Nationalism on the Internet: A discursive analysis of the Turkish c

Abstract

The main aim of this research is to capture a comprehensive picture of the overtly Turkish nationalist sites that define themselves as nationalist on the Internet and to demonstrate their extent as well as different appearances. Therefore, this research aims to answer first, what role the Internet is playing on the formation and reproduction of collective identity and community for nationalist groups; and second, in doing that, what kind of content is presented in nationalistic web sites through which tools and visual layout design aspects. The study attempts to provide a qualitative discursive analysis of Turkish nationalist web sites through the main features they present. A total of 118 web sites are included in the analysis. The study proposes a concrete typology of the network structure of online Turkish nationalism. It also concludes that Turkish nationalists mainly use the Internet in order to diffuse their ideology, to strengthen Turkish national identity and nationalist community structure and finally to build a dedicated virtual community. In order to realize this purpose, Turkish nationalists benefit from various content categories. Findings also reveal that the visual layouts of the web sites provide opportunities for the reconstruction of a manipulated interaction oriented around the imposed nationalist ideology.