Turkey’s communicative authoritarianism

Abstract

The majority of current political communication studies focus on discursive dimensions of communications and disregard how communications partake in the governing of populations through economic, material and institutional practices. By focusing on Turkey’s case, here I move beyond this approach and examine the role of communications in the development of neoliberal capital accumulation, authoritarian welfare politics, political repression and the production of popular support. The article provides an empirical analysis of policy developments and plans and the restructuring of ownership and control of networks between 2002 and 2016 in Erdoğan’s Turkey.