Abstract:

Electoral slogans are among the effective medium of political communication which serve to attract the attention of voters and persuade them. Slogans used on billboards and cloths banners facilitate direct access to masses of voters. This article centres on the thesis that slogans which manage to articulate voters’ feelings can get a chance of having relatively higher scores in persuading the voters. This article accordingly proposes an analysis framework with the title of “articulating voters’ feelings” which is based on three aspects. The slogans articulating the voters’ feelings refer to the ones which manage to correspond to a meaning in public language through their choice of words and the load of message. The first aspect refers to the condition which is attained through the use of brief, clear and striking words in slogans which correspond to a meaning in the language of general public. The slogans designed to illustrate a common problem through the use of a wording meaningful in people’s language manage to have a content of the second aspect. Slogans which also propose a solution to the addressed problems satisfy the third aspect. The analysis framework proposed in the article was employed to several slogans used on billboards and cloth banners by the three main Turkish political parties, namely Justice and Development Party (AKP), Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), during their campaigns of 2014 Turkish Local Elections.

Keywords: