Religion on Air The Birth and Transformation of Religious Broadcasting in Turkey

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the emergence and transformation of Islamic television broadcasting in Turkey. In the 1990s, Islamic channels were launched as a challenge to the so-called moral degeneracy of infotainment channels and claimed to represent an alternative form and content. However, far from presenting an alternative broadcasting style, Islamic channels rapidly succumbed to the logic of capital and the imperatives of commercial broadcasting. I argue that the transformation of Islamic broadcasting is related to the overall transformation of Islamism in Turkey.