SOME “PICTURES IN OUR HEADS”: TURKEY IN THE EUROPEAN MEDIA
SOME “PICTURES IN OUR HEADS”: TURKEY IN THE EUROPEAN MEDIA

Summary/Abstract: The expected adhesion of Turkey to EU, not realized, creates emotions that are represented by rhetorical and symbolic medial constructions. Consequently, we find ourselves in a situation where the experience remains a potentiality: an experience which has begun, but which is not completely actualized. This might be the general condition for all (media) events; always in transition, waiting for the integration, creating a scene of complex and insecure emotions. The difficulty of this situation resides on the fact that on the one hand it is dominated by a potential, and on the other hand it is ruled by differentiation. The potential state, in our context the one created by the printed media, becomes an unknown field of experience for the new applicants as well as for the member countries. The present paper proposes a panoramic analysis of French and Romanian journals and their discourses concerning European integration of Turkey. How the press presents the integration process of Turkey? Certainly, our analysis has its limitations; however, our aim in this study is not to judge editorial transformations, but to reveal emotional implications and stereotypes via discursive constructions. Our study is framed by several theoretical premises, primarily based on discourse analysis, and will integrate and discuss fundamental concepts of stereotypes and emotions creating “pictures in our heads”, as a result of the predictability marking the EU-Turkey diplomatic relationships and also of fears and emotions of the European citizens.

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