The 2011 parliamentary elections in Turkey and their coverage in the Turkish press

In the present work we provide a research on the Turkish domestic politics before the 2011 parliamentary elections. A detailed analysis of three Turkish daily newspapers (Cumhuriyet, Zaman and Milliyet) enabled us to identify major elections-related topics that appeared in the Turkish press during the political campaign. Our aim is to compare reactions and positions of different political parties and evaluate how a particular topic was being covered in the newspapers. The work especially focuses on the project of a new Constitution, the Kurdish issue, the state of Turkish democracy, the pre-election scandals and the key points of the political agenda of leading parties. In order to reach a better understanding of the current situation we study also the historical context of electoral system in Turkey and the formation of main political parties