Just a few years ago, when a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian SU-24M bomber (November 2015) and A. Karlov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Turkey, was killed during the exhibition titled “Russia through the eyes of Turkey” in Turkey (December 2016). Famous international media and specialists from analytical centers from various countries predicted, that the tension could lead to a new Russian-Turkish war. However, Russia was restricted in making moves against Turkey because of numerous joint programs including a one-way visa regime and so political and economic relations were restored quickly in 2017. 

Currently, besides trade-economic, energy and tourism cooperation, the two sides are taking steps to deepen their relations in the field of Mass Media. What’s more, the discussions on further prospects of such kind of cooperation became real after the above-mentioned cases. 

A ccording to the Turkish and Russian media reports, it was planned to hold “Russia-Turkey media forum” in April 2019, and although we haven’t found any information about the forum due to the importance of the issue we will attempt to analyse the issue at hand. First, to clarify the scope of the participants and the cooperation’s agenda working meetings took place in Moscow and Turkey with the involvement of NGOs, media and other experts from the two countries. We can postulate that the purpose of the events from the opinions expressed by both side were according to the opinion of Yevgeny Zubarev, General Director of the Russian “Federal News Agency:

“Both Russia and Turkey have common problems in terms of communication, particularly, with Western public opinion and media. It is not a secret, that Western journalists have a biased attitude towards both Russia and Turkey and their opinions often border on fake news. We should set up bridges of solid cooperation with Turkey’s largest media so as to somehow change the situation”. 

According to Yuri Mavashev, member of the media forum organizing committee and the co-founder of the “Center for the Study of Modern Turkey”, the ongoing forum is unprecedented. As a whole, the event organizers are sure that such meetings will be beneficial to not only the Turkish and Russian mass media, but also to the residents of the two countries, who will receive true and operative information. It is worth mentioning that by highlighting the importance of strengthening business ties between the two countries’ mass media, they also have discussed media related issues, the positive solution of which can change the level of relations. 

1. Information security field - Creating a technical bases for cooperation to prevent fake news from the third countries, as well as finding issues on information competitiveness within the global media environment, which are directly or indirectly related to both sides. 
2. Cooperation and coordination issues – Besides creating platforms uniting journalists, the prospect of establishing Russian-Turkish media council, as well as a cooperative opportunity between Russian and Turkish regional and urban television companies are under discussion.  
3. Organizational issues – A general database of experts and analysts is planned to be created to provide media of the two countries with comments and analysis. Here it should be noted that the issue of visa facilitation given to journalists is also on the agenda.  

Now these issues are under discussion and it is difficult to predict what the outcome will be, however it is obvious, that both Russia and Turkey give high regard to the role of informational policy within the context of common interests. 

In line with the previously established informational-analytical platforms there are qualitative new websites of thematic, genre-stylistic and linguistic peculiarities. Moreover, they mainly contain political, trade-economic and rather content-rich material relevant to their countries. The same can be said about internet radio broadcasts. According to their main goals, both sides are publishing Turkish and Russian content mainly by these media. 

O ne of the first and influential media projects between Russia and Turkey is the publication of “Russia Today” financial economic e-journal and the launch of the same website (in Turkish) jointly with the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” public- political newspaper and “Amadea center” Turkish publishing house. Among other examples are the “Moskovsky Komsomolets-Turkey” (www.haberrus.com, www.mk-turkey.ru), Turkish versions of the “Arguments and Facts-Turkey” and “Sputnik” news agencies. There are also dozens of informative and advertising websites about various private organizations, individuals’ tourism and entrepreneurship (www.turkrus.ru, www.turkishnews.ru, www.todayturkey.ru, www.turkeyforfriends.com and etc.). “www.rusturkey.com” is among such famous portals for discussion about Turkey. It is only for the Russian speaking audience and has about 77 thousand registered users. 

In the 21st century the first Russian-language weekly newspaper in Turkey “Vesti Turkey. Bosfor” was released in 2006 by a group of businessmen and had about 15 thousand copies per week. It was created for establishing contacts between businessmen from the Russian Federation and the post-soviet republics [1]. 

Generally, Russian multi-content materials are broadcasted (including internet version) through the Turkish State Radio and Television Corporation and Anadolu News Agency. From this point of view, e-newspapers, such as Daily Sabah, Gazetem (in Turkish) for Turkish migrants living in RF, as well as “Laleli” and “Roxolana” journals published in Istanbul. It should be noted that jointly shot multi-series films recently have their unique place in media politics. It refers to Russian-Turkish “East-West” and “Sultan of My Heart” film projects. Moreover, unlike Russia, “Sultan of My Heart” completely failed in Turkey [2]. 

In conclusion, according to the above-mentioned facts, both sides clearly recognize the opportunities of modern media influence on the country’s image and try to use it as a means of influence on an international level and overcoming mutual distrust especially after the two events that affected both countries. It should also be noted, that the Russian-Turkish cooperation in media is comprehensive and requires multi-layered research. 

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[1] Türkiye'nin ilk Rusça gazetesi 4 yıldır yayınlanıyor

[2] "Султан моего сердца" произвел в России фурор