The Authoritarian Legitimation Toolkit

A rich corpus of political science literature on strategies demonstrates that authoritarian elites have a deep toolkit from which they can draw when attempting to create legitimacy. Here we define legitimacy as a widespread societal-level perception of an actor’s rule as rightful and appropriate. We stress the word attempt here in recognition that such strategies may not be successful and that societal phenomena interpreted by regimes and scholars as legitimacy may, in fact, be produced by quite different factors, such as citizens’ acquiescence, complaisance, and actions performed “as if” they found the regime to be legitimate (Wedeen Reference Wedeen1999, xi; see Wedeen Reference Wedeen1998). Despite important interventions about the conceptual and empirical ambiguity of citizens’ behavior, the record shows that many authoritarian regimes seek to cultivate perceptions of legitimacy. As Gerschewski (Reference Gerschewski and Croissant2015) theorized and others have refined in varied contexts (Amat Reference Amat2023; Buehler Reference Buehler2015; Josua Reference Josua2016; Tsourapas Reference Tsourapas2021), autocrats rely on some combination of the durability “pillars” of legitimacy, repression, and co-optation to preempt and, if necessary, punish challengers.Footnote ⁹ Because repression and co-optation are costly—implemented via violence and favors, respectively—legitimation strategies are often preferable (Gerschewski Reference Gerschewski2018; Guriev and Treisman Reference Guriev and Treisman2018; Josua Reference Josua2016; Omelicheva Reference Omelicheva2016).Footnote ¹⁰ The logic of legitimation holds that the more people who believe the incumbents are the rightful and appropriate rulers, the fewer destabilizing challenges to their rule those leaders will face and thus the longer they will endure (Von Soest and Grauvogel Reference Von Soest, Grauvogel, Dukalskis and Gerschewski2018).

Authoritarian incumbents subscribing to the logic of legitimation have significant incentives to attempt to generate widespread perceptions of the rightfulness and appropriateness of their rule. In addition to its political, economic, and personal benefits, incumbency can be existential should autocrats lose the security that their position of power provides (Akkoyunlu and Öktem Reference Akkoyunlu, Öktem, Öktem and Akkoyunlu2018; Escribà-Folch Reference Escribà-Folch and Croissant2016; Geddes, Wright, and Frantz Reference Geddes, Wright and Frantz2014). To avoid incurring the potentially destabilizing costs of repression, many authoritarian elites turn to alternative strategies that aim at building consent for their rule. The literature on authoritarian legitimation includes studies examining social service provision (Cassani Reference Cassani2017), economic development and other forms of “performance legitimacy” (Zhu Reference Zhu2011), “strongman” personalization and leadership elements (Matovski Reference Matovski2021; Selçuk Reference Selçuk2024), and “façades” of democracy such as using elections to justify their rule to both domestic and international audiences (Morgenbesser Reference Morgenbesser2017; Schedler Reference Schedler2013).

The largest segment of the legitimation literature focuses on rhetorical strategies (Dukalskis and Gerschewski Reference Dukalskis and Gerschewski2018; Edel and Josua Reference Edel and Josua2018; Josua Reference Josua2016; Reference Josua2021). These strategies include regime attempts to persuade citizens of the rightfulness of their rule via speeches, slogans, manifestos, pamphlets, and state and pro-regime news publications. The content of this rhetoric can include language mimicking that of politically pluralist settings, functioning as the discursive and thus cheaper equivalent of the institutional strategy of creating democratic façades (Maerz Reference Maerz2019); specifying criteria that define what constitutes “proper” leadership (Omelicheva Reference Omelicheva2016); and constructing external threats (Shakrai Reference Shakrai2015). Rule of law-oriented rhetorical strategies can vilify particular behaviors or groups as “vandals” or “terrorists,” thus legitimizing surveillance and violent crackdowns against designated outgroups (Edel and Josua Reference Edel and Josua2018; Hintz and Ercan Reference Hintz and Ercan2024; Lachapelle Reference Lachapelle2022).

Turning to the subset of populist authoritarian legitimation strategies, these narratives similarly deploy simultaneously inclusionary and exclusionary language (Bonikowski Reference Bonikowski2017; Selçuk Reference Selçuk2024). Indeed, populists are categorized in part by their use of “us vs. them” discourse (Mudde and Kaltwasser Reference Mudde and Kaltwasser2017; Pauwels Reference Pauwels, Heinisch, Holz-Bacha and Mazzoleni2017). As a distinguishing factor, they also invoke claims of authenticity stemming from their struggles against an inauthentic establishment as a source of their legitimacy. Such leaders frame politics as a struggle between a pure, authentic people and corrupt, inauthentic elites who usurped the people’s legitimate right to rule (Mudde Reference Mudde2004; Ziller and Schübel Reference Ziller and Schübel2015). This constructed binary can be understood as one between the “people with traditions” and the “immoral secular-liberal elites and enemies” (Yabancı and Sağlam Reference Yabancı and Sağlam2023, 4). Thus, although the identity content of rhetorical strategies differs based on populist authoritarians’ definition of their own ingroup, these actors share an anti-establishment ethos that can garner support from citizens frustrated with their socioeconomic status. This oppositional orientation serves candidates claiming to challenge the current order but can be problematic for populist incumbents when the anti-establishmentarians become the establishment (Selçuk Reference Selçuk2024).

The decades in power that some populist authoritarian incumbents have now accumulated—with their long rule at times profoundly challenged by issues such as economic crises that complicate the realization of returns to any purported “golden age”— provide researchers with a prime opportunity to expand understandings of how these leaders seek to boost support for their future rule. We find answers in the form of regime-disseminated videos that glorify selected elements of a specific historical age that the incumbent claims as an inherited legacy, while also revivifying for citizens the lingering specter of past threats that require the incumbent’s continued vigilance. Our approach builds on an “affective turn” in the social sciences that encourages researchers to unpack the psychological pull of historical elements on which populists frequently rely (Hoggett and Thompson Reference Hoggett and Thompson2012; Jasper Reference Jasper2011; Martin Reference Martin2016). Analyses of populist actors’ social media outreach indicate that right-wing populists in particular employ nostalgia’s pull in stoking dissatisfied citizens’ longing for better times (Frischlich et al. Reference Frischlich, Clever, Wulf, Wildschut and Sedikides2023). The emotional attachment that nostalgia evokes strengthens populist candidates’ ability to place blame for current sociopolitical and economic woes on the inauthentic elite outgroup (Akkerman et al. Reference Akkerman, Mudde and Zaslove2014; Rooduijn et al. Reference Rooduijn, Van Der Brug and De Lange2016) and to position themselves as uniquely suited for leading a return to a mythologized golden age (Bellelli and Amatulli Reference Bellelli, Amatulli and Pennebaker1997)—whether that is a supposedly simpler time when conservative values prevailed among a homogeneous population within a shared “heartland” (Bonikowski Reference Bonikowski2017; Taggart Reference Taggart2004) or a purportedly glorious era of domestic achievements and global status (Bevernage et al. Reference Bevernage, Mestdagh, Ramalho and Verbergt2024; Elçi Reference Elçi2022; Stauth and Turner Reference Stauth and Turner1988).

However, because of the focus on nostalgia and idealized pasts in studies of populist uses of history, these actors’ invocation of past threats has been relatively underexamined. In contrast, the literature contains numerous studies on populist construction of current threats, often in the form of immigrants and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities (Mikdashi Reference Mikdashi2022). However, less is written on how incumbents can mine, inflate, and even conjure past threats, loss, and martyrdom to communicate the necessity of their continued rule.Footnote ¹¹ Indeed, just as populists place rose-tinted lenses on selected slices of history, factual constraints are loose in the darker realm too. As scholars of “updatism” in the populism of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro underscore, flexible approaches to reality can allow politicians and their communications teams to treat the past like a “large wardrobe full of prêt-à-porter images and templates” (Pereira and Araujo Reference Pereira, de Araujo, Bevernage, Mestdagh, Verbergt and Ramalho2024, 175). Simply put, the treatment of past traumas in populists’ discourse can be as mythical as their purported glory days and can substantially shape public opinion in ways of interest to political scientists.Footnote ¹²

Audio-visualizing the Authoritarian Toolkit

Authoritarianism research has important insights into various strategies that leaders use in attempting to justify their rule as rightful. However, political scientists’ tendency to focus on rhetoric has occluded the examination of other forms of legitimizing communication such as visual and audiovisual representation. This is puzzling, given that state communication ministries and directorates within institutions such as ministries of defense and foreign affairs dedicate significant resources toward producing films, promotional videos, posters, and other forms of public iconography (Cantor et al. Reference Cantor, Rus and Tasente2021; Sanders and Canel Reference Sanders, Canel, Sanders and Canel2013). Whereas authoritarian elites actively engage in the censorship of visual materials deemed to pose a challenge to their “regime-legitimising official account” (Tan Reference Tan2016, 233), the production and proscription of visual media are fundamentally political tools used in attempts to bolster support for regimes of all types.Footnote ¹³ Indeed, the literature on the “YouTubification” of political communication has centered on established democracies, initially focusing on the platform’s use as a civil society tool; recent studies reflect elites’ increasing usage of YouTube for their own political goals (Dylko et al. Reference Dylko, Beam, Landreville and Geidner2012; May Reference May2010).

The dearth of political science work on visual communication strategies among populist varieties of authoritarian regimes is especially surprising. Studies of populism have surged in recent years, yet Moffit (Reference Moffitt2022, 557) finds the visual politics of populism to be “largely ignored” and calls for political scientists’ increased attention to imagery and aesthetics. Sayan-Cengiz and Tekin (Reference Sayan-Cengiz and Tekin2022) assess the state of the field similarly, and Melito and Zulianello’s (Reference Melito and Zulianello2025, 372) recent review finds research on populism “disproportionately focused on its written and verbal dimensions.” Yet populist incumbents and challengers alike are prolific visual content producers. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (Reference Mudde and Kaltwasser2013), for example, stressed how integral poster imagery is in defining ingroup membership among far-right parties. However, those authors did not cover posters or other uses of images in their subsequent article reflecting on the state of populism studies (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser Reference Mudde and Kaltwasser2018).

Experimental studies suggest that scholars take up the call to analyze visual material as political strategy; research demonstrates, for example, the “otherizing” power of far-right campaign posters in heightening negative attitudes toward immigrants and minorities (Matthes and Schmuck Reference Matthes and Schmuck2017). Visual representations can also juxtapose and reinforce populists’ ingroup–outgroup binaries in ways and to extents that rhetoric cannot. Whereas populist discourse frequently deploys fear-based narratives (Erçetin and Erdoğan Reference Erçetin and Erdoğan2023), research shows that a video or poster image depicting a villainous outgroup threatening the homeland can cognitively concretize and evoke affect-charged understandings of us and them more quickly and more durably than using words alone (Bateman Reference Bateman2014, 119). As communication scholars note, viewers can become absorbed in narratives of visual media “with an intensity far exceeding that achieved by the speech-maker” (Slater et al. Reference Slater, Rouner and Long2006, 236).

Visual media also offer communicative value for populists’ use of layered nostalgia narratives in articulating these us vs. them dynamics. Classified by psychologists as a “complex emotion,” nostalgia simultaneously triggers multiple, often conflicting feelings, such as sadness, happiness, longing, fear, pride, and uncertainty (Johnson-Laird and Oatley Reference Johnson-Laird and Oatley1989). Political elites can use future-oriented visions of idealized pasts to trigger this complex emotion (Boym Reference Boym2001; Kenny Reference Kenny2017), requiring audiences to consider collective pasts—both glorious and traumatic—in evaluating their ingroup’s present situation versus that of the outgroup. The numerous feelings, temporalities, and actors that historical frames evoke lead populists to search for communication methods that can distill these intricacies. Visual forms of media provide an attractive platform for the “populist style [of] simplifying complex political issues” in attention-grabbing, easily digestible, and politically persuasive ways (Esser et al. Reference Esser, Stępińska, Hopmann, Aaberg, Esser, Reinemann, Strömback and de Vreese2016).

Yet despite political scientists’ useful engagement with the politics of idealized memory (Aytaç et al. Reference Aytaç, Çarkoğlu and Elçi2024; Benabdallah Reference Benabdallah2021; Elçi Reference Elçi2022; McGlynn Reference McGlynn2020),Footnote ¹⁴ the general neglect of audiovisual strategies in these studies leaves underexplored the methods by which authoritarians of various stripes instrumentalize history.Footnote ¹⁵ In sum, the lack of attention to populist authoritarians’ visual politics is not just a literature gap. It also represents a missed opportunity to unpack a medium of political communication whose inherent properties make it arguably more efficient and more effective than the rhetorical strategies that receive so much attention.

Having made our case for visualizing the authoritarian toolkit and using the case of Turkey to do so, here we specify the added value that audiovisual elements offer in instrumentalizing history. We identify three distinct but mutually reinforcing film-making elements that serve the legitimation strategy that we term selective revivification: rapid visualizations of ingroup–outgroup membership criteria, selective spotlights on positive ingroup attributes, and visceral evocations of emotions. First, image components serve to designate who belongs in the ingroup versus the outgroup, rendering visible for the target audience how these groups appear and behave. In addition to quickly and legibly identifying membership in these groups, images can simultaneously juxtapose positive portrayals of an ingroup and negative portrayals of the outgroup(s) in ways that augment the sentiments ingroup viewers attach to both (Doerr Reference Doerr2017; Flam and Doerr Reference Flam, Doerr, Flam and Kleres2015; Tuomola and Wahl-Jorgensen Reference Tuomola and Wahl-Jorgensen2023). Sound-based components such as voiceover narration can coherently link images depicted to specific forms of ingroup/outgroup behavior and can insert the instantly recognizable recorded voice of a famous group member (Kozloff Reference Kozloff1989; Matamala Reference Matamala and Pérez-González2018). Audiovisual communication is thus especially attractive for populists,Footnote ¹⁶ who frequently rely on characterizations that contrast their authentic/pure/native selves with inauthentic/corrupt/foreign others. In our history-focused line of inquiry into populist authoritarians’ legitimation strategies, the inclusion of imagery of faces, clothing, geographical landscapes, and other elements in regime-disseminated videos serves to specify which historical figures belong to the ingroup and very quickly remind viewers of their glory, martyrdom, or both.

As an illustrative example, a 10-second clip in a video titled “Who Are You?” (AK Gençlik [@AKGenclikGM] 2020) uses images of minarets, a previous Bosnian coat of arms to which Serbs and Croats objected on the grounds it only represented Bosniaks/Bosnian Muslims (Doubt et al. Reference Doubt, Tuzović and Hamzić2022), and the first Bosnian president Alija Izzetbegovic’s face as both an elderly statesman and a young man behind prison bars.Footnote ¹⁷ This brief use of imagery serves to specify Muslims as the ingroup, efficiently communicating a narrative of ingroup members achieving unprecedented victories despite being persecuted for practicing and defending their faith. The use of superimposed prison bars on this recognizable ingroup member quickly and powerfully communicates the message of unjust oppression beyond the individual pictured. The voiceover throughout the video defines the specific historical figures whom Turkey’s youth (should) embody using repetitive rhythmic phrasing—“you are X,” “you are Y”—that is mantra-like and easily internalized.

Second and relatedly, visual representation can delimit and highlight those selected identity characteristics and actions of a historical figure that should be celebrated as exemplary of the ingroup accomplishments. As humans, historical figures’ lives can be messy in ways that do not fit the simplistic, Manichean narratives that characterize populist discourse (Akkerman et al. Reference Akkerman, Mudde and Zaslove2014; Çinar et al. Reference Çinar, Stokes and Uribe2020). Just as national museums curate particular versions of history through their content and display choices (Anderson Reference Anderson1983; Dunleavy Reference Dunleavy, Josephson, Kelly and Smith2004; Iğsız Reference Iğsız2015), the selective use of content and contextual framing of that content allow regimes and their production teams to curate personal histories (Haim and Jungblut Reference Haim and Jungblut2021; Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan Reference Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan2013). Curation directs the eye and the mind toward particular behaviors and thus away from others less befitting a regime’s agenda. Image selectivity in pro-regime video production visually imprints in viewers’ minds the qualities of historical figures that serve that agenda—those identity characteristics that align with the regime’s vision of the ideal citizen, the moments of greatness, the times these figures’ enemies matched those of the current regime. Via image exclusion, videos silence aspects of these figures that undermine the regime’s agenda, such as personal behaviors deemed improper, moments of weakness, and incompatible political realignments. This selectivity can also help regimes appeal to multiple audiences through the calculated use of a particular aspect of a historical figure or event. Images, much more so than texts, are especially adept at conveying “different, even sometimes inconsistent, messages that work at different levels and address different audiences” (Sayan-Cengiz and Tekin Reference Sayan-Cengiz and Tekin2022, 68). This quality enables regimes to quickly and clearly reach viewers across some (if certainly not all) political and identity dividing lines, potentially expanding the ingroup by depicting historical elements that resonate with multiple groups. Importantly for our study of incumbents’ audiovisual strategies, Lutscher, Draege, and Knutsen (Reference Lutscher, Draege and Knutsen2023) find that regime-critical viewers exposed to certain state-produced videos reported an increased sense of group belonging—an indication that these tools can resonate beyond loyalist audiences.

Third, in addition to its cognitive efficiency in quickly conveying information about ingroup membership and behavior, visual representation is also a particularly useful political communication tool because of its affective capabilities. Images can powerfully conjure emotions such as anger, fear, and pride among viewers that serve political agendas of actors from regimes to social movements (Flam and Doerr Reference Flam, Doerr, Flam and Kleres2015; Pink et al. Reference Pink, Sumartojo, Lupton and Lebond2017). Relevant for our analysis of history-themed audiovisual representation, insights from visual methods literatures indicate images are also effective in eliciting memories of both personal experiences and of learned or collective memory (Bagnoli Reference Bagnoli2009; Kunimoto Reference Kunimoto2004; Rose Reference Rose2022). Visual representation is adept in making dramatized arguments that evoke emotions without having to substantiate the claims that are either made explicitly or implied implicitly (Richardson and Wodak Reference Richardson and Wodak2009; Sayan-Cengiz and Tekin Reference Sayan-Cengiz and Tekin2022). Rhetorical and symbolic devices evoke emotions and engender meanings that serve in threat construction (Kress and Van Leeuwen Reference Kress and Van Leeuwen2020). Addressing the cognitive and affective aspects of visual representation, Hintz (Reference Hintz2021, 31) terms the brief use of imagery to convey information, evoke emotion, and frame the image’s subject in political context an “affective heuristic.” She cites the image of Syrian child Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body flashed onscreen during a rap video or shared in an Instagram feed as one that can quickly and powerfully conjure grief and anger at the multiple actors who failed him and many others.Footnote ¹⁸ In line with this article’s argument, the splicing of a three-second segment of footage showing Erdoğan displaying a photo of Kurdi at a UN General Assembly meeting into a Directorate of Communication video quickly conveys that the Turkish president is a champion of vulnerable populations on the world stage (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2022a). The use of prison bars noted earlier in the Bosnian example and further analyzed later similarly serves as an affective heuristic in revivifying historical traumas.

Studying the Audiovisual Instrumentalization of History: Assumptions, Data, Methods

We define the audiovisual strategy that we identify—selective revivification—as the rendering visible of curated pasts to justify incumbent futures. Historical myths and selective interpretations of past events come equipped with a politically useful affective appeal that can be deployed in legitimacy-building efforts (Aydın-Düzgit et al. Reference Aydın-Düzgit, Rumelili and Topal2022). Regime-disseminated media materials can audio-visually bring to life and, in doing so, naturalize specific political constructions of history in ways that paint regime-defined ingroups as heroes and outgroups as villains, usurpers, or invaders. This revivification is particularly feasible for authoritarian regimes, given high levels of media capture in these contexts (Barnehl and Schumacher Reference Barnehl and Schumacher2024; Petrova Reference Petrova2008; Schiffrin Reference Schiffrin2018). History-themed forms of communication are “highly favoured instruments” of populist authoritarian governance in particular (Aydın-Düzgit and Balta Reference Aydın-Düzgit and Balta2019, 518–19). As Aydın-Düzgit and Balta note, myths serve an important role in populist governance by consolidating people/elite binaries domestically, anchoring the self in a stable identity during times of crisis, and legitimizing antiglobal foreign policy narratives (2019). In this section we elaborate on the theoretical aspects of our approach to the selective revivification strategy we outlined earlier and our methods for studying it as a legitimation strategy.

Selective Revivification Patterns: Quantitative Analysis of Dissemination and Content

The data we collected from six party and state institutions between 2005 and 2022 show that the dissemination of curated pro-regime YouTube videos constitutes a relatively new legitimation strategy. Figure 1 shows the total number of storytelling videos. Even though we began our data collection in 2005, we found that the first storytelling video does not appear until 2015, when just two such videos were posted by our institutional YouTube accounts. The number of videos released per year began to shoot up in 2017.

Figure 1 Number of Storytelling Videos Released by Year

An analysis of the dissemination and content patterns in these videos suggests that the driving factor behind this spike is the coup attempt of July 15, 2016. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the events of that night constitute an inflection point that led to shifts in “the grammar and vocabulary of politics” (Taş Reference Taş2018, 3); our study evinces the emergence of an audiovisual strategy that expanded rapidly as the AKP faced other challenges to its rule and consolidated power in response. Notably, the last two years we coded contained 38 (2021) and 27 (2022) videos. Within this overall rise lies a substantial increase in the number of PHVs. These videos largely leverage historical content to depict linkages between heroes and martyrs of definitive pre-Republic battles, such as the Battle of Dumlupınar, a 1922 Turkish victory during the War of Liberation against (Western) Allied forces, and those who defended the AKP-led government against the July 2016 coup attempt—a putsch that AKP figures claimed was supported by the United States (Taş Reference Taş2018).

Altogether, PHVs make up more than half the storytelling videos (71 out of 134). In the peak year of 2021, 24 of 38 storytelling videos contained historical events, figures, or both. It is worth noting that the increase in the share of storytelling videos that contain historical references occurred during a period of intense authoritarian consolidation following the AKP’s stunning losses in the 2019 local elections. The party lost control of major metropolitan municipalities, including the economic powerhouse Istanbul (from which Erdoğan as mayor in the 1990s was able to springboard to national politics) and the capital city Ankara. The fact that the government ramped up its selective revivification during a worsening economic crisis is also striking and aligns with research suggesting that political elites facing crisis are more successful in shifting the subject away from the economy than in blaming others for economic woes (Aytaç Reference Aytaç2021).

In terms of institutional patterns, the dissemination of YouTube videos in our dataset became increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Communications Directorate over time. Established via presidential decree in 2018, the institution employed approximately 700 individuals with a budget of 3 billion Turkish lira for 2020–24, about $18 million per year (2020-2024 Dönemi İletişim Başkanlığı Stratejik Planı (Güncellenmiş) 2022, 54). In the production process, the Directorate works with media companies such as 2D Medya and creators such as prolific composer and director Ali Sinanoğlu (Özer and Özçetin Reference Özer and Özçetin2024). The institution accounted for about 40% of all storytelling videos disseminated in our timeframe and approximately 80% of videos disseminated between 2020 and 2022. Combined with AKP’s own YouTube channel, the two account for 87% of the total number of storytelling videos in our dataset. The Office of the Presidency’s channel disseminated an additional 11% of storytelling videos, nearly all of which predated the creation of the Communications Directorate to take on precisely this role. The Directorate of Religious Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs channels consist almost entirely of news clips and thus account for only a very small fraction of the curated videos we study here.

Figure 2 shows the historical figures and events most frequently referred to in PHVs, coded separately despite their temporal overlap to capture their thematic emphases.Footnote ²⁴ Remarkable here is that, despite symbolic linkages between Erdoğan and Ottoman leaders in imperial-themed TV dramas (Çevik Reference Çevik2020; Reference Çevik2024), no sultans appear among the three most frequently referenced elements. Fifteenth-century conqueror Sultan Mehmet (Fatih Sultan Mehmet) is fifth; the Ottoman Empire more broadly is fourth. The Independence War, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the “founding father” and first president of the Republic of Turkey, receives the most references. Sixteen videos depicting the Ottoman era’s Gallipoli Campaign (Çanakkale, 1915–16) largely feature Atatürk’s improbable victory as an imperial soldier.

Figure 2 Most Common Historical References in PHVs

The depiction of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a hero (see figure 3) in videos disseminated by institutions of a regime that has at times vilified the Republic of Turkey’s first president and sought to roll back many of his secularizing reforms (Gumuscu Reference Gumuscu2024; Yilmaz 2022) may seem surprising. However, film-making techniques can facilitate the selective representation of individuals who appeal to diverse audiences in ways that align with an incumbent’s legitimation narrative. In these videos, Atatürk largely appears as Gazi Mustafa Kemal, an Ottoman military commander wearing a kalpak—a felt or fur hat that became a “symbol of resistance” against “hat-wearing Christian occupiers” during the Turkish War of Independence and later abandoned, notably in favor of hats during Atatürk’s early Republican-era modernization and Westernization measures (Abalı Reference Abalı2009, 204)—and heroically fighting against Allied powers. Notably, his honorific from that period contains meanings connoting “warrior who fought for Islam” and “wounded veteran.” This representation supports the AKP’s portrayal of itself as a Global South vanguard battling Western global dominance (Çevik Reference Çevik2020; Fisher-Onar Reference Fisher Onar2022; Hintz Reference Hintz2018; Yeşil Reference Yeşil2024). These representations of Atatürk, in fact, predate his adoption of that surname, which means “father of the Turks”; this name change was in line with the Westernizing measures over which he presided (Türköz Reference Türköz2007). Very few images depict him dressed in the Parisian-modeled cravats and waistcoats that were a part of Atatürk’s laïcité-inspired reforms to which the AKP and its pious supporters strongly objected. Thus, even though this selective revivification of Atatürk as Gazi Mustafa Kemal aligns smoothly with the incumbent’s Ottoman-themed, counterhegemonic discourse, it also creates overlapping resonance for varied nationalist groups, including supporters of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) that Atatürk founded.

Figure 3 Most Common Heroes Depicted in PHVs

Other frequent historical references included major battle victories, such as the 1071 Battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt) and the 1453 Conquest of Istanbul. Defeats appear very rarely and are always accompanied by narratives emphasizing resilience and sacrifice, as in the dramatized scenes of Ottoman soldiers trudging through snowy terrain before being defeated by the Russian Army at the Battle of Sarıkamış in 1915 (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020d). The most frequent historical references from the period after the establishment of the Turkish Republic were the coups in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997.

Figure 3 shows which figures were most frequently depicted as heroes in the PHVs. After the broadly defined category of the Turkish nation—coded as the heroism of individual Turkish citizens and accomplishments of the people as a collective—Erdoğan was the most commonly depicted hero, followed by the AKP party as a unit. Various military figures from historical battles also feature prominently as heroes, as do citizens who died in conflict and are thus considered martyrs (şehit) in Turkey. Mehmet the Conqueror (Fatih Sultan Mehmet), who appears in eight videos, is portrayed distinctly as a hero in battle in four videos; he is recognizable to Turkish viewers by the white horse he rode when wresting Istanbul from Byzantine rule in 1453.

Figure 4 indicates the frequency with which PHVs depict particular groups as the enemy. These groups include Western Allied powers from World War I, Greek and Greek-Cypriot figures from conflicts such as the 1974 “Cyprus Peace Operation” (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2022b), and menacing but vaguely represented characters. The most common enemy category is that of individuals whose actions in the videos tie them to the coup attempt of July 15, 2016. Although we do not code July 15 as a historical event because it occurred during AKP rule, regime rhetoric frames civilians’ resistance against the coup as a “destan” or historical epic (Carney Reference Carney2019b; Hammond Reference Hammond2020). These efforts include 21 PHVs, which by definition contain a separate historical component, that depict the events of that night and the Gülenist network the AKP blames for them. As elaborated on later, these videos discursively link civilians resisting putschist efforts in 2016 to scenes from past conflicts, creating a narrative trajectory of brave struggle against internal and external enemies. Within the larger category of storytelling videos (historical and non-historical curated media products with a narrative plot), 25 videos reference the coup attempt; thus, 84% of all videos referencing the coup and its accused plotters include a historical element (21 of 25). Because the event posed the strongest challenge to the rule (and the life) of Erdoğan during the AKP tenure, we find support for our argument about populist authoritarians’ instrumentalizations of history in data showing that so many depictions of that event contain references to past struggles and sacrifices, as well as victories.

Figure 4 Most Common Enemies Depicted in PHVs

Selective Revivification Themes and Techniques: Intertextual Analysis

Here we analyze the particular ways in which the storytelling components of videos can quickly distill historical events from multiple eras, imbue them with emotion, and link them to the incumbent’s rule through a selective revivification strategy. We used intertextual analysis to identify common themes among the 71 PHVs disseminated by the regime. Building on our earlier discussion of the qualities of audiovisual content that make videos particularly adroit tools of political communication, we analyze how the common themes we extracted are conveyed quickly and in emotionally evocative ways.

Historical Continuity: Incumbent, Past Events, Forward Progress

The first common theme across videos is that there is a figure moving forward, both physically and metaphorically, through various historical eras. This theme resonates well with insights from the populism literature on chronopolitics that suggest populist actors seek to situate specific events within a broader temporal frame that suggests historical continuity (Taş Reference Taş2022). In many videos this figure is a sultan or soldier urging a galloping horse forward (AK PARTİ 2021; AK Parti [@Akparti] 2019; T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021a) or an everyday citizen running with a flag from conditions of past adversity to present-day prosperity (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021e). Flag symbols, costumes, and topographic scenery details change as these figures progress, swiftly and clearly signaling continuous advancement through history while swelling music increases the attention-grabbing, emotion-evoking effect. In a video titled “May the Strongest Era Begin,” this transcendent figure is a golden phoenix who keeps the viewer’s eye focused on the screen as it flies through scenes from Central Asian tribal yurts to the 1453 Conquest to the rule of Abdülhamid II (AK PARTİ 2018b). In another, it is a young boy who is reading a story about Ottoman naval commander Hayreddin Barbarossa when he receives news of his father’s death in combat; the scene then flashes forward to his adult self, who is steering a vessel steaming ahead in the Aegean while he gazes at a black-and-white portrait of his fallen father (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c). In one of several videos commemorating the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, a flag-carrying, kalpak-wearing soldier morphs into a civilian defending the Bosphorus Bridge (later renamed the 15 July Martyrs’ Bridge) on the night of the coup; he then transforms into a construction worker running along a paved road that unfurls under his feet as a shiny high-speed train zooms past him.

Whereas speakers at political events frequently draw links between past events and the present—Carney (Reference Carney2019b, 145) notes that Resurrection: Ertuğrul actor Mehmet Çevik rhetorically linked events from the thirteenth century to the Battle of Gallipoli and then to the present at a “democracy vigil” after the 2016 coup attempt—these film-making tools facilitate an easily digestible transition from past to present for the viewer beyond what rhetoric alone can accomplish. Scenes use candlelight and the music of reed flutes, as well as imperial-era writing implements and navigational tools, that immediately render visible and audible the glorious Ottoman past that AKP leaders rhetorically laud (AK PARTİ 2019c; T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020b). Sepia-tinted lighting, early-model televisions, and beloved, easily recognizable figures from children’s programming in the 1980s like Barış Manço and Adile Naşit lend nostalgic warmth to a narrative arc in a video titled “Our Story of Unity Begins Anew” (figure 5).

Figure 5 Author Screenshot (AK PARTİ 2018a)

The storytelling narrative of that video, accompanied by instrumental sounds from Turkish folk music, encourages everyone who “grew up together” and shared these warm memories to secure an even brighter future by voting for the AKP in the 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections (AK PARTİ 2018a). As a caution that Turkey needs its current leadership as protection against threats, a black-and-white scene depicting the torture and death of Turkey’s first pilot to be killed in combat switches to colorful scenes of street signs, parks, and schools named after the pilot, reminding viewers that his legacy is “all around us today” before closing the scene with a presidential seal (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021f). These selective revivification techniques create visual and auditory links between specific past accomplishments of forefathers and the ruling party that claims to be the contemporary custodian of their legacy.

A video titled “From Malazgirt to Dumlupınar,” which was released on August 30, 2021, to commemorate Victory Day (Zafer Bayramı), exemplifies these film-making techniques and the political message they communicate. It depicts a Selçuk victor in Malazgirt, the 1071 battle also known as Manzikert that marked Central Asian Turkic tribes’ entry into the Anatolian territory that they and their descendants would claim as their homeland. Anatolia figures prominently in Erdoğan’s definition of “native” (yerli ve milli) “Black Turks”—a predominantly cultural and socioeconomic rather than racial classification for conservative, rural Turks whom the Turkish president claims to represent (Arat-Koç Reference Arat-Koç2018). Black Turks are positioned against “White Turks,” the Western-oriented, secularist (Kemalist) elite who victimized pious individuals before the AKP’s ascent to power in 2002. In this video, the soldier is easily identifiable for Turkish audiences by his distinctive armor, Selçuk flag, and captioning visualized in a glittering font that specifies the date and place. The soldier rides on horseback through a field hospital in Gallipoli where, against all odds, Ottomans achieved victory against Allied Forces-affiliated Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) forces. Facilitated by using a film-splicing technique, the soldier rides behind a tent and emerges into view dressed as an Ottoman soldier to swelling music. He then continues riding through Dumlupınar (1922), one of the most significant battles of Turkey’s Independence War, and hands a Turkish flag to a contemporary military unit, with accompanying signage from the Communications Directorate that completes the progression to present-day AKP rule.

Great Strength, Great Sacrifice

A second common theme asserts that the Turkish nation has shown and continues to show great strength, and that this strength comes with great sacrifice. Each of the 71 PHVs includes a representation of great strength, from the aggregation of everyday citizens’ power when defending a nation under threat to military air capabilities to massive transportation infrastructure projects. As figure 3 shows, 10 PHVs also feature martyrs as heroes whose sacrifices to the nation make possible its greatness. A video reenacting the sacrifice made by doctor-turned-hero Tarık Nusret dramatizes the moment in which he denies morphine to his own dying son on the battlefield at Gallipoli, reserving the medication for soldiers with higher chances of surviving to carry on the struggle (AK PARTİ 2019f). A film-making technique explicitly linking sacrifice to greatness uses narrator commentary—sometimes as a poem read by Erdoğan that serves to place him in the action (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2017a) or captioning or both—to evoke the notion of victory against all odds. Narration in a reverential tone adds dramatic effect to real-life and artist-rendered images of those who fought on when hope and medical supplies were nearly gone—“just when hopes were about to be extinguished”) (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2021f). Figures 6 and 7 exemplify the usefulness of intertextual analysis in identifying common themes across texts.

Figure 6 Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021b)

Figure 7 Author Screenshot with Autogenerated Captioning (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021f)

In addition to PHVs commemorating fallen soldiers whose service contributed to battle victories, several also commemorate sacrifice in defeat. A video re-creating the Battle of Sarıkamış (1914–15), a loss to Russia in which tens of thousands of Ottoman soldiers froze to death, features men fighting fatigue and frostbite to state their name and city of origin through chattering teeth before succumbing to the cold (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020d). At the video’s conclusion, the surviving men salute contemporary Turkish soldiers who join them in the driving snow, as they pass on a legacy of bravery under adverse conditions.

PHVs referencing the 2016 coup attempt blend these themes to demonstrate historical precedents for contemporary sacrifices that facilitate greatness. Three such videos use the word “insuperable” (or “impassable,” geçilmez) in their title to convey that the Turkish nation has been tested but stands strong (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021d; Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021i; Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021e). A video titled “Turkey Is Insuperable,” released by the Communications Directorate to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt, opens with grainy black-and-white footage of soldiers wearing distinctive soft caps and carrying arms just before the Ottoman victory at Gallipoli (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021i). The narrator states, “Throughout its history and up to the present day, the heroic Turkish nation never ran away from paying the price of its flag, its homeland, its indivisible union, and its independence,” thereby emphasizing a tradition of sacrifice. The scenes shift to previous military coups, footage of security forces shoving head-scarved women, and selective images of opposition demonstrators using violence during overwhelmingly peaceful Gezi Park protests in 2013. The banner of the secularist, main opposition CHP waves over smoldering rubble. The images suggest that the pious ingroup that the AKP professes to represent has historically been, and still remains, under threat and in need of protection—a message reemphasized as the video displays footage of violence from the 2016 coup attempt.

Other videos connect the coup both to past victories and to the need for Erdoğan to retain his leadership position because he is the individual best able to call on the nation to sacrifice when necessary. A video subtitled “Our Foundation Is Çanakkale, Our Decision Is Yes,” and shared on the AKP’s channel in the run-up to the April 2017 constitutional referendum on the switch to a consolidated presidency, contains voiceover narration of how Turks “ran to the fight” at Gallipoli and “ran to the square” during the coup attempt (AK PARTİ 2017a). The video closes with an Erdoğan banner and this caption: “Turkey is for those who run to martyrdom out of love for it.” Other selective revivification techniques communicating this message include the use of Erdoğan’s voice proclaiming that Turkey cannot be defeated, scenes of Erdoğan leading masses in prayer, and the splicing of footage of Erdoğan’s FaceTime call with a news anchor asking citizens to come to the streets to defend the nation (AK PARTİ 2019a; T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020a; Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021c). These scenes bring to life the frequent historical sentiment that “this ground wasn’t won easily and won’t be lost easily,” quoted by interviewees on state media after the putsch (TRT Haber Reference Haber2024).

Perennial Threats, Unspecified Enemies

As noted in the quantitative section, enemies depicted in PHVs include named or visually rendered leaders of various coups and Western actors. Symbols of identity serve not only as a signal of who the actors are but also to reinforce perennial “pure” ingroup and “corrupt” outgroup struggles. A video shared by the presidency on the first anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt depicts coup plotters fuzzily in black-and-white imagery (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2017c). This technique draws a symbolic link between these villains and military putschists of the past who executed Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, ousted Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, and purged thousands of religious conservatives from the government and civil service (Hale Reference Hale2018). Those who stand up to the coup and are ultimately martyred are distinguished by appearing in color. Men wear the red and white of the Turkish flag; featured women wear Islamic headscarves (figures 8 and 9).

Figure 8 Author Screenshot (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2017c)

Figure 9 Author Screenshot (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2017c)

In a 2020 video discursively linking sixteenth-century victories in the Mediterranean to Turkey’s Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) naval doctrine (Çubukçuoğlu Reference Çubukçuoğlu2023), the Christian cross, which is displayed prominently (if anachronistically) on the uniforms and flags of the Crusaders, plays the role of a temporal bridge between the Knights Templar and contemporary Greece. Further, the production choice to juxtapose the menacing facial expressions of chain-mail-clad combatants wielding coarse medieval weapons with the composed demeanor of Ottomans and modern-day Turkish naval officers using scientific tools to navigate the seas, engaging in Islamic prayer, and mustering on deck in pristine white uniforms to spell out Mavi Vatan creates a stark contrast that revivifies a constructed but nevertheless perennial us vs. them dynamic in Turkey’s relations with the Western Christian world (figures 10–12).

Figure 10 Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c)

Figure 11 Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c)

Figure 12 Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c)

In addition to the visual representation of figures who are recognizable to Turkish viewers from the country’s distant or recent past, another notable theme is the omnipresence of threats that are unspecified. We found that half the cases of threats in PHVs are implicit, rather than explicit, which is facilitated by the frequent use of the passive voice in the Turkish language. Narrators often warn that Turkey’s security and prosperity are “being obstructed” and “being attacked” by “traitors” and other nefarious forces without naming the purported enemy (AK PARTİ 2017b; 2019d; 2019b). In some videos, the target of a threat is featured, but the suggested threat is either left unspecified or implied. For example, although many videos contain scenes of armed soldiers and military aircraft—including one titled “From Syria to Libya, From the Balkans to Asia” that features soldiers rapping/shouting nationalist slogans (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020e)—the identity of the enemy against which their protection is required remains elusive. One way to suggest that identity is by using imagery of an identifiable location—for example, naval vessels sailing in the Eastern Mediterranean (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c; Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021g). Video content showing images of specific populations’ oppression and violence can also imply an enemy, as in videos depicting the AKP’s solidarity with Palestinians. The use of prison bars (figure 13) to frame scenes of demolished houses and displaced civilians adds a carceral element that emphasizes the theme of Israel as an enemy oppressor that requires a strongman to stand up to it (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021h)—as Erdoğan did, for example, when denouncing Israeli president Shimon Peres as someone who “know[s] well how to kill” at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2009 shortly after Israeli forces initiated Operation Cast Lead (Prakash and Ilgit Reference Prakash and Ilgit2017).

Figure 13 Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021j)

Selective revivification techniques also facilitate the depiction of figures that are distinctly menacing but whose identities are left undefined and thus open for interpretation. Avoiding specificity is a useful tactic for leaders who seek to signal that their continued rule is necessary to protect a wide swath of citizens. Whereas studies of rhetorical strategies show that populists use broad fear-based narratives and vilifying references to “others” in their speeches (Cap Reference Cap2016; Erçetin and Erdoğan Reference Erçetin and Erdoğan2023; Nai Reference Nai2021; Wodak Reference Wodak2015), audiovisual strategies can render these “others” as villains using no words at all. Videos featuring foreboding music and faceless, dark-clothed actors harming Muslims or the Turkish flag, for example, suggest that the Turkish nation is under threat from enemies who may be internal, external, or both (AK PARTİ 2017a). These vague yet sinister audiovisual techniques entail that no proof is needed to back up leaders’ claims about threats nor any direct accusation that could turn off potential supporters with ties to a purportedly threatening group. Turning from a political to a cinematographic standpoint, the practice of leaving the enemy unknown adheres to techniques used in horror films. Leaving an ominous figure unidentified can create more anxiety among viewers than depicting a monster or killer onscreen (Heller-Nicholas Reference Heller-Nicholas2014). Ominous narration using the passive voice without identifying a subject of the threatening action can compound the effects of this visual technique. A voice rhythmically intoning Turkey’s many threats and strengths in a video titled “From Gallipoli to 15 July” uses only passive verbs. This production choice obviates the need to attribute responsibility to any person or group and offers the auditory advantage of phrases that end in passive verbs, which rhyme in Turkish (e.g., -ilmez, -enmez).