March 31, 2019 Local Elections and the Media

Abstract

Voters in a democracy contribute to the governance process and mediate the legitimacy of equality and pluralism. This is of great importance in terms of understanding and legitimizing the true meaning of democracy. In the last decade, Turkey has experienced many elections. Local elections on March 31, 2019 were very important. They were quite different in terms of the presentation of political parties and their candidates in the media because both politicians and the public ascribed a lot of meaning to these elections. Therefore, the media showed great interest in the March 31, 2019 local elections, frequently featuring public opinion polls, election campaigns, and political statements that informed voters in real time. This chapter examines the media content of the March 31, 2019 elections.