Love & Hate

Analyzing the portrayal of the Turkish military’s interaction with the EU in Turkey’s print media.

Constructing the hypothesis

• Democratization Theory

– “The purpose of the military is to defend society, not define it.”» Richard E. Kohn

• Sociological Positivism

– “Positivism is the view that serious scientific inquiry should not search for ultimate causes deriving from outside source but must confine itself to the study of relations existing between facts which are directly accessible to observation.”

» Edmund Leach

• Content Analysis

– “Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?”» Harold Lasswell

Hypothesis

• Democratization process should trigger a change of the military’s role in Turkish politics.

– Externally influenced

– Change

Collecting the Data: Content Analysis

• Qualitative

– “Different people should code the same text in the same way.”

» Robert Philip Weber

• Quantitative

– Measuring Kemalism through word frequencies.

The problem: Turkish print media

• “...a newspaper’s main product is neither news nor information but influence.”– only 7.3 % are actual readers of any newspaper

• Corruption Report (March 2001) by TESEV– teachers 79 %– soldiers 64 %– journalists 27 %– politicians 10 %

• Freedom of the Press Report 2005 (Freedom House)– “…media groups could become a bigger obstacle to press freedom

than the state.”

The nature of Turkish democratization

• Not checking societal perceptions– Turkey’s experience with

democracy has never been a grass roots event.

• Elite influence• Nick Ludington article

• Cumhuriyet (The Republic)

• Zaman (Time)• Özgür Gündem (Free

Agenda)• Radikal (The Radical)

What will the results tell?

• If the military is retreating from politics...

– future place?

• If the military is conserving its position or even advancing it…

– Turkey’s membership bid?

– Turkish media as a democratic tool?

Four threats to this thesis

• Argument

• Academic Material

• Data

• Myself