AKP Media and Psychological Warfare at the End of theSolution Process of the Kurdish Issue

Abstract

Abstract The counter insurgency literature basically devised to respond to legitimacy crisiscaused by mass uprisings its history goes back to the Colonial Era however it hasexperienced a revival in the 1960s. Media has a crucial role in psychological warfareto counter the intellectual support to insurgency. After the Gezi uprisings and 17/25December corruption scandal which brought to an end to the strategic alliance ongoingbetween Fethullah Gülen Movement, Government started a new psychological warin which AKP media was at the centre. General Elections at 7 June 2015 marked the end of the Solution Process between Kurdish Movement and Turkish Government andescalation of physical violence also meant an increase in psychological warfare efforts.In these circumstances, main instruments of the Government have been AKP mediaand AK-trolls, a special communication unit which are consisted of social media userscoordinated by the Party paralleling with its highly polarizing politics. In this study AKP sand its natural leader President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan s psychological warfare effortsare analyzed by means of media framing concept and counter insurgency literature.The primary assumption of the study is the current crisis in Turkey cannot be solvedby the AKP s psychological warfare politics; the restrictions on the access to publicknowledge and Government media s excessive war-mongering do not guarantee theactive consent of ordinary citizens .