From Orban to Correa, Modi to Erdogan, personalistic leadership has emerged in a variety of contexts over the last two decades. Unsurprisingly, personalization of politics coincides with the global rise of populism and is often followed by democratic breakdown as incumbents consolidate power to secure their tenure. The exclusionary aspect of populist politics in particular facilitates a Manichean conflict between Us and Them, legitimizing an “authentic” Ingroup while vilifying and thus delegitimizing various Outgroups. The evocation of Us vs. Them themes in constructing personality cults around populist leaders augments their ability to claim rightful rule, deter would-be challengers, and legitimize crackdowns on vilified others who do pose challenges. While there is a prolific literature on regime personalization and personalistic politics in cases of classically defined (full) autocracies, such as the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, Libya’s Qaddafi, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim dynasty, studies of personalistic leadership in competitive authoritarian regimes are adding nuance to this literature as cases of populist autocrats continue to emerge around the globe. This burgeoning political science literature, however, largely overlooks key media-based strategies these incumbents employ to position themselves as rightful and necessary representative of the Ingroup in the face of Outgroup challengers. Our paper fills this void by turning the spotlight on the production components of personality cult construction. Using a novel dataset comprised of more than 11,000 videos shared via ruling party and state YouTube channels in Turkey between 2002-2022, we first unpack how populists’ personality cults are produced by identifying the specific audiovisual production and social media dissemination techniques. We then unpack the what and the who, using intertextual analysis of selected video content to extract complex and seemingly contradictory themes that position Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as (Strong)Man of the People: the rightful, and glorious leader of contemporary Turkey.

Does the Turkish Radio Television (TRT) Corporation reflect, contribute, and represent Turkish political communication, public diplomacy, foreign policy, or neo-Ottomanism; if so, how and what is the message? This research explores TRT’s international media networks, communication, and messages in the Middle East. It draws on two TRT networks and languages; TRT Arabi for Arabic and TRT World for English. It selects four different events in relevance, features, and implications, including Turkish military operations in Syria, Turkish military operations in Iraq, the Sheikh Jarrah incident in Jerusalem and the Gulf Crisis. The research argues that the TRT networks represent a Turkish model competing in the realm of the international media arenas with specific but distinctive roles, reflecting a state approach, priority, and perspectives on different events in the Middle East. While the research borrows from mixed quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches including content analysis and textual analysis of news articles, and interviews of journalists, it offers a comparative analysis of the selected two networks and four events. The findings show that the TRT networks in this study had similar attitudes, angles, frames, and roles, however, while reflecting state positions and narratives, they had different volumes of news coverage of events in both languages, indicating changing political communication and public diplomacy. The results reflected more news coverage about the Turkish military operations in Syria over other events; topics about international relations and/or public diplomacy, frames about the role of Turkey in fighting terrorism, sources and quotes mostly from the Turkish government. Moreover, while the research finds that messages of news reflected the Turkish foreign policy and public diplomacy in some events over others, it did not find any significant reference to neo-Ottomanism, but more so to Turkish and Arab history. Overall, the research unveils the Turkish model of international media networks with a focus on events related to the Middle East. The findings and analyses implicate the prevailing understanding of international media as merely Western, Global North models and usher a rising phenomenon unlike the formers – a Turkish model, priority and focus. Furthermore, though international media networks may have different outlets and languages, the findings show that the TRT Arabi and TRT World presented similar coverage, reflected state priority, and overall echoed a Turkish narrative regionally and globally.

Modern imagological studies recognize the periodical press as the most critical tool that impacts public consciousness, especially when it comes to shaping the image of other countries. An adequate and objective vision of the "other" has scientific, cognitive, ideological, political, cultural, and practical significance for intercultural relations (Dyserinck, 2007). At the same time, such tests provide essential information about their authors. One country's attitude to another country's culture is a criterion for the formed attitude (positive, neutral, negative), and its changes depending on the specific situation. From this perspective, the topic of the construction of the image of the Soviet Union (Russia since 1992), created in the Moroccan media after their obtaining the independence from France (1956), based on the materials of their cultural cooperation and contacts, has been undeservedly bypassed. Most research covers political, social, and even cultural cooperation between Russia and Morocco, yet still misses the critical aspect: how were both countries' images created and changed? And what does it say about the creators of such images? My research traces both sides' ideological clichés and stereotypes, as well as the tools and methods used by journalists to create the desired image of countries in specific historical periods from the reader's unconscious to his conscious level. I also focus on the media's role in spreading and strengthening stereotypes both in Russia to Morocco and in Morocco to Russia. I analyze the works of individual authors and joint studies using comparative or transnational approaches devoted to changing images of national identities towards historical, political, and social changes. Overall, the publications of both sides contributed to the development of the mutual friendly ties between Russia and Morocco. In addition, they can be assessed as a representative source of anthropologic, ethnographic, educational, and cultural value. Reference Dyserinck, Hugo. Imagology and the Problem of Ethnic Identity. Intercultural Studies #1 (2003). Hall, Edward. “Beyond Culture.” Anchor Books. 1977.

Analyzing published writings and unpublished archival documents, this paper examines the career of Gavin Maxwell as a travel writer, in Iraq, Morocco, and Algeria, in the context of recent historiography on the global public relations networking of Moroccan and Algerian anticolonial movements. Through his relationships with British journalist-activist Margaret Pope, and the Moroccan monarchy’s press services head and Minister of Information and Tourism, Ahmed Alaoui, Maxwell, best-known for his nature-writing and animal husbandry in Ring of Bright Water (1960), became, if only briefly and partially, a part of North African networks of public relations developed to cultivate global public opinion. This paper examines how Gavin Maxwell, emerged from a background of European colonialist adventure-writing, to become an agent for the FLN Algerian independence movement in 1961, and then, in The Rocks Remain (1963) and Lords of the Atlas (1966), to advance a positive portrait of the newly independent Moroccan monarchy and, in the latter work, a condemnation of French colonialism. Through critical textual analysis of Maxwell’s writing, the paper demonstrates how imperialist cultures and orientalist tropes of imperialist travel writing could be repurposed in support of nationalist causes, but argues that Maxwell’s recruitment as a literary supporter was more of a success for the Moroccan monarchy than for the Algerian FLN. Nevertheless, Maxwell’s connection to Margaret Pope and Ahmed Alaoui demonstrates that the efforts of North African nationalists to recruit prominent Western supporters, described by David Stenner (2019) continued into the 1960s and extended transnationally across the Morocco-Algeria border.

In this paper, I argue that the modernization that is very much in evidence in the buildings rising and signs appearing in Amman is not unilinear or unidirectional, but has multiple dimensions and moves in more than one direction, despite its apparently singular, straightforward trajectory. Relying on historical sources as well as on observations and visual records, I demonstrate both obvious and subtle dimensions of the modern face of one of the city’s neighborhoods. This area shares with other parts of Amman the fundamental rhythms of life, but because of its location and the existence of open spaces within it, it offers a productive site for exploration. The writings of Michel deCerteau and Anna Tsing, among others, guide my analysis of this cosmopolitan locale, a mosaic of languages and styles and a site of interactions between human and nonhuman actors that reflects urban growth, but not necessarily in a simple or predictable form. Buildings, signs, and greenery project one face of the neighborhood, faithfully mirroring public representation of the city and the country. Amman, when seen through this lens, is well appointed, providing a comfortable living environment for both local and international residents, and forward-looking, home to a growing economy that promises to extend and improve opportunities for locals and guests. The same elements of the urban space, read critically, also reveal the layered nature of that image – the complexities of modernization itself – in the traces of human interactions with the infrastructure and in plants that appear in the interstices of the built environment. The neighborhood thus displays a conversation between various voices and influences where a monologue of construction and control might be expected. The rhythm of building and resting, controlling and eluding control reflects openness to novelty and change without losing sight of or value for existing ideals.