Fragment Of The Politics A Study On Political Advertisements

Abstract

In democratic societies, political parties or candidates try to influence voters and persuade them to vote for them by utilising various political communication methods. Political advertisements appear as the most essential political communication method used by parties during election periods. Political advertisements are the advertisements in which political parties or candidates announce their political election promises to the voters by attracting the attention of the voters during election periods via mass media. In the General Election of 7th June 2015, 436 political advertisements of AK PARTY, CHP, MHP, and HDP which were broadcast on television and published on the newspapers having had the highest circulation such as Zaman, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Posta, Habertürk, Bugün, Yenişafak, Türkiye, Sabah, and Sözcü (except sports newspapers) were analyzed by content analysis method. In the analyses, the emphasis was on the form and content of these political advertisements rather than their influences. In this study, variables such as the type of political advertisement used by the parties in political advertisements, the issues that came to the fore in advertisements, and the image of the leader were evaluated. According to the results of the analysis, both types of advertisements, predominantly negative advertisements, were used in AK PARTY advertisements, while positive advertisements were predominantly used in CHP, MHP and HDP advertisements. It has been seen that parties touch more on the issues such as economy, transportation, corruption, unemployment, social security and political participation in advertisements.