UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN Department of Administration and Organization Theory AORG350 Master's Thesis in Administration and Organizational Science SPRING 2021 Framing of Pro-Minority Political Parties by Mainstream Media: A case study of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi – HDP) and the Turkish Press ARJEN CELEBI 1 Contents List of tables and figures ................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 6 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 7 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 8 1.1. Relevance and Importance ................................................................................................... 9 1.2. Research Objectives and Questions ................................................................................... 10 1.3. Outline of the Thesis .......................................................................................................... 11 2. CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION ....................................................................................... 13 2.1. Kurdish Conflict in Turkey ................................................................................................ 13 2.2. Turkeyfication and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) ................................................ 16 2.3. The Kurdish Issue during the AKP governments .............................................................. 21 2.4. Newspaper Landscape and Journalism in Turkey ............................................................. 26 3. LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................................... 30 3.1. Framing & Frames in Political Communication ................................................................ 31 3.2. News-frames and Public Opinion ...................................................................................... 34 3.3. Framing of the Kurds in Turkish Context .......................................................................... 41 3.4. Theoretical Framework ...................................................................................................... 43 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 47 4.1. Choice of the Case ............................................................................................................. 47 2 4.2. Data Collection .................................................................................................................. 50 4.3. Analysis.............................................................................................................................. 52 4.4. Limitations ......................................................................................................................... 64 4.5. Validity .............................................................................................................................. 65 5. FINDINGS & DISCUSSION ................................................................................................ 68 5.1. RQ1: How was the HDP framed in the front pages of the Hürriyet, Sabah and Sözcü from June 2015 to November 2015? ..................................................................................................... 68 5.1.1. Hürriyet ............................................................................................................................... 68 5.1.2. Sabah ................................................................................................................................... 73 5.1.3. Sözcü ................................................................................................................................... 78 5.2. RQ2: What are the differences and similarities between the frames used by different newspapers to address/refer to the HDP in their coverage of events? .......................................... 83 5.3. RQ3: What is the relationship between the variations in the framing of the HDP and the political alignment of the newspapers? ......................................................................................... 87 5. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 92 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................... 95 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 97 3 List of tables and figures Table1: Transition of the Mainstream Pro-Kurdish Parties in Turkey (Adapted from (Celep, 2018) ....................................................................................................................................................... 20 Table 2: Parliamentary Election Results for the Mainstream Pro-Kurdish Parties in Turkey (1991 – 2018) Source: Supreme Election Council Election Archive ...................................................... 21 Table 3 Political alignment and size information about the selected newspapers for 2015 ......... 50 Table 4 Hurriyet, 12 October ........................................................................................................ 54 Table 5 Sabah, 13 August ............................................................................................................. 55 Table 6 Sözcü, 10 June ................................................................................................................. 55 Table 7 Overview of the generic and issue-specific frames ......................................................... 57 Table 8 Overview of the events through which the HDP were addressed .................................... 62 Table 9 – Overview of findings for Hürriyet ................................................................................ 70 Table 10 Hürriyet, 1 August ......................................................................................................... 71 Table 11 Hürriyet, 13 July ............................................................................................................ 71 Table 12 Hürriyet, 18 October ...................................................................................................... 72 Table 13 Hürriyet, 28 September .................................................................................................. 72 Table 14 Hürriyet, 27 October ...................................................................................................... 72 Table 15 Overview of findings for Sabah ..................................................................................... 75 Table 16 Sabah, 20 August ........................................................................................................... 76 Table 17 Sabah, 18 June ............................................................................................................... 76 Table 18 Sabah, 26 June ............................................................................................................... 77 Table 19 Sabah, 17 September ...................................................................................................... 77 Table 20 Sabah, 2 August ............................................................................................................. 77 4 Table 21 Overview of findings for Sözcü ..................................................................................... 80 Table 22 Sözcü, 8 August ............................................................................................................ 81 Table 23 Sözcü, 6 September ........................................................................................................ 81 Table 24 Sözcü, 13 August ........................................................................................................... 82 Table 25 Sözcü, 14 October .......................................................................................................... 82 Table 26 Sözcü, 26 October .......................................................................................................... 83 Table 27 Comparison of newspapers based on themes ................................................................ 86 Table 28 Comparison of frames .................................................................................................... 86 Table 29 Codebook for identification of generic and issue-specific frames ................................ 95 Figure 1 Cascading network activation (Entman, 2003) .............................................................. 39 Figure 2 Scheme of Research Questions ...................................................................................... 46 Figure 5 Hürriyet, 15 August ........................................................................................................ 69 Figure 8 Sabah, 15 August ............................................................................................................ 74 Figure 7 Sözcü, 15 August ...........................................................................................................