Representation of the identity of police in media during gGezi park protests

The importance of the 'identity' issue which is examined under the culture theme emerges both in the political sphere and scientific studies. The fact that identity is shaped mostly by media is an inevitable reality that stands up before us. With this, it is impossible to be indifferent to identity studies. 'Police identity' is generally an issue that left out and it is examined in this study. However, this identity is as old as the history of the state and it conveys great clues and deep meanings. In a totalitarian regime, this identity protects and provides continuity of state, fights with all internal threat risks that can endanger the state, and lives outside of people and inside of itself. If this identity is researched, state and ideology will be examined closely. Gezi Park Protests happened in our recent past and have affected Turkey deeply are not forgotten and positive and negative effects can still be seen. Protests happened one after another all over the world were taken place also in Turkey, and the generation who has experienced a previous coup d'etat, panicked and our country turned away from rioting. During the protests hundreds of people were injured and it was reported many people died. The methods that police used during the protests in order to stop protestors are defined as "inappropriate force" and both sides attacked each other as if they were enemies. During the Gezi Park Protests the news was portrayed in the axis of police- protestor and if this is taken into account, it is not wrong to say that an identity did not form. Departing from this idea, this study is aimed at revealing the constructed police identity by internet news websites about Gezi Park protests. The starting point of this thesis is the hypothesis that media reshapes the truth according to its ideologies and forms a new truth. News is evaluated by using the method of critical discourse analysis of Dutch Linguist Teun A. van Dijk. When the news is evaluated in accordance with this method, separated into parts and revaluated again we can conclude that truth is rewritten and the identities are constructed within an ideological frame. Key Words: Gezi Park Protests, police identity, internet news, critical discourse analysis.