Hofstede'S Cultural Dimensions in Political Advertising: the 2014 Presidential Election in Turkey

Abstract

The 2014 Turkish Presidential election was significant as it was the first election in which the president was elected by referendum. Television advertisements published for the three presidential candidates during the election period seemed to have contained many codes of Turkish culture, which in turn may have influenced the voting behaviour of the Turkish population. The main purpose of the study was to analyze the use of these cultural codes in political advertisements broadcasted during this election period. For this purpose, studies on the classification of the culture of the community according to the most widely accepted reference names from Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions were examined. The visual or verbal emphasis of Hofstede's six cultural dimensions included the following: 'power distance', 'collectivism/ individualism', 'femininity/masculinity', 'uncertainty avoidance', 'pragmastism/normativism' and 'indulgence'. The cultural dimensions were detected by using the content analysis method for twenty four television advertisments broadcasted for Recep Tayyip Erdogan's campaign. Frequency count and percentage distribution were determined for each dimension by using the SPSS software package. In addition, the rates determined in this study were compared with the rates of cultural dimensions which Hofstede had previously calculated for Turkey. Comparison of the two seperate studies indicated results that were positively correlated in terms of 'power distance', 'collectivism', 'uncertainty avoidance', 'femininity' and 'indulgence' values; and negatively correlated on 'rates of 'pragmatism'.