City in local press: Van in the sample of Van mail newspaper (1976-1980)

Local newspapers are among the most important written documents that make up the memory of a city or region. News reflected in local newspaper pages; It gives important information about the socio-economic and physical structure of a city, city culture, education, projects planned or implemented for that city and allows us to have an idea about the city life.In this study, it is aimed to bring the data obtained by examining the city-related projects in the issues of Van Postası Newspaper published between 1976-1980 and the news about the socio-economic and physical structure of the city. In these news; economic structure, physical structure and projects are classified. The news are analyzed and interpreted by using material analysis method. According to the data obtained from the five-year archive of Van Postası Newspaper; The economic crisis, which prevails throughout the country, has been observed to be very effective in Van. Nevertheless, many state-supported projects have been planned and some important investments have been made throughout the province. It is also noticeable that some of the projects planned in the analyzed news have not started or are incomplete. In the news published in the period examined, it was seen that the absence of basic materials such as basic foodstuffs, fuel oil, electricity and wood-coal caused great problems and negatively affected the urban life. It has been understood from the published news that economic measures such as regulated sales offices, which were talked about a lot after the current economic crisis, were also implemented by local governments at that time. On the other hand, despite the economic difficulties experienced sensibly, rapid and remarkable advances have also been observed in Van in terms of urbanization. During this period, it was observed that both local newspapers and non-governmental organizations made great efforts in terms of the development and problems of the city to the central government. As a result of these efforts, it is understood from the news reflected in the newspaper that solutions for some problems related to the city of Van were produced.