Abstract
On December 17, 2013, as Turkey was on the brink of a new year awaiting three important elections, three separate corruption investigations started against the administration which was already criticized with showing authoritarian attitudes since the Gezi Park events. Minister children and ministers were among the prosecuted in this first wave, and a follow up operation on December 25 which was thought targeting the son of the Premier Minister, was seriously incapacitated by the interference of the administration on the judges, prosecutors and the police. After a long resistance, the administration tried to get over the process with the resignation of the four ministers cited in the prosecution. The political opposition was also accused of coming into the influence of the “parallel structure-state”. The Premier attached much importance to this election process asserting that this would be the legitimization of him, staged a very ambitious campaign led mostly by him. This made the March 30 elections actually a referendum in Turkey. The most tense atmosphere in recent years resulted in an increased interest in the election and a clearly polarized society. The polarization pushed the administration. A polarizing language and ideology reflected on the news content and many media outlets became active sides of this process.Theoretical framework will be discussed in the recent political events in Turkey Attitudes in the news coverage (Hurriyet, Sozcu, Y. Safak and Zaman Newspapers) towards the AKP and the Fethullah Gülen movement during the month of the election campaing have been content analyzed in thestudy.
Author Information
Ibrahim Toruk, Selcuk University, Turkey
M. Salih Guran, Gumushane University, Turkey
Paper Information
Conference: NACSS2014
Stream: Journalism and Communications
This paper is part of the NACSS2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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