Siyasal Tercihlerin Oluşum Sürecinde Kitle İletişim Araçlarının Rolü

Bu çalışma, kitle iletişim araçlarının siyasal tercihlerle ilişkisini saptamaya yöneliktir. Çalışmada, siyasal tercihlerin oluşum sürecinde etkili olan faktörler incelenmiştir. 2011 yılıHaziran Ayında yapılan Türkiye Genel Seçimleri öncesinde Selçuk Üniversitesi öğrencilerine yönelik uygulanan alan araştırması, elde edilen verilerin analizi sonucunda, siyasal tercihler ve kitle iletişim araçlarıarasında güçlü bir bağolduğunu ortaya koymaktadır. Çalışma, kitle iletişim araçlarının kısa ve uzun vadede siyasal düşünceleri pekiştirici bir etki yaptığınıve kitle iletişim araçlarının siyasal bilgilenme aracıolarak başvurulan en önemli araçlar olduğunu kanıtlamıştır. Siyasal tercihlerin oluşum sürecinde, medya organlarıtarafından sunulan içeriklere güven duyulmasıaçısından özellikle gazete öne çıkarken, yanısıra internet ve televizyon siyasal bilgilenme bakımından önemli yer tutmaktadır. Ayrıca kitle iletişim araçlarının takip sıklığı, bu araçların sağladığıiçeriklere duyulan güven ve önemsenme oranınıetkilemektedir.

Media organizations should give true information ethically. The press, however, can maniple information sometimes while using its power of disseminating information. In the producing process of information, it can determine some political aims. The media organizations, which establish its broadcasting policy by the effect of political groups and usually by economical reasons, have the information that it will broadcast pass through various phases according to its broadcasting policies, and they give information in the direction of these criterions. The media, in many events, does not knowingly prefer to be objective, making a neutral explanation on any issue and struggling for being definite to what it conveys. Because, it can want to draw attention to a specified problem, person, political program, ideology, dilemma, human’s story, badness…etc. Moreover, the messages that media organizations sometimes give and the news that they report are subjective despite they are not aware. They are not aware of taking a stand by means of using or not using some terminologies Cohen-Almagor, 2002:103 . Most of the biased preferences in the area of media does origin from picking the permanent staff off the people suited to the policy of media organizations and from conforming in the limitations to which ownership structure, style of organization, market factors and political power lead Herman and Chomsky, 1999:12 . Media wants to direct a community into a specified point directly and mostly by secret messages. As most of media experts accept, effective political messages are those given without attracting attention Schiller, 2005:71 . Therefore, media organizations do not give information in raw. It reshapes the raw information in its hand and presents it as processed. As for the information reestablished serves for different objectives. What knowledge is an important power is clear. When looked from this perspective, it is unquestionable that media in the position of the power producing information is in what an important point. The role in the transfer process and the activity in the broadcasting of the message of the mass media have brought the mass media in the position of the most important instrument to transfer the discourses and the policies of the political powers and the organizations aimed to a political power or of the people. While politics is showing the way followed in the administration of communities, the communication, which is the thing that politics mostly needs in the present community, is as if an inseparable part for the execution of policies of political administrations. The massive dimension of the communication, which a political will needs, is the indispensable element of the struggle of coming to the power of the political attempts that political powers continue their political powers and that try to get the political power in democratic communities. When it’s looked the matter in the dimension of a community, people can follow the discourses and the acts of the political will by the power of massive communication, and in this way, they can find the opportunity of producing a reflex via mass media. Thusly, the mass media in the political structure and the political culture are a place where the conveyor of public discussions presents and where political discourses are established and mediated İnal, 2010: 252 . In this context, while the role of mass media is an affecting instrument in terms of a political will, it is also an instrument being affected in terms of a community. This state that mass media runs as a bridge between a political will and a community includes the process of affecting, being affected, reaction, and so interaction, besides. In democratic communities and in the periods when usually electoral campaigns are made, the efficiency degrees of the mass media in the position of an instrument and the role that it plays in the preferences of people are important in a density-affecting process. This Study, which puts forwards how the importance, degree and effect of this role actualize, is inclined towards determining to what extent the people who are exposed to political messages via mass media use mass media in their political preferences and to what extent they attach importance to them and to what extent they are affected from mass media, under the light of the datum of field studies. In this study, evaluating how the media uses the power in its hand and which reactions it causes to people, it has been searched the position of the media in the formation process of political preferences. The results of the field study, which was done on the students of Selcuk University and inclined towards determining the relation between political preferences and mass media, support the studies done before. When looked at the results of the research, that newspaper as one of mass media in the formation process of political preferences is assessed as the most reliable instrument can be explained by newspaper is an instrument that is bought by an individual’s preference and by it gives satisfying and detailed information. Internet and television are the most applied instruments among the mass media as of its frequency of occurrence. While television is also in the position of an important instrument for the formation process of political preferences, newspaper and internet are accepted as crucial as well. It is drawn attention that the most read page, in terms of following the parts of newspaper, is the part of current news. When it’s examined the datum about the relation between political preferences and mass media, it has been determined a powerful link between newspaper read and voting behavior. However, this link means that the political party that the readers whose political preferences are clear plan to vote and the newspapers that they prefer are on a parallel line, not newspapers settle only the voting behavior. According to these results, we can say that mass media leads to an effect that strengthens and stiffens the political preferences. Briefly, mass media has a supporter role in the formation of political opinions. Thusly, mass media is one of the first instruments on which people apply in terms of political enlightenment. In this way, it is accepted as an important element in the formation of political preferences. The most important instrument, which puts the relation of mass media with political preferences politically forwards, is newspaper. While newspaper is burdening an individual with a political identity, it is at the same time is the symbol of political attitude. In this research, it is showed that internet that is frequently followed sits on an important point in the mass media