Instrumentalist Use of Journalism in Imposing the Kemalist Hegemonic Worldview and Educating the Masses in the Early Republican Period

Abstract

This paper analyses hegemonic use of the press in the process of top-down Kemalist modernization in the early periods of the Turkish Republic that is characterized by one party rule between early 1920s and 1950. In addition to helping Westernization attempts of the Kemalists, the press in this period also was hegemonically engaged in vilification of the past. Moreover, intolerant attitude towards pluralism and plurality of views was the discursive norm of the Turkish press at that time. The journalism and the press in the early years of the Republic had consistently supported the new regime which was committed to social engineering. This issue could unfortunately find little space in political science literature on Turkey. First of all, a theoretical framework concerning Gramscian theory of hegemony vis-à-vis media will be presented in this paper. Then, Turkish modernization history will be covered shortly, and lastly, in a more detailed way, the role of journalism and the press as an instrument in hegemonic modernization process in the early Republican period will be quested.

Keywords: Gramsci, Hegemony, Turkey, Media, Press, journalism, Islam, modernization

JEL Classification: Z00