Social transformations and political public relations: From 1946 to 2002 election campaigns in Turkey.

During the electoral process, political actors should be able to persuade the electorate to vote for them and give their consent by making considerable effort on the political public relations domain. In that sense, the discourse of the political actors and their pre-election pledges in Turkey or from around the world are no exception to be detached from the economic or social phenomenon. The aim of this study; in the light of the economic and social transformations since the transition to the multi-party system in the Republic of Turkey, is to examine the election campaigns and the changes in the campaigns in the context of political public relations and to draw a panorama. Although there are some sporadic studies on electoral campaigns in the academic literature that focuses on particular periods, there are few, if any, examples of thorough and detailed analysis of political public relations, especially given the default time period. The importance of research is establishing the ties of the campaign processes with the economic and social structure and presenting the spirit of the time in a holistic way by drawing from the primary data. The study makes an original contribution to media research by revealing the transformation political public relations go through from a historical perspective. This research is a qualitative descriptive historical analysis. Within the scope of this research, the electoral campaigns (for the general elections) between 1946-2002 were examined. It examines the discourse of the parties during their electoral campaigns through newspapers, radio and television broadcasts of the period (research units). As a result of the research, it was determined that while the campaigns were initially carried out with the aim of introducing the party and the leader to the voters, over time it turned into a form of political marketing, discourse gained importance as the public became valuable and the first-priority discourses of the parties were economic and the second-priority discourses were focused on democracy