Representation of the 2014 Turkish Presidency elections in media

The most significant function of the media is to inform the society. Society determines and adapts its beliefs, ideologies and life styles in line with the information it gets from the media or according to what it watches. Therefore, the media is a very strong power that is capable of affecting people. Owing to its power of affecting people, especially at times of alections, the media gets a specia concern for candidates attending the elections. In turkish Republic, electition of the president was first performed by means of public voting via referendum on August 10th, 2014. Election process was carried out with 3 candidates, who are Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and Selahattin, Demirtaş. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, having %51.79 of the votes, was the winner of the election (ysk.gov.tr). A well-prepared propagana, presents a significant figure for achiving congency and sovereignty over crowds. For the election held on August 10th,2014; candidates pursued their propaganda Works by organizing meetings in several cities and giving pres briefings. But, the important point that has to be painted out is from which perspective the media reflects all these effords. The media may reflect the news to public either in accordance with its own ideologies or as they actually are. This study was conducted with the aim to analyze how August 10th, 2014 election was reflected by the media. With this scope, a comperative discourse analysis was performed by examining the news, regarding the election, which was broadcasted on the main pages of the following newspapers: Hürriyet, Sabah, Sözcü, Evrensel during the time period between 03/08/2014 and 09/08/2014. In this manner, both how the same news was reflected in different newspapers, and also the way. They chose in stting the agenda are determined to be the prof of their ideological points of views. Moreover, another ""discourse analysis was also performed fort he "Propaganda speeches of the candidates for presidency" that broadcasted in TRT, on 03/08/2014 following the pre-election restrictions, with the courtesy of YSK (the Supreme Election Committee). The own words of candidates reflect what they want to Express in general; and as it is a direct broadcast on TV, these do not create a dilenma causing sociaty to question whether they are right or wrong. The reasosns for choosing the time period between 03/08/2014 and 09/08/2014; are both this period is very close to the election, and also the news that were broadcasted in between the pre-election restrictions and 10/08/2014, would anable the research analysis to end up with the correct results. On the TV programme broadcasted as TRT on 03/08/2014, "Propaganda speecies of the Candidates for Presidency", candidates Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and Selahattin Demirtaş spoke almost for 15 minutes and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for 11 minutes. Discourse analysis performed within the content of this research, it is determined that each three candidates has different styles of adress and expression. These distinctnesses are means of propaganda by which each candidate express his own perspective to public. As a result. İt is determined that newspapers, Hürriyet, Sabah, Evrensel and Sözcü presensented different ideologial approaches in the news, broadcasted an their main page, at the dates between 03/08/2014 and 09/08/2014 regarding the presidential elections of 10/08/2014 Keywords: The Media, Discourse Analysis, Propaganda, Presidency Elections