Chronotopes as a Component of Ideological Narrative in Political Advertisements

Introduction

The JDP¹ (Justice and Development Party) enters the local elections to be held on March 31, 2019 with the slogan of “Gönül Belediyeciliği”². In this process, the political campaign process is carried out in accordance with the conservative ideological stance of the party around various slogans such as “Memleket İşi Gönül İşi”³, “Gönülden Yaparsan Gönüller Kazanırsın”⁴ and “Gönlü Güzel İnsanların Ülkesidir Burası”⁵. In addition, the JDP has committed to conduct an unconventional, environmentally sensitive election campaign in this election period. Traditional advertising activities that can create noise and visual pollution in urban centers such as distribution of posters, selection carts in city centers, distribution of flags and pennants and decoration of streets and streets etc. has been abandoned. Also JDP continues its campaigne with social media ads with the slogan “Every city is beautiful with its own voice”.

Recently, social media has become an important channel for political campaign management and advertising. In particular, taking into account the criticism of the mediaization of politics, permanent campaign management becomes a sine qua non for successful political communication. Many factors, such as easy content production and rapid circulation of content, cost reduction, and impact on young people, make social media become the main medium of political communication. In addition, it is another important factor that social media provides more effective and faster feedback than traditional media. Thus, unlike radio, television or face-to-face communication environments, the possibility of predicting the prevailing tendencies in public elections is increasing. In this process, social media platforms are the space of traditional advertising activities, as well as the alternative manipulation of masses within the framework of big data and data mining. Social media has made innovative contributions to political campaign management in two main dimensions. First of all, in the context of transmedia storytelling, it facilitates the holistic organization and execution of various activities repertoires needed by political campaigns. Another contribution of social media is that it facilitates the reproducibility of the message, makes it easier to hold in memory and make branding easier. In view of these factors, “Gönül Belediyeciliği” election campaign is consistent with the aim of keeping concrete commitments in circulation as a campaign for local elections and in this way for their involvement in memories.

In political campaign processes, not only the promise are delivered to voters in ads and other ways. Political advertisements also have dramaturgy, which make narratives and convey their messages to the audience through these narratives. In this process, social media diversifies the ways in which such narratives reach the masses. Owing to transmedian storytelling, a narrative can be included in the network of interactive narratives, which are not limited to a single means of communication. This phenomenon makes it necessary to examine the formation of narrative fiction. “Gönül Beşediyeciliği” campaign weaves the ideological narrative fort the local election by #GönlüGüzelTürkiye, #MemleketİşiGönülİşi hastags and “Gönlü Güzel İnsanların Ülkesidir Burası” youtube commercial films.

Considering how transmedia storytelling strategies fictionalise the ideological narratives, it is possible to see chronotope usage as another factor. M. Bakhtin describes how the narrative is structured in time and space in the novel with the concept of chronotope. In a narrative, chronotope is the place where the plot is touched and solved as a combination of time and space. This study aims to explore the role of chronotopes in the formation of the ideological narrative structures. Within this framework, chronotopic elements in “Gönül Belediyeciliği“ and “Her Şehir Kendi Sesiyle Güzel” will be analyzed. In the “Her Şehir Kendi Sesiyle Güzel” themed advertisements, cities constitute the chronotopes of the conservative narrative. In this context, the modern city is shown with Istanbul chronotope in this themed advertising, the conservative ideology is explained by the cosmopolitan structure within the modern Istanbul. In other city ads, more peripheral city chronotopes suc as Niğde, Rize …etc. are used. The Gönül Belediyeciliği narration is covered with chronotopic elements within the framework of JDP's conservative ideology. Conservative ideology is embodied in the characters acting in work/place chronotope, road chronotope, youth and old age chronotopes.