An example of soft power in public diplomacy: Analysis of the news in the international media about Alper Gezeravcı

The study examines the contribution of the sending of Turkey's first astronaut Alper Gezeravcı into space to Turkey's soft power strategies in the context of public diplomacy. The aim of the study is to analyze how this space mission increased Turkey's international visibility, to what extent it served Turkey's foreign policy objectives and whether it contributed to the country's international image. The study is structured around the concepts of digital public diplomacy and soft power. Van Dijk's Critical Discourse Analysis model was adopted as the research method. In this context, 14 news articles about Alper Gezeravcı published in international digital media between January 17 and February 12, 2024 were analyzed. The analysis is based on both macrostructure (thematic-schematic organization) and microstructure (discourse language, rhetoric and word choice) analysis. The study reveals how the news texts serve Turkey's soft power construction and through which linguistic strategies international perception is shaped. The findings show that through Alper Gezeravcı's space mission, Turkey made its capacity in the fields of science, technology and international cooperation visible and thus positively affected its international image. In addition to the traditional tools of public diplomacy, digital media and space achievements are also emphasized as strategic communication elements.