Local broadcasting as tactical media: Exploring practices of Kurdish activism and journalism in Turkey

Through the backdrop of struggles that local broadcasters in Turkey who advocate for Kurdish minority's rights have had to endure, I discuss local broadcast journalists' tactics for creating and maintaining programming that caters toward Kurds in an ongoing conflict situation. Ethnic local broadcasting in Kurdish provinces has always strived to offer an alternative discourse to state propaganda and mobilize political support within and outside Turkey in order to advocate for the Kurdish minority in Turkey. In order to illustrate the role of Kurdish activist journalism in political mobilization, I analyze examples of local radio programming from 2010-2013, a period of relative freedom enjoyed by broadcasters in Kurdish provinces when peace negotiations were underway in Turkey. I aim here to illustrate the instrumentality of activist journalism in authoritarian and repressive regimes, and the ways in which local broadcasting is utilized as tactical media by both activist journalists and the community they serve.