The military operations Turkey conducted in Syria and Turkish media's conceptualization: A popular geopolitics approach

The aim of this thesis is to compare three differently positioned newspapers' (Cumhuriyet, Habertürk, Sabah) territorialization of the space, where campaign against terrorist organisations prevailed or which were controlled, during three cross- border operations (Euphrate's Shield Operation, Olive Branch Operation, Peace Spring Operation) Turkey conducted between 2016-2019 in the north of Syria. In order to realize this aim, critical geopolitics was put to use as a theoretical framework. On the other hand the newspapers' discourses for these operations were compared by means of popular geopolitics discourse, which questions how media produce and circulate geopolitical knowledge. The thesis demonstrates both that three newspapers produce different discourses while territorialising the same operation and the same newspaper may produce different discourses for different operations. It was emphasized that the newspapers' positions in the face of power impact different discourses produced for operation areas from the standpoint of critical geopolitics's premise that knowledge-power nexus affects discourse.