Media and Memory on the 6 February 2023 Earthquakes: The Case of Malatya

Media enterprises created an environment where it is possible to store and recall information outside of the human memory. As a result, we may view media enterprises as memory spaces. It is important to refer to the memory institutions and media workers' testimonies with their ability to function as tools that enable recall particularly in extraordinary times. One such case of extraordinary times in the scope of this study is the earthquakes that occurred on 6 February 2023, whose epicentre was the province of Kahramanmarad, impacting eleven other provinces of T & uuml;rkiye. We selected Malatya province as the main universe of the study as it was among the three most impacted provinces in the February 6th earthquakes. We chose to focus on ER TV as the sample because it was the television channel which broadcasted locally for about 30 years in Malatya province, and it was one of the most widely viewed television channels in the region. In this context, the study aims to understand the testimonies of the local media workers of the earthquake and to determine how the viewers affected both the process of the earthquake and the perception towards the post-earthquake stage. The main reason to select Malatya province as the main universe of this study is related to our methodology in this study. We opted to use the ethnographic interview method. We conducted interviews with four workers of the ER TV channel, a well- established media enterprise in Malatya. As the interviewers, our experiences and participants' testimonies allowed us to examine the reality of the earthquake from within. As a result of the interviews we conducted with the channel employees who had experienced the earthquake, we found the following: (1) The local television channels reported the degree of impact of the earthquake on the cities more in detail compared to the national television channels, (2) The channel workers were able to observe the events around them more from within as they were earthquake victims themselves, and for most of them, this was the city where they were born and raised, (3) The local media workers were more knowledgeable about the city streets, its structures, and history compared to those of the national media, (4) They could address the problems that the local public encountered more aptly, (5) They worked just like a social aid organisation and collected funds for those in need, (6) They could create agenda that would draw politicians' attention to the city with their news reports, and (7) They managed to keep the effects of the earthquake current by using the social media actively.