The search for alternative knowledge in the post-truth era: Anti-vaccine mobilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

The search for alternative knowledge, conspiracy theories, distrust of expertise and anti-science movements are gaining momentum and post-truth populism is speeding up on the back of fake news. The crisis of truth refers to an era where evidence and objective facts get lost in sentiment, emotion, and personal beliefs. Relying on emotions, creationism, religious beliefs, and common sense over expertise deliberately creates counter-knowledge referred to as pseudo-science, troll-science or fake-science. As the worth of scientific expertise is devalued, the counter-scientific discourses supported through populist political rhetoric help to produce a culture of resistance to science. Our qualitative content analysis of Twitter posts along with the news regarding anti-vaccine arguments from two selected online news sites, revealed three major themes, which we referred to as strategies used by the COVID-19 vaccine deniers in Turkey to disseminate their views. These were: an emphasis on bodily freedom and personal choice and the use of “my body my choice” rhetoric; the denying, devaluing, and shifting of scientific evidence; and the dismissal and/or attacking of alternative views and the deepening of the polarisation between the supporters of the COVID-19 restrictions, vaccine supporters and deniers. We conclude the paper by arguing that there is a link between the distrust of doctors and the anti-vaccination ideas, and the quest for alternative knowledge and expert authority.publishedVersio

A political game?: the dispute over the Canal Istanbul project

This study aims to understand how ideologies become embedded in political projects through strategies of legitimation aimed at justifying specific ideas, beliefs, and emotions. By using the political negotiation between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) concerning the Canal Istanbul Project as an illustrative example from Turkey to ‘ideology in action’, this article shows how various rhetorical combinations appeal to an analysis of ‘ideology at work’. Our analysis is based on 20 in-depth interviews with both opponents and supporters of the project, in addition to a comparison of two official websites providing scientific evidence from each party’s perspective. The results show that the two poles of the dispute aim to recruit more people as their political supporters by using their own scientific reports with claims that they are ‘objective’ and aspire for the benefit of Istanbul.publishedVersio

Discursive governance over pro-population politics in Turkey

Discursive governance of pro-population politics refers to norm-based mechanisms of governance that utilise intentionally selected slogans in political discourse for dissemination of ideas to further the interests of political authorities. Such ideas can be disseminated via modern communication technologies enabling governance to build social representations within the public sphere without policy constraints. It is our proposal that the pro-population state discourse in Turkey after 2008 constitutes an example of discursive governance. Our findings show that discursive mechanisms can lead to a change in married couples’ reproductive attitude without significant policy alteration and further the debate in view of discursive governance of population politics.publishedVersio

The search for alternative knowledge in the post-truth era: Anti-vaccine mobilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

The search for alternative knowledge, conspiracy theories, distrust of expertise and anti-science movements are gaining momentum and post-truth populism is speeding up on the back of fake news. The crisis of truth refers to an era where evidence and objective facts get lost in sentiment, emotion, and personal beliefs. Relying on emotions, creationism, religious beliefs, and common sense over expertise deliberately creates counter-knowledge referred to as pseudo-science, troll-science or fake-science. As the worth of scientific expertise is devalued, the counter-scientific discourses supported through populist political rhetoric help to produce a culture of resistance to science. Our qualitative content analysis of Twitter posts along with the news regarding anti-vaccine arguments from two selected online news sites, revealed three major themes, which we referred to as strategies used by the COVID-19 vaccine deniers in Turkey to disseminate their views. These were: an emphasis on bodily freedom and personal choice and the use of “my body my choice” rhetoric; the denying, devaluing, and shifting of scientific evidence; and the dismissal and/or attacking of alternative views and the deepening of the polarisation between the supporters of the COVID-19 restrictions, vaccine supporters and deniers. We conclude the paper by arguing that there is a link between the distrust of doctors and the anti-vaccination ideas, and the quest for alternative knowledge and expert authority