Projecting ‘New Turkey’ deflecting the coup: squares, screens, and publics at Turkey’s ‘democracy watches’

Abstract

In the wake of the failed coup on 15 July 2016, Turkey’s ruling AKP called citizens to public squares to take part in ‘democracy watches’ – hybrid events that lasted for 23 days and were both celebration of the people’s victory over the coup and guard duty to prevent further coup attempts. From beginning to end the watches were structured around and choreographed to the needs of the media screen with the twin aims of reflecting the ‘sovereign nation’ back to itself, thereby textually constituting a particular public to comprise the ‘New’, post-coup Turkey. This article, based on participant observation and collected media discourse, examines the relationship between squares, screens, and publics at the watches. It first compares the watches to the 2013 Gezi Park protests, detailing how central Gezi’s legacy was to the watches. It next turns to screens, adapting Kevin DeLuca and Jennifer Peeples’ notion of the ‘public screen’ for the realities of Turkey in 2016. Finally, drawing on Michael Warner’s framework for publics, it offers the notion of a screened public: a co-production between government and some citizens that is directed by authority, via and for the use of screens, toward a political goal.