MEDAR Project

Media Research Association (MEDAR) conducted projects in partnership with Embassy of U.S in Ankara, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, EU Program: Etkiniz , EU Program: Protect Defenders, Embassy of Australia in Ankara, Embassy of Britain in Ankara, Embassy of Canada in Ankara, Dutch MATRA Fund, Norwegian Embassy in Ankara, Fritt Ord (Free Word) Association, Social Sciences Association of Norway, British The Guardian Foundation and ICFJ: International Center for Journalists.

MEDAR has launched the “Women Journalists and Gender Equality in Local Media” awareness campaign to bring visibility to the gender-based discrimination and rights violations faced by women journalists in the local media. The video interview series, created with the support of the European Union Think Civil Program and in cooperation with the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ), focuses on the experiences and gender-based obstacles faced by local female journalists working in different cities of Turkey.

Media Research Association organizes “Investigative Journalism Trainings” in cooperation with ICFJ (International Center for Journalists) in Turkey. The trainings will take place in Istanbul and Ankara in July 2021. The training is organized for journalists in Turkey to develop their investigative journalism skills and for journalists to learn digital and physical research techniques used around the world. Topics covered in trainings are; investigative journalism and new research techniques, data journalism, big data and leak journalism, network thinking and geolocations, online research techniques and holistic security.

US Embassy in Ankara has decided to support the project called “The Impact of Coronavirus Outbreak on Society” that includes live broadcasts, podcasts, and news articles that are going to be published by dokuz8NEWS in 2020 and 2021. The project will consist of live broadcasts, articles, and podcasts focusing on the effects of coronavirus outbreak on issues such as violence against women, child abuse, LGBTQI + rights, local media, digitalization, economy, and politics.

Civil Society Exchange Partnership Program (CSEPP)

The Civil Society Exchange Partnership Program (CSEPP) is a multiplier program for civil society networks, umbrella organizations and established CSOs to adapt capacity building through mobility model Istanbul Bilgi University Center for Civil Society Studies and MitOst have been developing and working on since 2017.

TEAM4TEAM is a Civil Society Exchange project aiming to support exchange between civil society in Turkey and Europe on media and active citizenship, managed by ALDA and MEDAR.Running from March 2021 to March 2022, the project will consist of 3 main activities:

➢ A Spring School (February/March 2022) in Barcelona deepening the topics of media and citizenship (i.e. mobile journalism, fundraising for media and democracy projects, news verification, digital security, digitalisation, social media and third tools, data analysis and media) and with a specific focus on the involvement of youth.

EU Program: Etkiniz has decided to support “The Presence of Women Journalists in Local Media in Turkey and the Discrimination Women Journalists Experience Research Project”. The research will be completed in September 2020.

US Embassy in Ankara has decided to support the “Project on Developing Capacity in Investigative Journalism for Journalists in Turkey”, which is going to be realized together with the ICFJ (International Center for Journalists) and MEDAR on 2020-2021. Within the frame of this project, there will be two investigative journalism training sessions in Ankara and Istanbul in 2021.

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) has decided to support MEDAR and dokuz8NEWS on “Rights and Liberties Newsletter Video Project” between May 2020 and July 2020.

EU Program that is created to defend human rights activists and organizations called Protect Defenders, has decided to support MEDAR and dokuz8NEWS with core funding between July 2020 and July 2021.

The Embassy of Australia in Ankara supported the project “Social Gender-Based Alternative Media and Journalism Training” that is conducted by MEDAR and dokuz8NEWS in 2020. The training session took place in Ankara in January 2020.

The embassy of Britain supported the project “Alternative Media and Journalism Training” that is conducted by MEDAR and dokuz8NEWS in 2020. The training session took place in Ankara in January 2020.

The Embassy of Canada in Ankara supported the project “Social Gender-Based Alternative Media and Journalism Training” that is conducted by MEDAR and dokuz8NEWS in 2019. The training sessions were held in Samsun and Adana in July and October 2019. As a complementary project the Embassy of Canada supported the video news regarding the March 8th events that is produced by the training participants and it was broadcasted as a part of dokuz8NEWS March 8, 2020 coverage.

Dutch MATRA Human Rights Fund partnership had been started in December 2017 and was titled “Developing Data Journalism in Turkey Project”. MEDAR has conducted three trainings as part of the project in March, May and December 2018 with a total of 60 participants chosen from among dokuz8NEWS citizen journalism networks as well as disemployed journalists.

Following the training sessions, participants were encouraged to write data journalism pieces and visualize their articles for a copyright fee. 2 full time editors at dokuz8 Data News Team have regularly been publishing news in this field and have so far published over a hundred stories and covered three elections with a focus on data journalism, meeting the goal of 120 data journalism stories as part of the project.

Another project that MEDAR conducts through dokuz8NEWS is with the Norwegian Embassy in Ankara which foresees 3 training sessions across Turkey and 3 workshops with representatives from regional media outlets. The goal of this project is to strengthen MEDAR’s regional news networks.

In 2019 MEDAR’s partnership with the Norwegian Embassy in Ankara has been extended in order to initiate Regional Media Coordination that aims to initiate a nationally operating news agency consisting of independent media collaboration as well as citizen journalism contribution for news coverage.

The Guardian Foundation & Social Sciences Association of Norway

MEDAR had been in partnership with The Guardian Foundation and Social Sciences Association of Norway between 2017 and 2018. Through this partnership a research study on “Professional Journalists’ Perception of Citizen Journalism” had been conducted.

The fieldwork of this research study had been conducted between February-May 2018 in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Diyarbakır, Adana and Antalya with a total of 306 journalists who are either news-curators (editors & correspondents) or executives (chief editors & management) operating in national and regional media organs. The initial findings have been announced in July 2018 at Istanbul Cezayir Meeting Hall with a press conference and the Turkish version of the report has been published as a book by Kafka Publishing in December 2018 as part of Alternative Media & Social Movements Series.

As part of MEDAR’s dokuz8NEWS incentives, another project conducted in partnership with The Guardian Foundation has also included Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul with the title “dokuz8NEWS Student Training Project”.

A 3-day training session has been organised with participation of students of media & journalism from across Turkey and a total of 30 students from 21 universities in 14 provinces have attended this session between 18-20 September 2018. After the session was completed 4 students were granted contracts to participate a 90 day in-house training programme at dokuz8NEWS headquarters in Istanbul.

MEDAR has also initiated a partnership with Norwegian Fritt Ord Association as part of its support for dokuz8NEWS in May 2018. As part of this project, dokuz8NEWS has held 3 training sessions in September and October in Istanbul, Ankara and Antalya on Alternative Media & Citizen Journalism.

Fritt Ord has supported 6 training sessions in  2019 and has decided to support 2 training sessions in 2020 as well as dokuz8NEWS’ English publications.

As part of the second phase of Fritt Ord support, dokuz8NEWS has conducted two training sessions in preparation of March 31 Municipal Elections coverage and included 40 people in the network.

Social Research & Training Center TAREM had conducted an online poll between April-May 2016 with 1299 people and announced findings of the research on July 13, 2016 on Alternative Media & Citizen Journalism Platform’s Active Followers’ Perception Research.