for a pursuit of alternative approach within sports media. Intention was to produce sports related content which aims to fill the gaps left by mainstream media, by taking a stance against the dominant economic structure and creating a more horizontal relationship both among the authors and with the audience. Within this context, focus of this study will be the alternative sports media in Turkey. Through the overall analysis of the literature, features of the alternative media will be pointed out. By utilizing the core principles of the alternative media, two case studies Socrates Magazine and Yazıhane Blog will be analyzed. Main aim of the study will be to assess the compliance and extent of the alternative media examples in Turkey with the features underlined in the literature.