The social perception of electors regarding the people's between AK Party and MHP before the 2018 general elections

This study embodies an investigation aimed at an understanding of the social perception of electors regarding the people's alliance between AK Party and MHP before the 2018 general elections, which is considered as an important threshold within the Turkish political life. In the theoretical framework of the study, the dialectical relationship between media and political institutions which constitute an important place in the society is addressed. In this part, the extent to which the relationship between the two institutions affects the voting behavior, choice and perception of the electors is discussed at the theoretical level. Accordingly, the functional role of media – which is considered as the fourth power in the liberal system, which determines the agenda and constitutes a significant source of information for the public especially in electoral periods – over the electors is analyzed in the theoretical part of the study. At the same time, whether the media, as the transmitter of information and news in electoral periods, reflects the reality as well as the monopolization process in media is discussed in the theoretical platform. The political identities of AK Party and Nationalist Movement Party that have formed the people's alliance before the 2018 general elections, which enabled the full transition to presidential government system, have been defined within the study together with an overall evaluation of the political atmosphere in Turkey before the people's alliance. The methodology used in the study is in-depth interview technique which is among the qualitative research methods. Within this framework, in-depth interviews are conducted with fifteen participants of different ages, genders, levels of education and political views, all of whom are AK Party, MHP and CHP electors. The electors of other political parties are not included due to the limitedness of the study. In order to gain insight into the social perception of participants regarding the alliance, thirty five pre-prepared questions, five of which is on demographic characteristics, have been addressed and the electors' social perception on the alliance is analyzed based on the participants' evaluations. The results of the study have demonstrated that the elector perception on people's alliance is not independent from the political choices and social perceptions of the participants. While participants made differing evaluations on the alliance within the framework of their political and cultural characteristics, it is seen that media is a determinant in their perception regarding the people's alliance.