The use of songs in political communication: The case of AK Parti in 2019 local elections

Today, political parties use a variety of instruments to influence voters and gain public support. In addition to conventional methods such as newspaper advertisements, radio conversations, television broadcasts, home visits and flyers, they also actively benefit from social media. One of the most important of these tools is the use of music. Today, as the elections are becoming more and more similar to a "market where customers choose products" (Bourdieu, 1991: 171-172), political parties separate intensify their "identity construction processes" during this time period (Roper, 2005: 140-141) in order to themselves from others. In this context, this thesis analyses the songs used for the March 31st Turkey General Local Elections and the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality elections of June 23rd campaigns in terms of political communication, focusing on AK Parti's nineteen songs as a case study. As a result of the research, it is aimed to show how AK Parti constructs a collective identity via the 2019 Local Election songs. In the thesis, firstly, the literature on the relationship between music and society is reviewed. The discussions on this subject so far can be grouped under two main headings. The first is the "Reflection Theory", which argues that not only by musical pieces but all works of art are determined by the social structure of the period in which they are produced. On the other hand, there are approaches suggesting that music-society interaction is doublesided, in other words, music can affect individuals and society, as Tia deNora calls "Music-inAction" (2017). These approaches suggest that music can play a role of creating ritual effect, construct shared memory, or help benefiting from the images of musicians or to make political discourse easier to be absorbed and so on, to shape the identity of certain social groups in order to unite large masses. In this context, as a common denominator, popular music appealing to general appreciation has a special importance in terms of communication of political parties with the audience and an in-depth look at this issue was taken. Popular music, whose origins date back to the early Enlightenment period, which coincided with the rise of the bourgeoisie in the cultural scene, seems to function as a uniting tool of pre-national social groups under the nation-state, and thus has a political function since its birth. This function has made the determination of the "popular" more political. In this sense, it is stated that the distinguishing feature of popular music is standardization (Çelik, 2012: 58) and that popular taste is constructed in the market (Frith, 1996: 120). However, the masses are not passive buyers of the tastes determined by the industry, but they also establish an aesthetic relationship with these products (Tekelioğlu, 2006: 29). Therefore, pop music becomes a field of cultural struggle where opposition political content can be found (Way, 2013: 715-716). In this context, the idea that the dominant culture of any society at any time is its popular culture (McGregor, 2000: 41) emerges, which leads us to the conclusion that "doing pop" in the present day is "doing Western" (Küçükkaplan, 2016: 342). Accordingly, popular culture is a "modern" (Chambers, 1986: 99) and "urban" culture (Tekelioğlu, 2006: 22). Another important contextual factor in the study is the history of music in Turkey. In this context, the Ottoman Period, Early Republican Period, Transition to Multi-Party Life – September 12th period, post-September 12th period and post-Cold War period were examined in this thesis. Musical base in Turkey sits on a three-fold structure: Monophonic Turkish folk music, classical Turkish music which dates back to the Byzantine era and which mostly uses Eastern instruments and "tekke"/ Sufi music (Küçükkaplan, 2016: 13, Tekelioglu, 2006: 24). "Baglama" is an essential instrument in folk music (Balkılıç, 2015: 82), which has become a national symbol of Turkey's (Wayne, 2009). Western music is included to these three pillars as early as the Ottoman period. The influence of Westernization in the late Ottoman period manifested itself both in the military bands of the period and in the popular and civilian urban culture that began to form under the leadership of non-Muslims. The national consciousness and Westernization moves that gained momentum with the proclamation of the Republic brought about the emphasis on folk music and Western music, but especially on the synthesis of these two while abandoning the Ottoman and "tekke" music. The young Republic of Turkey aiming an "East-West synthesis" defined its musical targets accordingly (Tekelioğlu, 2006: 92). Ziya Gökalp, one of the ideologues of the Republic, formulates this idea as follows: "Since folk music is the music of our national culture and Western music is the music of our new civilization, both are not alien to us. In that case, our national music will emerge from the fusion of folk music in our country and Western music" (1990: 146-147, ibid, p.102). In this direction, attempts have been made to compose classical Western music based on Turkish Folk Music (Balkılıç, 2015: 66). In this period, it was observed that Western influence continued in the popular area as well. Küçükkaplan describes post-1950s as a separate stage both in terms of the course of music technologies and in terms of reflecting social and political developments on music (2016: 38). It is seen that this period, which coincided with the beginning of the Cold War, affected Western influence in our country's music as a direct imitation. From the 60s onwards, popular music observed a way of nationalization and progressed in two branches: The "Aranjman" movement, which consists of writing Turkish lyrics to famous foreign songs of the period, and the "Anadolu Pop" movement, which manifests itself in the form of reinterpreting parts of folk music with Western instruments. Anadolu Pop is like the manifestation of popular music in the early years of the early Republican Republic, which aims to create a music worthy of the new Turkish civilization by processing the Turkish folk music with the polyphonic music technique of the West (ibid, p. 41). Until the end of the 60s, the "Aranjman" wave, and from the 70s, Anadolu Pop, with the influence of the political content of the spirit of the period, largely dominated the country. In this period, the macropolitical or social situations were mostly dealt in the Turkish pop. The most important case of the 70s is that "Arabesk" stood out as a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. These years are the periods in which the structural features and social meaning of "Arabesk" began to take shape and became the dominant position in the sector by expanding its audience (Küçükkaplan, 2016: 73). In the context of the relationship between this "first authentic urban culture in Turkey" (Light, 2015: 54), that is Arabesk, and Turkish society is elaborated thoroughly. According to Güngör, the art form, which is mentally equivalent to the traditional form of pre-capitalist production, and another art form, the mental production of social relations brought by a distorted capitalist mode of production, are confronted and resulted in a confused fusion between the east and the west (1993: 15). According to Işık, Arabesk helped internal immigrants gain an identity in the society where they were facing a constant danger and not getting a share from the urban life (2015: 43-46). In other words, "dissatisfied masses who lost their direction in the city and could neither be peasants or urbanists needed cultural channels to express their painful experiences. […] Thus, a mixed musical style, which would later be called Arabesk, began to take shape" (Güven & Ergur, 2014: 13). Tekelioğlu, on the other hand, sees Arabesk as an "alternative modernization" trend (which rushes from the countryside to the city and then from the suburbs to the center of the city) to the modernization project of the Republic (2006: 25). However, Işık argues that Arabesk gradually lead to a cultural dequivation and a parallel apolitization, and thus the gap in the political field is filled with identity politics (2015: 56). In the post-September 12th period, the patience or the shelter that Arabesk provides, improved its share of the center, eased by an extreme narrowing of the spectrum of political views that can find expression in music. One way or another, the 1980s' need for provision of social dynamism in Turkey was found in Arabesk, and therefore this type of music has been appropriated by a large percentage of the population (Erkan Aydin, 2006: 101). The socioeconomic background of Arabesk undergone major changes, especially after 1980 (Işık, 2015: 54). This transformation, which started in the late 1980s, gained momentum in the 1990s with the "loss of the resistance dimension as it centralized the periphery and created the popular culture in its current form, which is one of the most important sources and foundations of conservatism in the new city space" (Tekelioğlu, 2006: 33). The rapid neo-liberalization in the 1990s brought about a pop-based expansion. In this context, for example, Islamic music which is a kind of protest music, also had its share from this amalgamization and Islamic music showed pop tendency (light Islamic music) like all other music types in the 90s (Taş, 2014: 377). Another context which is examined in depth in terms of its importance is the history of Turkish political campaign. This history is examined under two headings as "PreProfessionalist Period" (1950-1983), in which parties conducted their political communication campaigns mostly with their own resources, and "Professional Period" (after 1983) in which they received services from advertising agencies. After Democratic Party's victory thanks to the "Enough! The Nation Have Its Word!" slogan in the 1950 elections the next remarkable development in Turkey occurred in 1965 when Turkey Labor Party used "Yarının Şarkısı" voiced by Tulay German and started the "election campaign song" tradition (Budak, 2018: 35; Önürmen and Basic 2014 : 53). In the following decade, the 1977 elections went down in history when a political party (Justice Party) witnessed its first professional election campaign, working with an advertising agency (Cenajans). In the professional period, the "American-style audience campaigns" period began (Özkan, 2002: 84). In 1991, for the first time in history, all the parties participating in the elections in Turkey worked with advertising agencies. While center-right parties preferred popular songs throughout the 90s, it is noteworthy that "doctrinal" parties such as the Welfare Party and the Nationalist Movement Party had their own music made (Önürmen and Temel, 2014: 53-54). It is observed that the song preferences of the parties varied in the 2000s (Yavuz and Sezer, 2018: 30). For example, folk music and popular music in addition to the genre such as rap, songs according to the region to be made in this period. AK Parti won the 2002 elections with its campaign involving a special image study that its leader Recep Tayip Erdoğan was framed as "man of the people" (Güdekli, 2008: 65-66). AK Parti comes from a "statist, anti-globalizationist" and "Islamic" tradition (Bölükbaşı, 2012: 180). However, AK Parti separated itself from these parties during the founding process and took its place towards "conservatism" (Özbudun and Hale, 2010: 57). In this context, there are also opinions that treat the AK Parti as the bearer of the Motherland Party tradition (Oğuş, 2010; Bölükbaşı, 2012: 180). However, with the Gezi Park events in 2013, AK Parti retreated to its Islamist roots (Yılmaz et al., 2017: 49). In this context, criticism of authoritarianism / totalitarianism against the AK Parti increased after 2013 (Brownlee, 2016). Today, AK Parti considers Islam as the national supra-identity (Esener, 2017), its "ideas are based on Islamic civilization" and it regards Turkey "as the successor of the Ottoman Empire". In the 2007 elections, it was observed that AK Parti kept its campaign broad according to the diversity in its target audience (Tokat, 2009: 111). The 2011 elections were a period in which the AK Parti increased its nationalist tone in its campaign much more than before, emphasizing ongoing economic stability, and the discursive weight of accession to the European Union began to decrease (Cengiz & Hoffmann, 2011: 261-263-266). In the 2014 elections, Islamic and nationalist sentiments were used to an extreme extent, resulting in the Supreme Election Board banning an AK Parti advertisement (Grigoriadis, 2015: 108). In 2018, Erdoğan was co-opted with former Turkish-Islamic leaders (eg Ertuğrul Gazi), and he was depicted as the hope of all the oppressed and Muslims of the world. The main emphasis in AK Parti election songs was on religious and national feelings. Within the framework of the above mentioned theoretical discussion and historical context, this thesis examines the songs on the official website http://akadaylar.com prepared by the AK Parti for the 2019 Local Elections by means of discourse analysis. Both the lyrics and musical elements of the songs discussed were the subject of the study. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that the AK Parti identified itself primarily with the Turkish nation. In this context, it is understood that the collective identity that the AK Parti is trying to form is a certain definition of a "Turkish nation". For this reason, it was considered appropriate to understand how the party defined a collective identity that describes a Turkish nation in order to influence the voters. Accordingly, one of the basic characteristics of the Turkish nation is the continuation of the Ottoman society. In this discourse, not only the nation but also the state is connected with an unbroken line since the foundation of the Ottoman Empire. As a result of this continuity, the party leader Erdoğan is identified with the Ottoman ruling elites. Another aspect of the collective identity built in the AK Parti discourse is religious Islam. The dominant element in this religious Muslim identity is seen as Sunnism, but as long as they are religious, it is understood that Alevis may also be one of the groups that the AK Parti welcomes. Another important component of the collective identity identified by the AK Parti with its Ottoman reference is nationalism. On the other hand, nationalist discourse is not only associated with military activities such as conquest, but with all activities of the AK Parti. In addition to what can be called normative, such as religiosity and nationalism, there are also components that can be considered as concrete determinations of the collective identity that the AK Parti claims to represent. One of these is "diversity". However, as it is seen in the implicit acceptance of the Alevi identity, the diversity within the nation is mostly depicted as minor issues originating from local or daily life, and it is not accepted that these correspond to embracing different "sub-identities" (Oran, 2013). Another important dimension of the collective identity that the AK Parti established with its election songs is "urbanism with a rural origin". It can be argued that Westernness is also an important dimension of the collective identity constructed. However, this is not sufficient to see Gökalp's ideal of Westernization as a cultural element that the AK Parti (such as religiosity or nationalism) owns. Westernness, or rather a "partial Westernized urbanity preserving its rural origins" can be seen as a component that the AK Parti has to accept in its collective identity as a given situation for the present day of the Turkish nation. Another collective identity component established by the AK Parti through social memory comes from the center-right tradition. It is stated in various ways that the love of the nation, which is part of the collective identity established in AK Parti songs, has some "non-rational" dimensions.