Identity of Degree Programs in Communications: Academic Mobility between Universities and Fields of Study

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 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, though those at younger universities and private universities have a relatively greater share of graduates from newer programs. 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.