The study “Digital Voices, Discursive Power: The Siege of Turkey’s Digital News Media by Interpretive Journalism” by Sarphan Uzunoğlu from Izmir University of Economics investigated independent Turkish journalists and how they strategically used Youtube in a restrictive political environment.
In digital journalism, an understudied topic is the interplay between interpretive strategies and electronic news practices in authoritarian contexts, the focus of this study. Previous research has studied interpretative journalism in democratic settings such as Esser and Umbricht 2014, or the role of digital media in hybrid contexts (Chadwick 2017), but the combination of electronic, interpretative news and an authoritarian context make this study unique and worthwhile.
The journalist that have produced content to Youtube studied here are Fatih Altaylı, Ruşen Çakır, and Murat Yetkin. They all had extensive experience in the Turkish mainstream media, but all were compelled to transition to independent Youtube journalism due to governmental pressure and constraints on traditional media.
A total of 810 Youtube videos were analyzed to map rhetorical and thematic patterns, with the theoretical framework arising from CDA (Fairclough 1995). The qualitative analysis was conducted solely by the author, an impressive undertaking. The quantitative analysis of the titles on the other hand was conducted by a three person research group.
Quantitatively, the four prevalent framing strategies were Crisis Framing (470 videos), Populist Appeals (235 videos), Institutional Focus (348 videos), and Contextual Critique (284 videos). Obviously, some had more than one strategy to explain the total number here.
The three different journalists varied on their themes and strategies. As the author put it: “Altaylı assumes the role of the mobilizer, using outrage and simplification to catalyze emotional response. Yetkin adopts the facilitator, guiding public understanding through deliberative clarity. Çakır emerges as a historian-commentator, weaving together past and present to provide critical depth.” In this way, there was stylistic and ethical plurality of roles under the constrained media landscape of Turkey.
In summary, the research revealed that Youtube-based commentary has become vital in independent political analysis in Turkey, with it becoming a platform both for resistance and “algorithmic negotiation”. There was a clear dominance of crisis and negative topics, which are emotionally resonant topics that may be optimized for attention. There was a critical tension between audience engagement and maintaining journalistic credibility.
The article “Digital Voices, Discursive Power: The Siege of Turkey’s Digital News Media by Interpretive Journalism” by Sarphan Uzunoğlu is in Electronic News. (Free abstract).
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