The reproductıon of national identity in television news: The Davos Crısıs case

In the establishment of nation-state as the format of the state organization in the modern world, nation-state and national identity building processes are experienced. Once nation-state has been established, the construction of national identity and reconstruction of nation-state itself does not end. Constantly in various means, nation-state reproduces itself and reminds it is a nation-state. Mass media has long been pronounced as one of its producers and reminders. As the determinant of cultural and political significance in contemporary capitalism in the twentieth century, mass media regularly builds practices and values. Republic of Turkey continually reflects different views of nationalism through the same processes and sustains its reestablishment. This study subjects the tension between the moderator David Ignatius, Shimon Peres and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2009 ? The World Economic Forum. The reflections of this incident, then called as 'Davos Crisis', to the news releases are studied. This study focuses on how these newscasts structure the discourses for the reconstructions of the nation-state and how the national identity further reestablished. Newscasts of this case were sampled selecting the broadcasts by 5 different tv channels, Kanal D, ATV, Show TV, NTV and TRT, during 30 January 2009 and the following week. A discourse analysis methodology was applied over the sampled material. The results of analysis showed that in each newscast that reports about Davos Crisis, the national identity was reconstructed in various forms. It was noted that various types of nationalism were articulated to each other and a new national identity was build upon the Neo-Ottomanism discourse of AKP government.