Presentation Journal: Europe's Doorstep (Turkey and Israel)

It seems that both Turkey and Israel want to control their borders by deciding which media they allow to influence their nations. However, at times, the result is that they end up constraining the rights of their citizens through censorship. Both nations also have conflicting minority groups they must deal with. To maintain its nationalistic sense in a global world, Turkey sometimes has to have a heavy hand with its citizens, especially with the Kurds, who are considered to be anti-nationalistic. The example of YouTube being blocked for a while in Turkey, despite its popularity, shows how there is a rift between the government and its people. Israel’s culture, which is 75 percent Jews and 25 percent Arabs, is both mixed and conflicted. The government controls the media to unify the culture, which, once again, reminds us that the minority often gets pushed aside in favor of the majority. The United States also seems to have a strong influence on Israeli media, and perhaps on the media of neighboring Arab countries as well.