The Washington consensus and its reflections on the Turkish mainstream media

Abstract

This study analyzes the reflections on the mainstream press of the Washington Consensus principles based transformation of the economy of Turkey during the past forty years through a study of Hürriyet and Milliyet newspapers with special emphasis on the years 1975, 1985, 1995 and 2005. It shows how the transformation of economic journalism and the displacement/transposition of the popular press against the ideological apparatuses of neoliberal order have occurred. Throughout this transformation process in which the global dynamics have the role to determine, the dramatic changes of discourses on the economy of the newspapers and the reflections of the normalized mentality shift that is introduced to society while constructing a new economic ideology were revealed. The purpose of this thesis is to show how these newspapers which acted as bridges between the governance of economy and the society are bound to the global discourses and practices and try to shape in detail the economic sense of society.