A COMPARATIVE STUDY WITHIN THE FRAME OF TURKEY'S AND JAPAN'S TELEVISION BROADCASTING SUPERVISORY STRUCTURES: EXAMINATION OF THE BOARD DECISIONS OF RTÜK AND BPO

Abstract

With the proliferation of commercial broadcasting, many countries have established supervisory
boards / structures in order to supervise television broadcasts. Within this scope, Radio and
Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) was established in Turkey in 1994 and Publication Ethics and
Program Development Organization (BPO) was established in Japan in 2003. RTUK is an
autonomous and objective institution established in order to regulate visual and audio
media. RTUK, Supreme Council and communication experts, conducts audits through the
complaints made through the ALO 178 RTUK telephone line, RTUK website, RTUK e-mail
address and through the audience representatives. BPO is carrying out audit process with three
councils; the Committee for the Investigation of Broadcasting Ethics, the Broadcast and
Human Rights, the Broadcast Committee for Youth Programming. It is aimed to comparatively
analyze the decisions and sanctions applied by RTÜK and BPO in terms of television ethics as well
as their structures in this study. Five hundred decisions contained in January and February 2020
reports of Radio and Television Supreme Council and a total of hundred and five decisions taken by
BPO since the day it was established (in seventeen years) will be analyzed in this study in terms of
television ethics by using content analysis method. In this way, decisions of RTÜK and BPO, which
are the structures of two countries serving for broadcasting supervision; towards ethical problems,
taken within the frame of laws or broadcasting standards and the solution methods generated will be
tried to be presented by comparison.