Beyond Western Media Hegemony: Türkiye's International Media as Illiberal Norm Entrepreneurs

This study employs quantitative text analysis to examine posts from Türkiye's state-sponsored international media outlets, TRT World (Turkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu—Turkish Radio and Television Corporation) and Anadolu Agency’s Telegram channels between 2021 and 2025. During this period, which encompasses significant political events, including the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel's war on Palestine, these outlets have played a crucial role in constructing and reinforcing illiberal norms in the international media landscape. Following Yesil's (2023) analysis of TRT World's role in mediating Muslim victimhood and building on Elswah and Howard's (2022) findings about TRT World's transformation from a public diplomacy tool to the AKP's global voice, this study investigates how these outlets function as platforms for illiberal norm entrepreneurship. The analysis mainly focuses on their construction of alternative narratives that challenge Western media hegemony through the mediation of Muslim victimhood and the promotion of anti-Western discourse. Through quantitative text analysis of extensive media posts on Telegram, the study combines keyword frequency analysis, co-occurrence pattern identification, machine learning-based topic modeling, and sentiment analysis to examine how these outlets promote and legitimize illiberal norms. The analysis identifies patterns in their discursive strategies, especially in how they frame international conflicts through Muslim victimhood narratives, construct anti-Western positions, and challenge dominant Western media discourse. For instance, the research examines how these outlets intensified their critique of Western media coverage during the Gaza-Hamas conflict while promoting alternative interpretations rooted in Muslim solidarity and anti-Western sentiment. The case of Türkiye is particularly significant as it demonstrates how state-sponsored international media outlets serve as vehicles for illiberal norm entrepreneurship. As Sim and Göksu (2019)note, these outlets consistently employ official discourse and legitimize patriotic views, while Yesil (2024)argues in “Talking Back to the West” that they establish alternative legitimacy in the international media sphere. This makes Türkiye's international media strategy an ideal case for examining how an illiberal norm entrepreneur operates in the global information space. The findings illuminate how authoritarian states utilize international media platforms to contest Western media dominance while seeking to reshape global norms through alternative narratives. This panel's focus on illiberal norm formation and promotion strategies contributes to overcoming the liberal bias in existing norm literature, offering valuable insights for international politics and political communication studies. References Elswah, Mona, and Philip N. Howard. 2022. “Where News Could Not Inspire Change: TRT World as a Party Broadcaster.” Journalism 23 (10): 2079–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211033444. Sim, Şükrü, and Fatih Göksu. 2019. “A Comparative Discourse Analysis of TRT World and Al Jazeera News Channels on the News Reports of the Syrian War.” Connectist: Istanbul University Journal of Communication Sciences, no. 57 (December), 155–72. https://doi.org/10.26650/CONNECTIST2019-0068. Yesil, Bilge. 2023. “Global Populism: Its Roots in Media and Religion| Mediating Muslim Victimhood: An Analysis of Religion and Populism in International Communication.” International Journal of Communication 17 (0): 21. ———. 2024. Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order. University of Illinois Press.