The role of news media in reproduction of urban space: Ideological presentation of news reports on Galataport Istanbul Project in Hürriyet and Sabah newspapers

Media is shaping the consciousness, ideas, emotions and even daily lives of individuals by presenting a certain framework of meaning to the society. The individuals evaluate the social events and facts within the framework of meaning that is provided by the media. This study is defending the opinion that the content and discourse that is produced in the urban transformation news reports by the journalist, as the organic intellectual, is legitimizing the capital-oriented transformation of the city and the relations of production are reproduced. Starting from the presupposition that reality that is constructed in news which is produced along with certain hegemonic discourse has influences on the consciousness of the individuals, the study argues the news discourse is influential over the individuals in leading them to illusions by neglecting the social inequalities and contradictions, and by virtue of this, neoliberal hegemony can be reproduced. Accordingly, in the study, the role of the hegemonic discourses produced in the news in mainstream newspapers about the Galataport Istanbul Project, which is considered as the spatial reflection of neoliberal hegemony, in legitimizing the capital-oriented transformation of the city and in the production of social consent, is researched with a critical approach and Teun A. Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis method. As a result of the study, to be legitimized the space reproduced as a commodity, it has been observed the project is identified with a strong economy, development, well-being and welfare of the society in the news discourses. By developing a content and discourse that affirms such projects for a strong and developed, society has been encouraged to support neoliberal urban hegemony.