A qualitative analysis of Yön journal in the context of the concept of tutelary democracy

Periodicals such as magazines, journals and newspapers offer extensive knowledge of the historical, literary, social and political life of the society in which they are published. They both constitute a reference source for periodical memory and allow data to be obtained in the natural environment at the point of depicting the world of motion and thought of the publisher staff in the simplest form. In this study, by pursuing such a goal, Yön journal was determined as the subject of the research. By publishing 222 issues between December 20, 1961 and June 30, 1967, Yön journal became an important representative of socialist ideology in Turkish political life. Moreover Yön, as a political movement of thought, has been at the at the centre of theoretical discussions that allowed socialism to gain an institutional identity. On the other hand, readership addressed by the founder and the writer staff of the journal also increase the importance of Yön. The main purpose of this study is to reveal how the concept of democracy is handled in Yön journal. In other words, the meaning attributed to the concept of democracy in Yön journal and how Turkish democracy is handled in line with this meaning were questioned. To put it another way, what kind of democracy the authors of the Yön have and the basic motives they rely on while constructing it have been examined. Accordingly, qualitative content analysis method and hermeneutic approach were used as data analysis tools. All signed and unsigned Yön articles written during the publication life of Yön journal, which was adopted as the data source, formed the scope of the research. In the study, the main assumption is that "Yön journal has a tutelary democracy understanding". As a result of the findings obtained from the research, it was revealed that Yön journal has an understanding of tutelary democracy and the Yön staff (Yöncüler), as a political movement of thought, tried to build "tutelary" thought. With this study entitled "a qualitative analysis of Yön Journal in the context of the concept of tutelary democracy", it is aimed to make an original contribution to the political science literature by revealing this relationship.