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Book review: Bilge Yesil Media in new Turkey: The origins of an authoritarian neoliberal state

service mission (p. 125), local news providers pay less attention to civic matters, perhaps in part because local audiences register less interest in this subject (p. 79). Moreover, audiences, most of whom attend to the news in a ‘fleeting’ and ‘episodic’ manner (p. 98), do not seem to make a distinction between news distributed via interpersonal networks and media outlets. Rather, the news appears to them as an undifferentiated flow of stories, some told by their friends and some told by professional journalists. In the end, the authors argue that the ‘mediated city’ of today is a more ‘chaotic’ environment than in the past, one in which many important connections – between individuals living in different parts of the community, between individuals and civic life, between the public and its representatives – are not quite made. Local policymakers ‘wants to engage with citizens, but [are] not sure what engagement means or how to make it work ...’ Professional journalists ‘have a serious commitment to “the public interest,” but are torn between the tasks of empowering citizens who want to confront political authority and being constrained by a principle of impartiality ...’ For their part, citizens do not feel well represented by, and are deeply suspicious of, politicians or journalists (pp. 202, 203). The authors conclude, ‘If a news ecology is to be regarded as more than a transmission belt for the dissemination of passing stories, as a foundation for the enactment of efficacious civic practices, there is quite evidently something wrong’ (p. 205). The authors end with an appeal to greater sharing of governance between policymakers and citizens, a collaboration in part made possible by a more civic-minded use of digital tools. Anyone familiar with prior research in this area, and who has kept up with recent research published in the journals, will not be surprised by many of these findings. Indeed, a more explicit discussion of how these findings align with those of prior research might have been helpful. Moreover, there is a question, one to which the authors are sensitive, about how comparable Leeds is with other urban contexts. These issues aside, the volume presents a truly impressive piece of scholarship, one that brings together multiple sources of data in a compelling way. Indeed, it may be that the book’s biggest contribution is the methodology itself, which stands as a model for similar studies elsewhere.