The role of organizational journals in the construction of identities: Türk Yurdu and Ülkü

The issue of identity has been one of the most interesting issues in social sciences in recent times. Each of the disciplines including sociology, psychology and political science assess identity within the framework of their own fields of study. In this study the issue of identity is being assessed in terms of communication science.The constructible structure of identities is discussed and the assessment that identity may not be considered as independent from the concepts of ego and personality is made. It is underlined that identities are created through the synthesis of social values learnt through social relations and personal characteristics, this makes up the theoretical structure of the thesis at the same time. Our purpose is to reveal what the identity offered to the people in the establishment period and first years of the Republic of Turkey was by means of Türk Yurdu and Ülkü which are the journals of the organizations of Türk Ocakları (Turkish Societies) and Halkevleri (People?s Houses) and how the organizations constructed identity through which mottos. Using the method of qualitative analysis the journal articles were categorized under certain titles and the mottos are interpreted in terms of identicalness and creating difference, the two significant categories of identity. As a consequence, one may say that the journals offered the values and thoughts to individuals by mans of media in the first years of the Republic and paid effort to enable people to determine what they stood close to and what they remained distant from. It is revealed that each journal paid effort to construct identities conforming to their own political structure.