Author(s): Hasan GÜLLÜPUNAR, Esra YILDIRIM
With the decrease in ideological voter behavior and weakening of party loyalty, voter behavior is gradually turning into a rational-based choice. This transformation changes both individuals' interest in politics and their opinions about politics. The individual does not approach politics emotionally. The individual considers politics as an action based on explicit, documentary, realistic and concrete outcomes. Politics that cannot respond to the expectations created by this situation are faced with a loss of interest and trust. Especially young voters lose their belief that politics is the only tool to solve problems. They are losing hope that it is an institution that can provide solutions to the problems of politics. Therefore, a negative view prevails both in the desire of young voters to take part in politics and in their perceptions about politics. It can be said that one of the main factors in the formation of this view is the language used by politics. This study examines the impact of the conciliatory and confrontational political language on the voters' view of politics. For this purpose, the perceptions of young voters, whose interest, participation and confidence in politics can be said to be the lowest, on politics depending on political discourse were analyzed. Students of Erciyes University Faculty of Communication participated in the study conducted with the survey method. The research identified the factors of confrontational and conciliatory discourse with the exploratory model. In order to examine the effects of these factors on the opinions of the participants about politics, the research model indicating the cause and effect relationship was applied. According to the results of the exploratory factor analysis carried out, while the factors of the conciliatory discourse were identified as "tolerance and common sense", "unifying" and "negotiation", the factors of confrontational discourse were determined as "belittlement and polarization", "threat and blame" and "stigmatization". In the study, it was concluded that the conciliatory wording generally strengthened the positive opinions of the participants about politics.
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