Abstract

African events and developments gained more attention in Türkiye after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) declared 2005 to be the “Year of Africa” (Incesu, 2020). Since then, Turkey has been actively engaged with African countries at the highest level. As a result, the number of Turkish embassies on the African continent increased from 12 in 2002 to 44 in 2024; concomitantly, the number of African diplomatic missions in Ankara has expanded from 10 to 39. The amount of commercial trade between the two regions grew from less than five billion US dollars to 41 billion dollars in 2023 (DEIK, 2023). The contribution of media being paramount in the promotion of a country’s image abroad; Türkiye’s official news organizations, such as Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT World) and the Turkish multinational news agency, Anadolu Agency (AA), started setting up representative offices in a number of African countries, especially after 2010. The major goal of these initiatives is to improve Türkiye’s image in Africa, dispel Turkish people’s preconceived notions about the continent, and, in the long run, strengthen bilateral ties with African nations. Today, with the advent of digital media and social networks, information spreads far more quickly and in many different ways. As such, it is highly challenging to assess media impact within the existing context. This article analyses the contribution of both traditional and digital media in the bilateral relations between Türkiye and Sub-Saharan African countries. A critical look is also cast at how the abovementioned media make it possible to give a positive image of Turkey to African businessmen and the way of showing the African potentiality to Turkish investors, helping to reduce the cognitive biases about Africa and vice versa. Methodologically, it is a qualitative research based on content analysis, interviews, case studies, and archive data explorations.

Keywords: Media, Public Diplomacy, Soft Power, Sub-Saharan Africa, Türkiye