Özet:

This study investigates the academic identity of communications programs in Turkey by comparing faculty members’ current institutional affiliations, their alma maters, and their fields of doctoral study. It analyzes the fields of study and institutional mobility of all faculty members working in communications programs at Turkish universities to assess the degree of academic inbreeding as well as interdisciplinary employment in these programs. We obtained the data for our study through the academic search engine of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education (CoHE). We then used quantitative content analysis to analyze the personal data of 1,173 faculty members (598 assistant professors, 262 associate professors, and 313 full professors) working in communications programs across sixty-seven universities. The results show that communications programs at Turkish universities are predominately staffed by graduates of faculties established before 1992 (Istanbul, Marmara, Anadolu, Ankara, Ege, Selçuk, and Gazi), though those at younger universities and private universities have a relatively greater share of graduates from newer programs. While only 29 percent of faculty members in these newer programs currently work at the university where they obtained their doctoral degree, this rate was much higher (between 67 and 88 percent) in older communications programs at universities established before 1992, from which we conclude that older programs are somewhat closed to those with degrees from other universities. As for fields of study, four-fifths of faculty members working in communications programs in Turkey have a PhD in the field of communications. This proportion was highest in younger universities, from which we conclude that newer programs are somewhat closed to graduates from outside the field of communications. 

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