Brexit Referandumundaki Oryantalist İzler: Brexit Afişleri Üzerine Göstergebilimsel Bir Çözümleme

Abstract

Orientalism is a discourse that the West built on the East. In this discourse, the East is always pointed as another. Because the West is an ideal place that has progressed and developed with the modern period. East, which can’t modernize, is another that always falls behind the West, needs the West to develop, has to follow the West, and often fails to do so, even has no potential to succeed. For this reason, the East is always a potential threat to the West and this threat should be constantly taken into account. It’s possible to see the orientalist perspective of the West in a wide range from politics to economy, from sports to art. A current sample of the orientalist discourse constructed by the West has been seen in the United Kingdom during the Brexit process. In the process of withdrawal from the EU, the UK didn’t include the messages directly related to the EU in some campaign materials and also indicated the EU as a threat through Turkey which it pointed as the other with an orientalist perspective. In these narratives, Turkey is positioned as a threat, having potential to join the EU and messages are given about the threat that UK will face in case of the ongoing membership to EU. On the other hand, the countries such as Syria and Iraq were implied as a threat and the links of these threats with Turkey were emphasized. This study reveals this situation with the semiotic analysis method for the posters in the open public spaces, the traditional media and social media during the Brexit process. In the study, 5 Brexit posters selected by the purposive sampling method were examined.