Evasion Stratejies Used in Turkish Political Discourse

Abstract

There is a widespread perception that politicians are frequently evasive under questioning from members of the news media (Clayman, 2001: 403). The evasion strategies like ignoring the question, questioning the question or employing humor are one of the most frequently analyzed aspects of the social-psychological literature on political interviews (Gnisci and Bonaiuto, 2003: 387). However, there have not been any studies that focus on the evasion strategies used in Turkish political context. The purpose of the study is to investigate the evasion strategies that are used by Turkish politicians in TV interviews in order to contribute to the studies that aim to find out the universal evasion strategies used by the politician worldwide.

“You’re important, Jeremy, but not that important”: Personalised responses and equivocation in political interviews

“…Of course, studies of equivocation in interviews and press conferences extend beyond UK politics. Researchers have examined the practices of politicians worldwide, including, the United States (e.g., Clayman, 2001;Clementson & Eveland, 2016), Malaysia (Nur Zahraa & Siti Rohana, 2016), Montenegro (Vuković, 2013), Taiwan (Huang, 2009), and Turkey (Çakir, Kökpinar Kaya, & Kara, 2016). Such studies, however, either did not set out to evaluate reply rates or, where statistics are reported, they are not always suitable for comparison with the foregoing UK studies.…”