Özet:

Political campaigns are very important for the political parties and candidates who participate in the election race. The political parties who want to have power at the end of a challenging election process reach the voter masses using various ways and methods. Political advertising is among the ways and methods that will make it easier for voters to reach the audience. With this feature, political advertising plays a key role in the promotion of political parties. Political parties try to deliver political promises through political advertisements that have important functions in determining the direction of elections. Political parties that benefit from political advertising in order to inform and influence voters are also benefiting from the power of political advertising to create an image. In the parliamentary and presidential elections held on June 24, 2018, the parties and presidential candidates took advantage of political advertisements. The election ads of the Ak Party, CHP and MHP, which benefit from political advertising in order to move a step beyond the competitors in the election process and to transmit their messages to the target audience, are the subject of this study. For this purpose, the political advertisements of the AK Party, CHP and MHP, which are intended to provide a majority in parliamentary elections, are evaluated by the content analysis method. The study revealed the differences in political campaigns and message strategies that political parties conduct. The result is that AK Party’s ads are much more than other political parties and often positive content ads are published. The theme of the party advertising is national unity and co-operation. While CHP has given more space to negative content advertisements, it has addressed many topics in its advertisements, from economics to disabled people, from education to rights and freedoms. MHP has highlighted national unity and cohesion by placing positive content in its few ads.