#TurkeyIsNotAChicken

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I analyze pro-AKP actors’ grassroots communications in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt. I explore the Twitter participation of non-state actors in this momentous political event, with the specific aim of shaping western audiences’ understanding of the failed coup and countering western criticism of post-coup security measures. I do not evaluate pro-AKP netizens’ Twitter communications in terms of their effectiveness in influencing western public opinion; instead I focus on the underlying anti-hegemonic and Occidentalist ideological positions. Through a discourse analysis of English-language Twitter posts, I argue that the engagement of non-state actors on behalf of the AKP government was not simply informed by nationalist mobilization, but rather by an Occidentalist exigency to invert the hegemonic western discourse about Turkey and Turks.