See no evil, read no evil': the failing role of Turkish newspapers in coverage of Turkey's 2016 coup attempt

Abstract

On 15 July 2016, a group of soldiers tried to wrestle political control of Turkey from the elected government. The coup attempt' was declared over within approximately 10h, but not before more than 300 civilians, police and soldiers had died. This paper examines how Turkish newspapers which are known to be oppositional' represented events of the night and the following few days before a state of emergency was declared which silenced almost all opposition. Through a close examination of images and written text, we reveal how newspapers fail to question government actions. Instead, an analysis of presuppositions and how social actors and their actions are recontextualised finds that newspapers represent events from the perspective of their political interests whilst not actually questioning the actions of the government. It is in this way that oppositional newspapers use the coup to further their interests at the expense of informing the public.