FEBRUARY 28 MEMORANDUM AND YENI ŞAFAK NEWSPAPER AN ANALYSES OF AN EDITORIAL POLICY
28 ŞUBAT MUHTIRASI VE YENİ ŞAFAK GAZETESİ BİR YAYIN POLİTİKASININ ANALİZİ

Author : Utku Uraz AYDIN
Number of pages : 449-468

Abstract

The memorandum of February 28, 1997, though not actually was a typical coup, accounts for a link in the chain of military interventions which was thought long gone. Based on the belief that the elected government was posing a "reaction" threat; the "military tutelage" which would ultimately become one of the fundamental characteristics defining Turkey's regime, was constructed through amending regulations that would make the government abide by the rules of military hierarchy, by briefings held down by the call of the TSK (Turkish Armed Forces) and with the help of an intense media campaign to mobilise the civilian secularists. Surely this intervention against the government, whose Islamic character was increasingly becoming evident, met with the resistance by conservatives. This study analyses Yeni Şafak Newspaper's approach towards the events that elevated the tension between fractions and put the Welfare Party and the Turkish Armed forces; in a wider aspect, the Islamic-conservatives and the laicist people up against each other; and its editorial policies in the face of the decisions made by February 28 NSC(National Security Council) meeting, which set a milestone in the whole process. In this regard, the newspaper articles and columns published between November 1996 and May 1997 gets examined. The relation between the editorial policies of the newspaper and "state-centric" history reading, which is based on state-society and centre-periphery dichotomy, is questioned in the evaluation part of the study.

Keywords

Yeni Şafak, February 28 Memorandum, National Security Council, Welfare Party, Necmettin Erbakan, Sus

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