Motives and mind-plays of the media: A content analysis of Turkish newspaper articles and editorials on events in the Caucasus and Central Asia

This thesis examines how the Turkish press has reported events in the newly independent Turkic states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Several questions are answered using quantitative assessment and qualitative content analysis. Two-hundred articles and editorials written in 1992 have been collected from six Turkish newspapers. To enhance the study, interviews have been conducted. Through a method of identifying, coding, and tallying the issues emphasized in the collected data, descriptive statistics are obtained. These issues are: conflict, culture, diplomacy, economics, foreign competition, media systems and religion. They are ranked and analyzed in terms of their Islamic, Turkish or Western orientation. This study demonstrates that Turkish newspapers primarily emphasize issues of conflict, culture, and diplomacy, impacting upon the hope that strong relations with the Turkic states will improve Turkey's standing in the world community, particularly vis-a-vis the West.