The Media and the Failed Coup Attempt in Turkey

"Media were prominent protagonists in the July 15, 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. The first signs that things were amiss were televised images of a blocked bridge that began circulating on social media. Even the president who made a live appeal to the nation via a FaceTime call to a CNN Turk anchor woman's iPhone later revealed that he heard of the coup from a brother-in-law who had been watching the news.

The ensuing weeks seem like an inventory and investigation of media as central to contemporary political processes: from the widespread discussion of special encrypted platforms on which the coup was allegedly planned, to whatsapp conversations between military officials, to religious prayers from minarets calling people to the streets to face off against tanks, to the flood of ads in print newspapers featuring nationalist messages of support, to the giant screens reflecting the crowds at democracy watches around the country back to themselves. While the specifics of who planned the coup, to what end and with what consequences will be debated for a long time to come, the central role of myriad media is incontrovertible. Moreover media converge of the events underscored the fissures in global news coverage: identical images and interviews got mobilized for radically different interpretations of events. In other words, the whole world may be watching but how they interpret what they see may be vastly different."

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