The role of the press in terms of hegemony and ideology: A research on changing discourse about government before and after december 17-25 published in Zaman Newspaper

The technological and economic developments experienced in the 20th century, considerably changed the structure of media. As a result of this change, for the environments that have consideration to approach to people as a mass in social terms in a globalizing world, the social media is regarded as the one of most significant instrument. Media organizations that are under the control of a specific capital or an ideological group function as ideological transfer instrument within the framework of the interests of the owners. When the individuals interpret the world they live in, they see the interface that the media have built between themselves and the reality. The social events and the news about those are assumed as the most significant components of this interface. While reporting about the social events and developments, the news also gets reconstructed through discursive codes. Thus; it becomes a instrument of ideological transfer. The first section of this research deals with the concepts of ideology, hegemony, critical economy politics, religion and discourse throughout the theoretical framework that supports the study and also with the way these concepts are applied in communication sciences. The second section studies the organizational structure of the Gülen community. Here, it is revealed out that; the Gülen community performs in many areas and there are several organizations that are known for their intimacy with this community. The Gülen community has a different structure compared to the other religious groups in Turkey. Since its foundation, it has always tried to be in good relations with the political groups. This is also true for the Justice and Development Party, which came into power in 2002. The good relations between these two groups continued until 2013. After that date, the relations totally broke off and they became two opposite groups. The third section discusses the critical discursive analysis method and it reveals out how the relations between the Gülen community and the Justice and Development Party were reflected on the discourse of Zaman newspaper. The analysis result shows that; the newspaper shaped its discourses based on the relations between its owners and the government. As the amount of the news analysed was rather high, each was assessed individually within its own context. Keywords: Media, Ideology, Hegemony, News, Discourse