Abstract :
Terror news are always leading subject matters in newsworthy subjects since they threaten national and international security. Language and news discourse which are used in media representations related with terrorist actions and people who are victims of these actions(about martyrs or ordinary people) are very important. Beyond reflecting social events ro public opinion news media has a function of establishing, confirmingi reproducing and circulating existing social powers and government relationships. Within this context media frequently uses “blessing dominant forces”, integrating individuals with social structure for presenting dominant ideology’s ideas and attitude forms. Especially; since TRT is public television news language and discourse of TRT related with terrorism fact is striking for durability of status quo and providing governency Within this context, especially in recent “democratic opening out” period, changes, if exist, in discourse of TRT related with terror and terrorist events between past and present timne have been anlaysed with discourse analysis method. It is necessary to analyse the language used in news in order to understand the way dominant discourses in news texts are made. Certain codes and professional values that are dominant within an industrial structure are used in the language of news. A dominant way of discourse is developed via news texts by using these codes. The most important linguistic characteristic of news is that the news texts use the daily language both in written and audio-visual media. However, this daily language is transformed into various styles of linguistic use during the production process of news texts. Especially in terror news that threatens the national security, media demonstrates a similar position close to one another. It is possible to observe a structured and rooted language in the Turkish media within the news regarding the actions of PKK. For example, there isn t any certainty upon terrorism-related concepts in the terminology. Such words as “terrorist”, “guerilla”, “attacker”, “urban guerilla”, “partisan” and “urban terrorist” are used by the media. Passive sentence structure is dominant in editing of both conflicts and operations in terror news. Common ground of terror-related news is that they involve a way of addressing that calls people to common sense in view of close fights and deaths. In terror-related news that has a language covering up the violence taking place in the region, a linguistic structure that aims not to aggravate the conflicts. In news samples, we encounter word and sentence structures where governmental security forces are active in law and order related cases. When these bodies represented as the active subject are convinced as being associations to be trusted by the society, the individual who is not aware of it interiorises this via the discourse made by the news. Hence, dominant values are indirectly supported and reproduced. When discourses or cases ensuring the continuity of the status-quo are represented in the media; alternative, resisting or different discourses are alternated and left out of the agenda. The language that dominates the discourse of these news is that people or opinions that are organised against the government, illegal or destroy the social order won t be given a chance to live. On one hand, media displays a behaviour that opposes to the legal order while it makes an indirect suggestion in the direction of respecting this order. Hence, the dominant ideology that operates secretly and implicitly produces its hegemony continuously. The discourse of the news can not be held separate from people and organisations with power/strength in the society. In this sense, question of how predominant discourses which are in the direction of reproducing dominance relations take place within the news discourse has a central role in studies in this field.” (İnal,1995:116). Therefore, the way the discourse of government takes place in media texts in terms of its discursive patterns and formats is important in line with the goal of this study. This field is a problematic one. Because when the case is governmental speeches and declarations of governmental authorities are concerned, reporting is made by using the same expressions in the news texts (such as “declared, said, expressed”, etc.) Thus, we see that this format is more dominant in the language of TRT which is the official government channel. It is obvious that the declarations of the government itself is clearly reflected in the news discourse of TRT. Because of the production format of news texts produced, another discursive order of TRT does not allow other discursive orders and expressions. For the closed text features in news texts, there is a structure which gives minimum place to comments and flexible discourses. In the official government channel, news concerning the government or terror do not allow to break this structure either, on the contrary, more definite case definitions are made. Because governmental discourses are placed within remarks, expressions, themes and certain expression patterns that are produced around certain limitations and restrictions in news texts. In this sense, this study uses discourse analysis method in order to analyse whether there have been any changes in the news discourses of TRT regarding terror and terror incidents between the past and today, with a selection of news from the beginning of the “Democratic Initiative” in specific. In the study, in order to analyse the news texts, it is firstly benefited from the formulation developed by Teun A. Van Dijk within his analysis regarding how media discourse is configured through news. Teun van Dijk does not consider news a genre but a discourse and perceives the news discourse as a product of the existing dominant discourses within the society. Van Dijk who uses the method of critical discourse analysis, analyses the news according to its macro and micro structures in his studies regarding the news discourses. In newspaper news, the macro-structure of news consists of the heading, subheading, photograph, spots written with the different fonts and the news entries. The structure of news which follows a hierarchic structure is organised by this chart. In the analysis of the macro-structure, such components as the headings, news entries, the main case, news sources, background and context information are studied. The things that constitute the micro-structures of news texts is the word selections and the sentence structures (syntax). Besides, the convincing methods of the news, i.e. its rhetoric as well as the links between sentences following one another take place among the micro-structural features. Micro structural characteristics of the news have an important function in configuration of a discourse. According to T. van Dijk, discourse of a news is a whole that consists of its macro and micro features and can only be understood when analysed together with the production and reception process of the news. The study is based on the comparative analysis that demonstrates whether there are any discursive similarities or differences in discourses of TRT as the official government channel regarding the terror news before and after the democratic initiative process. The comparison will be realised within the framework of T. van Dijk’s micro analysis. In this section of the study, the language and discourse of terror news on the main news bulletin of TRT recorded randomly between September 2008 and September 2009 are observed. It is tried to understand the configuration codes of the governmental discourse in terror news and whether there is a change in the news discourses of TRT before and after the democratic initiative. In line with the main theme of the study, 5 analysis categories are determined. News samples are analysed under these category titles. These categories are as follows: “news regarding the martyrs”, “official government discourse ”, “discourses that highlights the power of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)”, “discourses regarding terror incidents and terrorists”, “discourses of the civilians and terror sufferers” and “discourses regarding the solution of the terror problem”. In this study which makes a comparison on the terror-related news discourses of the government television before and after the democratic initiative process as the period selected, the result found in the common ground of both terms is that definition of the government about the information on its organisational functioning during the production of information about itself; determination of the government as the subject in this information production area; reinforcement of the government s power in the world of definition as well as the discourse of news and aiming at a democratic environment become even more clear. It is observed that terror which might form a threat against the continuity of the status-quo is presented in a limiting structure in the news with discursive patterns, making the auditing and restricting mechanism of the government function. This structure produces itself over the discourse from the news language to the use of image as well as the limit of the background information to certain ideological addressing. Before the democratic initiative process, reference to the integrity of the government and the nation is made in news texts and an extra importance is attributed to the Turkish Armed Forces who is responsible for protecting the government. The “rank of martyrdom” valued above everything is blessed with the language used in martyr news while social practices and power relations are reproduced within this dominant discourse in news texts. The news language and discourses by TRT used in terror-related issues gives important hints about the status-quo, the power of the government and the continuity of the power. After the democratic initiative process, expressions regarding democratisation efforts are in majority. The common point and the similarity in the news made after the initiative is that the atmosphere of democratisation and peace is the general reference of news discourses. It is found in news discourses that democratisation initiatives or attempts are put into action with control because of the danger of subversion or destroying the social balance. It would not be wrong to say that as a whole, the threat of subversion exists as an inherent issue for the discourses regarding the democratic initiative and this case is reflected impliedly in news discourses. It is observed that in the government discourse , discourses by various subjects on the same issue - i.e. democratic initiative process – are developed and these themes are frequently repeated in news practice. In this sense, democratisation elements in the government discourse are mostly presented within the principle of casualty based on the sufferings and losses so far. On the other hand, it is also found that the emphasis on social consensus and common sense is more within the news texts after the democratic initiative process. Peace, common sense, consent manufacture and social consensus are the highlighted concepts in the running of the democratic participation process. Hence, governmental discourse and the government s official channel TRT are articulated to each other; they protect and sustain their discursive function. It is observed that beyond projecting terror incidents to the public opinion, TRT functions as an institutional order that supports, strengthens, reproduces and circulates the governmental discourse and the existing political power.
