The Production of Global Culture and Local Television Broadcasting: Program Formation of Local Televisions in Rize

During the globalization process, integration of companies and monopolization manifest themselves also in media sphere. Media companies broadcasting nationally are under the big companies’ structures, too. The functions of informing, creating agenda about the real issues and creating public space, which are the basic duties of media, are seen as problematic at the present time. In the economical aspect of globalization, the spread of goods that the companies produced into the World and the generation of high profits are well-known and discussed. The other much-discussed subject is the spread of global culture and homogenization that it brought. Thanks to the constantly circulating cultural products, the differences disappear. Cultural dispersions and value transformations enhance demand for cultural products and together with the constant profits, culture industries get high revenues. Cultural homo-genization and cultural transformations are important for economic structure. There is no sphere that global culture couldn’t reach and transform. However, there are some spheres that accept this transformation late unwittingly and generated mixed cultures. These transformations occur in the areas that are far away from the center. Local regions are able to keep away from the homogenization effect of globalization by means of cultural differences they have. The target of media companies broadcasting nationally is to reach a large target group. While the programs are formed in accordance with this target, general viewers are taken into consideration. The advantage of local broad-castings compared to mainstream media is the recognition of targeted sphere and the fact that this sphere is limited. Since the companies broadcasting nationally have too much worry for rating and advertising, they don’t have any thoughts about restricting target group. This leads to the fact that programs are created for general viewers. Whereas televisions broadcasting nationally seem problematic, local televisions can be freer as they make program because they are small companies structurally. The influence of people making programs in local media into their programs are felt more compared to mainstream media. Since local media companies are small corporations, media employee can reflect himself/herself during the production process. The importance of local media employee in creating agenda is really recognized. The main theme of this study is to find out the differentiation among local televisions. This study is prepared by detailed interviews regarding only Rize local televisions from the previous doctorate study. It is aimed at revealing different programming formation by contrast with the understanding of programming in local televisions and global/national cultural dispersion.