The article analyzes the headlines of the main Turkish newspapers in December 2017, with the aim of assessing the perception of the Russian Federation in the eyes of the Turkish public. The author examines the most influential, authoritative and prestigious newspapers in Turkey. The results of this article can be used in works related to information security and the dynamics of Russian-Turkish relations.
In modern society, the media and the society themselves are in constant and varied interaction. Today, the media can not be reduced only to the sphere where cultural or political interaction is made visible, since the very interaction is taking place through the media. The media became an organizational center for interaction in political activities, and it is difficult to imagine today’s political life without journalism. Journalism is called a privileged cultural form. This puts forward a demand for the quality of its truthfulness and accuracy; it is believed that it creates an “approximation” to the truth or “averaged reality”.
The cultural power of journalism is rooted in its ability to mobilize faith and consensus in the public consciousness through telling stories that are credible, because they are journalistic. Producers of journalism are forced to constantly approve and confirm their status by methods that demonstrate the audience “plausibility”. At the same time, it is ideological power communication, which not only provides facts, but also offers a way for them to understand and make sense of these facts. And since there is ambiguity in the “understandings” of facts, journalism is thus an arena for the struggle between competing ways of creating meaning.
Journalistic texts provide an opportunity for the audience to be involved in social reality. As members of certain communities, news makes us pay attention to the same problems, at the same time, and often with the same perspective. Therefore, one of the tasks of media research should be an answer to the question of whether there is an active attempt to create a public sphere that in some way shapes the interests of various groups of people and for what purpose. The solution of this task presupposes the need to study the content of newspaper and other materials to identify the editorial policy of specific publications, methods and methods for its implementation.
Content analysis (analysis of content) is a special methodical procedure for analyzing all types of texts (verbal, visual and other), this is an analysis of the core of communication, what lies between the communicator and the audience, between the author of the message and those to whom this message is addressed. Unlike questioning methods, content analysis allows the researcher to make conclusions about social phenomena without directly interfering with the fact that he studies, explores a large textual array, highlighting information aspects that are not lying on the surface [1]. Content analysis assumes the accuracy of measurement and the operationalization of abstract design definitions. In order to identify latent aspects of content that represent the main thematic blocks in quantitative parameters, coding is used. Careful measurement is decisive in content analysis. Since the original text of the print media contains vague symbolic forms of communication, the researcher’s task is to turn them into precise objective quantitative data. To enable subsequent playback, it details and documents the encoding procedures in detail.
Constructions in the content analysis are operationalized within the coding system a set of instructions or rules for fixing and recording the content extracted from the text on a systematic basis. The researcher compares the coding system with the type of text or communication space that is the object of study. The coding system also depends on the unit of analysis.
- Miles and A. Haberman give the following definitions to the research codes: “The code is an abbreviation or symbol attached to a segment of words to classify these words. Codes are categories” [2]. They usually come from research questions. They are restorative or organizing ways that allow the analyst to quickly notice, snatch and place in clusters all segments related to certain issues, hypotheses, concepts and topics. A. Strauss distinguishes three types of data encoding open, axial and selective [3].
Basic conditions of analysis [4]:
- With the researcher’s interest in certain characteristics of texts, these characteristics should be recorded in all materials selected for research, which ensures the objectivity of the analysis.
Objectivity is complemented by the fact that these characteristics are determined by the program so clearly and unambiguously that two researchers who work in the same method with the same array of texts come to the same result;
- As with any scientific knowledge, systematic analysis of the object of research is needed; the choice of the message for analysis must be based on formal, conditioned impartial signs, in other words, the researcher can not choose for analysis only those parts of the text that confirm his hypothesis and reject others. This requirement avoids the argumentative fraud of facts;
- To disseminate the conclusions obtained from the analysis of a number of materials to the entire real activity of the source of these materials, this series must meet the requirements of representativeness it should be characteristic of all the real activity of the source;
- The number of characteristics includes the very concept of quantitative analysis: the frequency of use of certain elements of this text, the randomness of these uses, the correlation coefficients, as well as the percentage and specific ratios of the weights of various characteristics of the text, can be counted in the text. Correctness or incorrectness of procedures is checked by the language of mathematics, developed for these
This method originated at the turn of the 19-20 centuries (it should be noted that this is the time of wars and revolutions). Then there was an awareness that the texts of the mass information should be studied in order, firstly, to know what effect they produce on people, and, secondly, to know how to create such texts that will produce the greatest effect on people.
Thus, during the content analysis procedure, the analyzed text undergoes dismemberment, a kind of vivisection, quantification of such linguistic units of speech, which serve in the text as indicators of certain phenomena of reality, ideas, behaviors, etc. These linguistic units must in turn be adequate in essence to more generalized concepts, categories, phenomena that interest the researcher.
One of the main characteristics of media activity is eventfulness. By event, we mean the process of creating and organizing news messages. The higher the share of events, the more effective the text fulfills its informative role. Messages about events are a commodity, have a market value and allow you to benefit those who are able to submit them appropriately. The value of a message depends on the demand for the information offered and on how this information is presented to the audience.
Among a number of linguistic scholars there is a view of events as something that does not exist outside speech. In other words, the event does not exist outside thought and speech, it is actualized in statements or texts. One of the main characteristics of text events is the function of events as episodes of discourse. Any event takes its place in a whole series of other episodes of one discourse. Mass communication is a periodic complex discourse, the purpose of which is the creation and dissemination of relevant socially significant information.
There are various definitions of discourse. “Discourse is a process of using the language that is limited by quite definite temporal and general chronological frameworks, conditioned and determined by special types of social activity of people pursuing specific goals and tasks and proceeding in sufficiently fixed conditions not only from the point of view of general socio-cultural but also specific individual parameters of its implementation and instantiation” [5].
One of the most recognized definitions of discourse in linguistics characterizes it as “coherent text in conjunction with extralinguistic (pragmatic, sociocultural, psychological, etc.) factors; text taken in the event aspect; speech, considered as a purposeful social action, as a component involved in the interactions of people and the mechanisms of their consciousness (cognitive processes)” [6]. “Texts of mass communication differ from other types of texts in that all other types of texts that are considered” primary “are used, systematized and reduced, processed and specially formatted. As a result, a new kind of text arises with its own laws of constructing and formalizing the meaning [7]. The entire body of texts of mass communication should be analyzed as a case of “a special type of linguistic use and a special type of texts relating to specific socio-cultural activities.
Only such an understanding allows us to take into account both the social context of what are happening and the role of participants in communication, and the specifics of the processes of production and perception of the message, while the main one here remains an expanded understanding of the contextual perspective of discourse [8]. Discursive strategies for the implementation of communicative actions are conditioned by the intention of the participants in communication, the contextual parameters of the communication situation and the genre features of the discourse, as well as the social and cultural factors that determine the structure and properties of the communicative situation and the characteristics of the communicants.
Having set ourselves the task of investigating what and how the most influential and authoritative Turkish media wrote about Russia in December 2017, we faced an important issue. Do most people read all these articles? Most likely, no, in memory there is only a small part of the information headlines and basic ideas. It is these short texts that form the perception of Russia in the eyes of the Turkish public. And if in one heading a journalist or an editor can strongly hyperbolize or twist the essence of the article, and then if there are a thousand titles in the dozens of the most authoritative Turkish media, such an array of data could adequately reflect the trends on a specific topic.
Such data is of great value to scientists, journalists and all those involved in information security. Data analysis allows you to determine:
- In what context do the media talk about Russia,
- how the frequency and tone of messages change,
- which sources and channels the distribution of news is most influential and effective.
From the following table it is clear that the word Russia was often mentioned and met in the headlines of the main Turkish newspapers, especially given that December has not yet ended. This may be due to the establishment of relations between Russia and Turkey, the activity of the Russian Federation in the international arena and, of course, the upcoming elections.
Table 1 Media
It is important to note that in this table only headings with the word «Russia» are indicated, whereas the title with the word «Putin» was not less, which speaks volumes. At a minimum, the identification of Russia and the personality of Putin in the eyes of the Turkish public.
Table 2 – Media
At the same time, it is extremely important to take into account, with what other representative words, these very headlines emerge in the eyes of the Turkish public. Most often, the words Russia and Putin surfaced in political tonalities. The activity of the Russian Federation on the international arena provided it with a huge number of headings, which include Russian-Turkish negotiations on the sanctions policy, the situation in Syria and the Middle
East, the dynamics of the development of Russian-American relations, the election and analysis of Russian-Turkish relations for 2017. Slightly less, articles related to sports and culture the IOC and the Olympic Games, cultural exchanges between Turkey and Russia.
Table 3 The frequency of mentions of the Russian Federation (Rusya) and Putin (Putin) in the headlines of the Turkish media
Media interest in important geopolitical events or catastrophes is predictable. However, our analysis allows us to look at the “image of the Russian Federation in the media” in more detail. In what context do they write about Russia and how do the largest print media, online media and TV channels do it? In other words,
In the headlines of Turkish newspapers and news agencies containing the words “Rusya” or “Putin”, the words “asker” (army), “Suriye” (Syria), “Trump”, “ABD” (USA), “ S400 “(military installations), and less” işbirliği “(cooperation) and” ticaret “(trade).
Slightly less common are the words “general”, “Yemen”, “NATO”, “Kuzey Kore” (North Korea), “Erdogan”. Very rarely the word “samimi” (friendly) is mentioned.
Intermediate conclusion: in the headlines of Turkish media, the word “Rusya” or “Putin” is more likely to be found next to the words describing the conflict in the east of Ukraine, the Syrian crisis or the military supplies of Russian weapons to Turkey than, for example, improving relations or strengthening trade ties.
First, despite numerous assurances of improving relations between the countries, the Turkish media are not ready to change the topic of their publications and still focus on the military aspect of the relations between the countries. The supply of Russian weapons pops up much more often than the economic relations between the two countries. This trend speaks volumes and, first of all, destroys the myth created by the Russian authorities that Turkish food products will not be able to find another market and will suffer losses if Russia does not open their borders to them. And secondly, despite the fact that the leaders of the two countries talk about rapprochement, there is still serious tension between the two countries, which the Turkish reader of newspapers will also feel acute.
In this paper, the author has set a goal to demonstrate at least part of the content analysis capabilities in media research, and also to show in practice how the content analysis technology can be applied to a specific material, what research tasks are being solved with its help how to interpret the obtained statistical distributions, what order of conclusions are obtained in this case. That is why.
Your attention was offered not only descriptions of sampling principles, categorical schemes, principles of operationalization of concepts, etc., but also the very process of analysis, further interpretation of the statistical data obtained, and the logic of constructing intermediate and final conclusions, all that usually remains outside the scope of published materials. The authors hope that the methods offered to readers will help those who are interested in content analysis and intend to take advantage of the opportunities provided for them for practical or research
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