Political Bias in a Turkish Political TV Interview

Talat Bulut

doi:10.29333/ojcmt/2447

Abstract

The study aims to provide empirical data on the question of partiality in political TV interviews in Turkey. The model developed by Clayman and Heritage (2002) and Clayman et al. (2007) and extended by Huls and Varwijk (2011) is used to analyze questions asked by interviewers in the political TV discussion program Siyaset Meydani to Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The initial 30-minute parts of each interview have been examined to reveal aggressive question designs and the results are evaluated in comparison to each other in terms of possible bias favoring or disfavoring one of the politicians. The conclusion is that though it is hard to make distinctions regarding the other five measures – initiative, directness, assertiveness, adversarialness, accountability and persistence – interviewers seem to be partial in terms of assertiveness that they utilize in their questions, favoring Kemal Kilicdaroglu and disfavoring Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Highlights

Van Dijk (2001) defines Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as “a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.”
In the present study, five measures proposed in the Question Analysis System (QAS) (Clayman et al, 2007) as well as a sixth measure added to the model by (Huls and Varwijk, 2011) are utilized to analyze possible bias in the questions asked by the interviewers in Siyaset Meydanı (Ali Kırca and Tuğba Atav) to the political leaders Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu
The method applied to this study (QAS) analyzes interviews in terms of the question designs in order to arrive at their level of aggressiveness

Summary

Introduction

Van Dijk (2001) defines Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as “a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.”. Just like Linguistics in general, Discourse Analysis and CDA have expanded their research area, as their subject matter, society, language and wherever those are found, are extensively represented in all dimensions of life. Serving a vital role in society as a means of information, entertainment, interaction and inspection of the politics and administration in countries by their people in democratic states, the media permeates the society. For these reasons and for many others, much research has focused on the media, in relation to bias in the press and many other topics. For these reasons and for many others, much research has focused on the media, in relation to bias in the press and many other topics. Cotter (2001) highlights the large extent and strong influence of the media and says: “As the scope of the media is so far-reaching, in the US and throughout the world, and so globally situated and influential, it is not surprising that it is the subject of a great deal of intellectual scrutiny.”

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Conclusion