Youth Culture and Political Participation: The Case of Media Framing of Youth Protest at Ankara University in Turkey

Abstract

In this study, I want to focus on the framing effect that the media has on public opinion. Political participation has become very popular in recent years. Youth participation, in particular, has gained importance because politicians pay more attention to the participation of the youth. Merely, the youth’s role is restricted to voting. Moreover, the media plays an important role in shaping the people’s attitude toward youth participation. I studied print media news reports on a student protest held at the Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Science on 8 December 2010 in Turkey. The students were protesting against a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Burhan Kuzu; some students even threw eggs at him. The press paid great attention to this event. For this purpose, I have employed the framing effect technique in concert with critical discourse analysis to analyse the two most popular Zaman and Hürriyet news reports in Turkey for a week in December 2010 in an attempt to understand the relationship between youth participation and the framing effect of the media. I wish to study the framing effect as a descriptive tool. In brief, these reports declared the protesters enemies of the public. This narrow view of participation is not suitable for a democratic improvement.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n3p339