This paper reveals the ways in which media autocracy operates on political, judicial, economic and discursive levels in post-2007 Turkish media. Newsmakers in Turkey currently experience five different systemic kinds of neoliberal government pressures to keep their voice down: conglomerate pressure, judicial suppression, online banishment, surveillance defamation and accreditation discrimination. The progression of restrictions on media freedom has increased in volume annually since 2007; this includes pressure on the Doğan Media Group, the YouTube ban, arrests of journalists in the Ergenekon trials, phone tapping/ taping of political figures and the exclusion of all unfriendly reporters from political circles. The levels and tools of this autocracy eventually lead to certain conclusions about the qualities of this media environment: it is a historically conservative, redistributive, panoptic and discriminatory media autocracy.

As a structural phenomenon, media as a collective entity occupies a unique field of negotiation between community and authority, a location of autonomy

This issue of CINEJ Cinema Journal witnessed the devastating effects of COVID-19 global pandemic on filmmaking, film distribution and exhibition, and teaching film at HE institutions. Global shifts in production and distribution gave rise to new stars, streaming services. The diversity of film sets was gaining momentum as film productions were halted. Ne reports and new investment for the future of filmmaking are at stake at this juncture. As the year closed there have losses like Fernando Solanas and Sean Connery.

Halit Refiğ had impact on debates around Turkish national cinema both as a thinker and as a practitioner. Instrumental in establishing the Turkish Film Institute under MSU along with his director colleagues like Metin Erksan and Lutfi Akad, Refiğ lectured for many years at the first cinema training department. This translation is from his 1971 collection of articles titled Ulusal Sinema Kavgasi (Fight For National Cinema). Here Refiğ elaborates on the concept of national cinema from cultural perspectives framing Turkey as a continuation of Ottoman Empire and its culture distinct and different from western ideas of capitalism, bourgeoisie art and Marxism. For Refiğ, Turkish cinema should be reflected as an extension of traditional Turkish arts. Refiğ explores the potential to form a national cinema through dialogue,and dialectic within Turkish traditional arts and against western cinematic traditions of representation.

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