Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ILEF DERGISI, cilt.8, sa.1, ss.63-108, 2021 (ESCI)
This paper examines the Turkish popular press's early coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. The problematic of the article centers on how Covid-19 news in the popular press reproduces traditional reporting practices and ideological orientations rather than informing readers about this new global crisis. This problematic is discussed in two theoretical tracks. The first is news theory: it is argued that mainstream journalism's production practices and discursive nature lead it to exclude the new knowledge it is supposed to contain. The second is nationalist ideology: it is argued that reporting on Covid-19 rhetorically reproduces banal nationalism rather than equipping readers with the knowledge needed for an effective and political citizenry. Using this framework, I employed a critical discourse analysis model to examine all the news about Covid-19 in the daily newspaper Sabah, which I treat as representative of the Turkish popular press, during the month after the first Covid-19 patient was announced in Turkey. I summarize the examples relevant to the article's problematic in a table using the macro and micro structures of van Dijk's model, and I use the rhetorical analysis component of that model to evaluate the findings. I observe that the Covid-19 pandemic was reduced to a banal national story in the popular press, with an emphasis on being a certain kind of nation and flag-waving nationalism. The popular press used Covid-19 as a rhetorical device to define and position "us" (Turks) and "them" (other Western nations) rather than providing readers with the new information necessary to develop policies to address the social and economic crises capitalist nations faced during the pandemic.