The place of counter-hegemony initiatives in media representation and democracy relationship; Uykusuz journal example

The concept of ideology that emphasizes the determination process of ideas provide basis for hegemonic relations as an action-generating consciousness constructor. The concept of hegemony, which points to the superior and the dominant, with Gramsci's original point of view; it expresses the ideological superiority of the dominant classes over the dependent classes that have developed in the civil sphere. In other words; emphasizes that the ruling class gains the texture of the social structure, that is, cultural sovereignty, in the balance between consent and oppression while holding power. In this understanding of sovereignty, where political leadership has been replaced by moral and intellectual leadership, values and ideas are shared and accepted as a common sense. Therefore, there is a need for counter-hegemonic discourses to be initiated by the intellectuals in order to establish alternative hegemonies against the dominant hegemony. This situation also appears to be a useful area for the spread of democracy to society as it will support the transition from monophonic to polyphony. This research which intend to determine the position of the media in the functional democracy within the framework of these concepts aims to identify ideological representations and the counter-hegemonic strategies which they use to produce these representations and to examine the contribution of these initiatives to democracy through the cover cartoons Uykusuz magazine between 2010 and 2020. Cartoons, which are considered as a political humor element in the research, are limited around the main topic of "justice", as injustice is the most sensitive area of hegemony. In this qualitative research, document analysis was carried out in order to make sampling in a wider field. Discourse analysis was applied to the cover cartoons of the Uykusuz magazine, which was considered as a document, in order to reveal its multi-faceted structure that can be understood in a social context and to understand the political-power relations. As a result of the research, it was seen that Uykusuz magazine maintained an opposing stance by revealing unfair practices, responded to symbolic contents in circulation with symbolic content, offered an alternative way of acquiring knowledge through counter-hegemonic discourse. It has contributed to the functional democracy in this respect. As the outcome of the research, it was determined that the counter-hegemonic discourse was applied within framework of certain strategies and a conceptualization was made. As a result, it is possible to say that political humor arouses doubts in individuals through various methods, and doubt is the starting point for a critical point of view, and offers a suitable space for democracy to function due to the reshaping of the public sphere.