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Recontextualization of the arguments of ‘innocence’ by a football club on Turkish newsprint media

  • Emel Kökpınar Kaya

    Emel Kökpınar Kaya received her Ph.D. from the Department of English Linguistics at Hacettepe University, Türkiye, and is currently a lecturer in the same department. Her research interests include media discourse, critical discourse analysis, and social semiotics.

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    and Emre Yağlı

    Emre Yağlı received his Ph.D. from the Department of English Linguistics at Hacettepe University, Türkiye, and is currently a lecturer in the same department. His research interests include sociolinguistic variation, language change, and indexicality.

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Published/Copyright: August 14, 2023

Abstract

We explore the media representation of the involvement of Fenerbahçe, a football club in Türkiye, in the 2011 Turkish Sports Corruption Scandal. Specifically, the study focuses on the discursive construction of Fenerbahçe’s ‘innocence’ and ‘corruption’ through the central arguments of Fenerbahçe’s self-defense and how the newsprint media represents these arguments of innocence in Türkiye. The data consist of the council board speech of the club’s president after his release, the front-page headlines, and the news reports of Turkish daily newspapers featuring the speech. In the study, adopting the critical discourse analysis framework, we discuss that the newspapers either recontextualize the innocence arguments or set them aside to pursue their ideological stances. Besides, our analysis reveals that the newspapers ultimately ignore Fenerbahçe’s arguments about the existence of a secret criminal organization endeavoring to gain control of Fenerbahçe via match-fixing claims and the state via a civil coup.


Corresponding author: Emel Kökpınar Kaya, Faculty of Letters, Department of English Linguistics, Hacettepe University, 06800, Beytepe, Çankaya, Ankara, Türkiye, E-mail:

About the authors

Emel Kökpınar Kaya

Emel Kökpınar Kaya received her Ph.D. from the Department of English Linguistics at Hacettepe University, Türkiye, and is currently a lecturer in the same department. Her research interests include media discourse, critical discourse analysis, and social semiotics.

Emre Yağlı

Emre Yağlı received his Ph.D. from the Department of English Linguistics at Hacettepe University, Türkiye, and is currently a lecturer in the same department. His research interests include sociolinguistic variation, language change, and indexicality.

  1. Conflict of interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. The co-authors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript, and there is no financial interest to report.

Appendix

The following are the original texts related to the extracts used in the analyses.

(1)
Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü Başkanı ve yöneticileri 1 yıl cezaevinde kalmak durumunda bırakılırken, Dernekler Masası ve vergi denetmenlerince imzalanan 2 adet raporla Fenerbahçe’nin tüm hesaplarının temiz olduğu saptanmışken, savcılık tarafından, özel yetkili mahkeme tarafından bu saptandı, kasalarındaki 1 milyon dolar açığın hala açıklanamadığı devlet kurumlarınca sabit olan kulüp ve yöneticilerinin neden apar topar ilk celsede beraat ettiğini sorduk.
(2)
Silahlı suç örgütü kurmak ve yönetmek iddiasıyla hakkımızda yeterli delile ulaşamayan ve bizi bir örgüte bağlayamayanlar, kendilerine yeni bir suçlama bulmak hatta yaratmak durumunda kalmışlardır. Bu da şike suçlamasıdır. Ama bu da kolay değildir. Bunun için yeni yasalar gerekmektedir. Bu yeni yasalar öyle ağır cezalar içermelidir ki Aziz Yıldırım ve arkadaşları tutuklanabilsin. Toplum önünde değersizleşebilsin. Ve bunu sağlamak için 6222 Sayılı Yasa tasarlanmış ve birilerine sipariş edilmiştir. Bu birileri, 3 Temmuz zihniyetinin "Hukuk Servisidir".
(3)
3 Temmuz zihniyetinin ve operasyonunun amacı, Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü üzerinden Türk Sporunu ele geçirmek […]
(4)
3 Temmuz Zihniyeti bir plan dahilinde hareket eden örgütlü bir zihniyettir.
(5)
“Fenerbahçe, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin kendisidir.”
(6)
Ama Fenerbahçe Kuva-i Milliyedir, bir ruhtur. Tarihe baktığınız zaman, tarihimizde şunu görüyoruz: İşte Kurtuluş Savaşı Fenerbahçe camiası da içinde, padişahlar olmuş, padişahlara karşı bu Camia mücadele etmiş. Kapatmaya çalışmışlar ama hep var olmuş […] Bu dönemde de biz o insanların çocukları, torunları veya o insanların bizim büyüklerimiz olduğunu gösterdik […] Öyle zannediyorum ki, bizim camiadan başka hiçbir bir camia da bunu altından kalkamazdı.
(7)
Cumhuriyet yıkılmadan yıkılmayacağımızı, canımızı vermeden teslim alınamayacağımızı ve son sözümüz alınmadan hakkımızda kalem kırılamayacağını anlamayanlara buradan selam olsun.
(8)
“Aklanana kadar Fenerbahçe’yi havuzdan çıkartacağım.”
(9)
“Aklanana kadar havuzda yokuz.”
(10)
“Havuzdan çıkıyoruz.”
(11)
Fenerbahçe havuzdan çıkıyor.
(12)
Aziz Yıldırım’dan ‘Fenerbahçe’yi havuzdan çekerim’ tehditi
(13)
“Savcı Galatasaraylıydı. Ben onlara ahlaksız diyorum.”
(14)
Ezeli rakipleri G.saray’ı şike ve teşvik primi ile suçlayan Yıldırım, “Galatasaray ve Trabzon bize bel altı vurmak istediler. Biz şerefsiz değiliz. Şike yapmadık” dedi.
(15)
“Bana ikinci operasyonu yapacaklar.”
(16)
“Fenerbahçe şikeden temizlenene kadar havuzda yokuz.”
(17)
“Şikeden suçsuz olduğumuz anlaşılana kadar Fenerbahçe’nin yayın havuzunda olmamasını sağlayacağız.”

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Received: 2022-03-16
Accepted: 2023-07-05
Published Online: 2023-08-14
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

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