The ideological construction of regime debate in Turkey by the press in the context of 2007 presidential elections

Abstract

2007 Presidential Elections witnessed struggle for the hegemony on discourse. The election of AK Party’s nominee Abdullah Gül as the 11th President of Turkey is considered by neo-nationalists as the conquest of the last castle and a shift from the laic republic to a moderate Islam state. On the other hand, the conservative democrats saw this assignment as the manifestation of national will and celebrated the victory of AK Party as the reconciliation of state and nation.This thesis analyzed the dominating discourse in texts reflecting the ideology of power. It tried to interpret the ideology revealed or hidden in news and columns collected from the internet sites of newspapers Cumhuriyet, Milliyet and Zaman by using critical discourse analysis. The ideological production of newspapers and the construction of oppositions are analyzed by using themes shaped according to the main developments and concepts during this period.The thesis concluded that the media discourses confirmed, legitimated and reproduced relations of power and dominance in society. Discourse did this ideological work by constructing the group identity (us) by defining the opposite (them) using concepts like democracy against republicanism, religious against secular, the thread of coup against the thread of regimen change and reproduced the polarization of the society.