Styles of Communication (Dec 2018)
Politics, Media and Power: Relationships within the Frameworks of Political Memory
Abstract
The main objective of this study is to scientifically prove the limits of the hypothesis that political memory is shaped by the media and press operations in Turkey under the influence of the political actors. The studies consist of using two different methods, media analysis and fieldwork. In this context, the media analysis involves newspaper articles about the political leaders from the 2014 Presidential elections. The newspapers were selected based on their political view and ratings. We collected and analysed 1067 articles from the most read five national newspapers which have different places on the political spectrum in Turkey, published between June 1 and August 10, 2014. The fieldwork chapter of the analysis consisted of a sealed envelope survey. The questionnaire forms were given to the 500 students from Pamukkale University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 243 of them were valid; social media and media usage habits of the subjects were examined and evaluated with their replies to the memory-related questions. Lastly, the study concluded that the interactive-relationship between media and memory could be shaped by the political motivations of media and/or political actors, but the result can be eventually a false memory. That is, one’s habitus has the determining priority regarding the scope and the content of the memory -or the false memory.
