British-Ottoman press opinion(s) during the Balkan Wars: Unraveling the perception-building practices, fighting discourses, and societal engagements

The Balkan Wars have a multifaceted history that should be explored from different angles and new historiographical perspectives. This thesis focuses on the British and Ottoman press opinion(s) to unravel different discourse- and perception-building practices, propaganda strategies, and social responses during the wars. It aims to vocalize various social and state actors using several receptive channels in the Ottoman Empire and Britain. For this quest, different newspapers will be the core of the research to display how newspapers were used as a common medium by both ruling elites and social actors during the Balkan Wars. Alongside providing a survey on the historical roots of the newspapers in Britain and the Ottoman Empire, the first chapter discusses the concepts of press opinion, public opinion, and constructed discourses in placing itself to explain how newspaper sources were valuable to understanding different perceptions. It argues that there was a symbiotic relationship between social and state actors in navigating press sources during the Balkan Wars. The second chapter provides a case study that explores how the initial phase of the wars affected wartime politics and how people perceived them. It aims to delve into the British-Ottoman encounters through the lenses of perceptions and discursive practices within a comparative setting. In this chapter, the present research applies a discourse-historical approach to unravel varying perceptions and un(der)vocalized discourses of the time. Another purpose of this chapter is to show to what extent international-level politics during the wars can be read from the newspapers and to underscore different aspects that the existing literature does not. In the last chapter, the thesis examines the societal-level engagements in the Ottoman and British cases during the Balkan Wars. It attempts to show how different social groups reacted to the wars through mass political channels such as protests, demonstrations, and donations. It aims to show to what extent people in Britain and the Ottoman Empire became involved in wartime politics on the home front via several channels on the basis of varying discourses and perception-building practices by implementing a comparative inquiry.