Effects of political advertising upon political elections: Research about 2011 General Election process in Turkey

Politics is carried out by communication activities of political actors. Political communication which is performed face-to-face previously, is done mostly by mass media today. At this stage, social and political reality are reshaped by mass media.Mass media have immense power by being the resource of all information. Besides, by this power, mass media have the potential of transforming political process by affecting it. Nowadays, mass media have growing potential to drive the political knowledge and attitudes during the elections.Political advertisings that are produced by buying place and time in the media, seriously affect political elections by building an image, persuasion and shaping attitudes. Political advertisings are instruments which reflect how political parties see the political problems and more importantly how they want to show them. Political advertisings reproduce political reality by attributing new meanings. Political advertisings, as being signs, include different meanings and these are needed to be analised.Semiotics is used in order to define the different meanings that are presented in the advertisings. In this thesis, during 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey, Justice and Development Party and Republican People?s Party?s productions about different meanings vis-a-vis same problems by the outdoor advertisings, will be studied by using semiotics. As a conclusion, political advertisings are used as an instrument by political parties in order to attribute different meanings to political reality and reconstruct it.