A study on bank ads that have a nationalist theme in Turkey on the axis of hegemony and ideology

Nations emerged as the source of legitimacy for modern nation-states, while nationalism arose as a political ideology focused on the acceptance of this source as the sole and absolute political value. Nationalism fulfills the function of ensuring continuity and legitimacy for nation-states, and for individuals, it satisfies needs, desires, and ideals such as national identity, belonging, loyalty, and security through identification with a nation. As an ideology, nationalism must constantly be reconstituted to create and sustain the hegemony of the ruling classes, and for this, the consent of the governed classes must be secured. Thus, the governed classes, i.e., the nations, nourish the interests of the ruling classes through nationalist ideology with their consent. Althusser's concept of 'ideological apparatuses' and Gramsci's notion of 'intellectuals' play a fundamental role in producing this consent. These concepts today manifest at a much more advanced level than when they were originally introduced, both in content and form. Particularly, media products, and more specifically, advertisements, which represent the strongest discourse of capitalist ideology, mediate the dissemination of ideologies to establish hegemony. The use of nationalist ideology in advertisements is an advantageous strategy for commercial enterprises as it touches on a meaningful and emotional point with the target audience. In this regard, the nationalist themes employed for commercial purposes in the advertisements of the banking sector, a dominant element of the capitalist system in terms of managing capital, serve this exact purpose. In this sense, examining advertisements from this perspective aims to shed light on the establishment and functioning of hegemony. In this study, nationalist-themed bank advertisements in Turkey are analyzed through the lenses of Gramsci's perspectives on hegemony, Althusser's views on ideology, and using Barthes' semiotic analysis and Wodak's critical discourse analysis methods; a critique of capitalist ideology is presented. The research concludes that nationalist-themed advertisements, through various rhetorical tools, facilitate a societal shaping in line with the state's conjunctural needs.