THE ROLE VISUAL MEDIA AS A TOOL OF CULTURAL CONVERGENCE ON TURKEY-AZERBAIJAN RELATIONS

Abstract

Visual media has an important role in international relations, especially in ensuring cultural and
social rapprochement, creating mutual awareness in public opinion. Many positive and negative
opinions are formed through visual media.
Today, there is closeness between the public opinion of Turkey and Azerbaijan that exceeds the will
of the political administrations. Turkey's visual mass media, operating in Azerbaijan, have an
important place in maintaining and strengthening this closeness, whose roots go back to the depths
of history. In this context, Turkish visual media has assumed one of the main roles in the revival of
cultural and social rapprochement between two peoples of the same ethnic origin, language and
belief who have been separated for many years.
In this context, Turkey's public broadcastindeg channel, Turkish Radio-Television Corporation
(TRT), has a special place.
TRT also opened its second representation in the Turkish Republics in Azerbaijan in 2001. In this
way, it increased the number of news and programs and strengthened its contribution to the
development of cultural and social relations between the two countries. In the period between 2004
and 2007, this contribution reached its peak, and besides its contribution to the promotion of
Azerbaijan, it also contributed to the increase of a positive perception of Turkey in the Azerbaijani
public. In this sense, it can be said that as a public diplomacy tool, it has been turned into one of the
most important cultural tools in the relations between the two countries.
However, it is noteworthy that there are no original studies on the effects of TRT's activities in
Azerbaijan on public opinion formation and public diplomacy.
The theoretical framework of this study was determined as the function of the press to form public
opinion and public policy in international relations. For this purpose, the handling of the activities
of the TRT Baku Representation Office in the Azerbaijani press between the years 2004-2007 and
the impact of the broadcasting activities on setting the agenda will be evaluated.