Populist autocrats frequently aim to galvanize support by calling for a return to an idealized past or “golden age” (Betz and Johnson Reference Betz and Johnson2004; Kranert Reference Kranert2018; Tannock Reference Tannock1995). Nostalgic themes can evoke the need to return to a time when the pure, authentic, and therefore rightful ingroup lived by its own norms and values—that is, before corrupt, inauthentic elites usurped power and imposed their own way of life (Frischlich et al. Reference Frischlich, Clever, Wulf, Wildschut and Sedikides2023; Menke and Wulf Reference Menke and Wulf2021; Schreurs Reference Schreurs2021). Yet whereas populist candidates can leverage powerful memories of victories and defeats to gain support for agendas promising change from the status quo, populist autocrats face somewhat of a paradox in their reliance on historical references. How can these incumbents communicate the appeal of their rule by referring to a golden age they have failed to revive? What strategies can these leaders use to try to maintain a support base when their material performance is objectively not great, much less “great again” (Al-Ghazzi Reference Al-Ghazzi2021; De Matas Reference De Matas2017; Ding et al. Reference Ding, Slater and Zengin2021)? In brief, how can populist authoritarians leverage varied pasts in problematic presents to legitimize their own future rule?
In answering these questions, political science studies focus predominantly on speech-based rhetoric (Ding et al. Reference Ding, Slater and Zengin2021; Elçi Reference Elçi2022; Lacatus and Meibauer Reference Lacatus and Meibauer2023; Selçuk Reference Selçuk2024). Image-based and audiovisual regime strategies are largely absent in this research. Mudde and Kaltwasser’s (Reference Mudde and Kaltwasser2018, 1674; emphasis added) reflection on the state of populism research in Comparative Political Studies, for example, notes populists’ reliance on discourse promising a return to “an idealized image of the past” but does not include studies of how populists use actual images to render these idealized pasts visible and visceral for potential supporters. Another recent disciplinary reflection from Hunger and Paxton (Reference Hunger and Paxton2022, 627; emphasis added) in Political Science Research and Methods includes discussion of how populist-urbanist cleavages helped “legitimate Orban’s reactionary image of Hungarian nationalism”; yet, neither the review article nor the study it cites touches on methods for analyzing the politics of constructing such images (Toomey Reference Toomey2018).
Thus, although it provides useful insight, the prevailing political science lens on populism—and on discursive authoritarian legitimation more broadly (Dukalskis and Gerschewski Reference Dukalskis and Gerschewski2018; Edel and Josua Reference Edel and Josua2018; Omelicheva Reference Omelicheva2016; Wolf, Bachleitner, and Bufkin Reference Wolf, Bachleitner and Bufkin2024)—requires refocusing for several reasons. First, current approaches’ emphasis on speeches, slogans, and other oral and written texts misses an opportunity to investigate the meaning-making advantages that image- and sound-based instrumentalizations offer—particularly for complex and intangible concepts like “history” and the “nation” that words alone do not (Joffe Reference Joffe2008; Schill Reference Schill2012; Seo Reference Seo2020; Seo et al. Reference Seo, Dillard and Shen2013). Research in disciplines ranging from evolutionary biology and philosophy to journalism and media studies has placed empirical weight behind the adage suggesting that a picture is worth a thousand words (Barrett and Barrington Reference Barrett and Barrington2005; Bateman Reference Bateman2014; Brockmeier Reference Brockmeier, Moghaddam and Harre2016).Footnote 1 Yet political scientists seem to avoid analysis of audiovisual materials,Footnote 2 perhaps because of disciplinary trends among top journals that privilege hypothesis testing, causal identification, and statistical significance (Berinsky et al. Reference Berinsky, Druckman and Yamamoto2021; Garand and Harman Reference Garand and Harman2021; Keele Reference Keele2015; Samii Reference Samii2016).
Second, and relatedly, political science research that does engage audiovisual content prioritizes testing its effects, rather than analyzing content themes and dissemination patterns. For example, scholars have examined the impact on respondent attitudes of “soft propaganda” television content (Mattingly and Yao Reference Mattingly and Yao2022) and reality TV (Kim Reference Kim2025; Kim Reference Kim2023), “non-declarative persuasion” in pro-government online games (“propagames”; Ming-Tak Chew and Wang Reference Ming-Tak Chew and Wang2021), and regime-produced videos (Lutscher, Draege, and Knutsen Reference Lutscher, Draege and Knutsen2023). Yet the literature lacks a systematic, in-depth focus on the content itself and how regimes directly deploy it. Finally, a narrow focus on rhetoric occludes the empirical reality of authoritarian incumbents’ deep investments in audiovisual production (Liu and Shao Reference Liu and Shao2024; Schneider Reference Schneider2019; Van Herpen Reference Van Herpen2015).Footnote 3 In sum, studying regimes’ political messaging without analyzing how specific audiovisual properties operate, what types of narratives are selected by regimes, which institutions they use to deploy these narratives, and when they deploy them misses an opportunity to flesh out the literal and figurative channels through which particular media forms can serve authoritarian elites’ goals.
In this article we add a film-making lens to comparative politics scholarship on populism and authoritarian durability. We “audio-visualize” the authoritarian toolkit by analyzing legitimation strategies in the understudied yet empirically widespread phenomenon of regime-disseminated videos.Footnote 4 We analyze how populist autocrats use the particular advantages of narratively rich, visually captivating, dramatically scored videos to bind particular past glories and traumas to contemporary contexts in ways that depict their continued rule as rightful and necessary. We argue that populist authoritarian leaders use a strategy of selective revivification to bring specific historical events and figures and, in turn, their own political futures (back) to life for the public. In advancing our argument, we identify all popular history videos (PHVs)—heavily produced videos with a narrative arc that includes a historical event, site, or figure—among all existing YouTube posts shared by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and four state institutions between 2005 and 2022. Using multimethod, multimodal analysis of video content and dissemination patterns, we find increasing usage of three complementary selective revivification themes as a period of authoritarian consolidation intensifies: (1) historical continuity between the incumbent, past events, and forward progress; (2) great strength through great sacrifice; and (3) perennial, often unspecified, threats to the nation.
We focus on populist authoritarian regimes—an increasingly prevalent empirical phenomenon produced by what Weyland (Reference Weyland and de la Torre2018, 320; see Weyland Reference Weyland2013) identifies as populism’s “inherent tendency to turn authoritarian”Footnote 5; cross-country evidence backs up this claim (Benasaglio Berlucchi and Kellam Reference Benasaglio Berlucchi and Kellam2023).Footnote 6 Contemporary Turkey is a useful case for analyzing video usage by autocratizing populists, given that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Turkey’s leader for more than two decades. Serving first as prime minister in 2003 and then as president in 2014, he assumed leadership of a highly consolidated authoritarian presidency of his own design in 2018 (Esen and Yardimci-Geyikçi Reference Esen and Yardimci-Geyikçi2020). Although de-democratization processes in Turkey have been incremental under Erdoğan’s AKP, scholars over the last decade have classified Turkey as a competitive authoritarian regime, moving toward hegemonic electoral authoritarianism in its later years (Akkoyunlu Reference Akkoyunlu2017; Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2016; Ugur-Cinar Reference Ugur-Cinar2023).Footnote 7 Our data collection reflects this autocratizing shift: of the 134 narrative-based storytelling videos in our dataset, all but 2 were released from 2017 onward. The AKP also fits our focus on populist actors (Arat-Koç Reference Arat-Koç2018; Bulut and İleri Reference Bulut, İleri and Shimbach2019; Elçi Reference Elçi2019; Erçetin and Erdoğan Reference Erçetin and Erdoğan2023; Yabancı Reference Yabancı, Öktem and Akkoyunlu2018). Scholars further refine the party’s populist categorization by citing elements that include Islamic nationalism (Sandal Reference Sandal2021; Yabancı Reference Yabancı2023), patriarchy (Kandiyoti Reference Kandiyoti2016), and personalism (Selçuk Reference Selçuk2024). Studies of the AKP’s engagement with chronopolitics (Taş Reference Taş2022), nostalgia (Elçi Reference Elçi2022), and (neo)Ottomanism (Fisher Onar Reference Fisher Onar2009; Ongur Reference Ongur2015) spotlight the historical (re)framing through rhetoric that we analyze in film-making strategies.
Importantly for our study, the AKP faced multiple challenges that threatened its continued tenure. These included a nationwide uprising (2013), a protracted economic crisis with inflation reaching 80% annually (2015–present), an attempted coup (2016), and major election upsets at the local level (2019). Survey-based research with data up to 2022 indicates the AKP was grappling with voter defection in response to the country’s economic and democratic decline during the later period of our study (Balta and Demiralp Reference Balta, Demiralp and Demiralp2023). These factors comprise the kind of “problematic presents” we argue lead populist authoritarians to leverage historical elements in rallying support for their rule. In sum, these challenges make clear why the AKP needed to engage in legitimation in boosting regime durability in its later terms. Here we take up the question of how.
In addition to this empirical contribution in the Turkish case, our study makes four theoretical contributions. First, we recalibrate the emphasis on idealized pasts in populism studies, an emphasis that a nostalgia lens understandably generates (Benabdallah Reference Benabdallah2021; Elçi Reference Elçi2022; Van Prooijen et al. Reference Van Prooijen, Rosema, Chemke-Dreyfus, Trikaliti and Hormigo2022). We focus on the narrative power of linking past threats and sacrifices with contemporary challenges. Second, we unpack patterns in the dissemination and content of regimes’ legitimation videos. The selective revivification strategy we identify reveals the specific legitimizing themes and film-making techniques that incumbents use to reframe current struggles through historical lenses in ways that position autocratizing incumbents as essential to the survival of the nation. In articulating this strategy, we expand the analytical toolkit for studying how populist authoritarian incumbents transform historical narratives into contemporary political capital as they consolidate power. Third, our video-based analysis extends recent scholarship on the political functions of entertainment media products such as history-themed television serials. As scholars of India, China, Brazil, Russia, and other cases note, popular culture content can align with and even actively boost regime narratives (Asthana Reference Asthana2019; Bai and Song Reference Bai and Song2014; Cai Reference Cai2016; Ribke Reference Ribke2021; Wijermars Reference Wijermars2016). In the Turkish case, popular (proto-)Ottoman-themed shows broadcast by the state-run Turkish Radio Television (TRT) Corporation reinforce the ruling party’s conservative Islamic vision for the nation and its foreign policy activism in former Ottoman territories (Algan and Kaptan Reference Algan and Kaptan2023; Bulut and İleri Reference Bulut, İleri and Shimbach2019; Carney Reference Carney2014; Reference Carney2019a; Çevik Reference Çevik2020; Reference Çevik2024). Here, we turn the focus from two-hour-long fictionalized TV serials (dizis) to content that is (1) disseminated directly by institutions of governance not affiliated with entertainment; (2) presented as historical reality, rather than fiction;Footnote 8 and (3) packaged in quickly digestible, easily shareable YouTube videos. Finally, much of the research on YouTube centers on its democratizing potential (Dylko et al. Reference Dylko, Beam, Landreville and Geidner2012; May Reference May2010). Even in the authoritarian context of Russia, Litvinenko’s (Reference Litvinenko2021) study analyzes the platform as “alternative television” produced by oppositional actors like Alexei Navalny. Here, we focus instead on YouTube’s authoritarian legitimation potential. By examining regime strategies of content production and dissemination, we add to digital authoritarianism research that has thus far largely focused on content restriction (Berman Reference Berman2018; Dragu and Lupu Reference Dragu and Lupu2021; Schlumberger et al. Reference Schlumberger, Edel, Maati and Saglam2024).
The article proceeds as follows. First, we briefly review the political science literature on authoritarian legitimation strategies. Second, we fill the gaps we identify by specifying the cognitive and affective functions of audiovisual media in linking complex historical frames to current leadership. Third, we outline our theoretical assumptions and our methods of data collection and analysis for studying selective revivification strategies in regime-produced videos. We then present quantitative findings on content and dissemination patterns from the original dataset we assembled (Hintz and Draege Reference Hintz and Draege2025), followed by a discussion of common themes extracted using intertextual analysis. We conclude with suggestions for future studies linking curations of history to regime legitimation strategies, and for wider applications of an audio-visualized political science toolkit.
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.
Notes on Theoretical Assumptions
Our approach leans heavily on the instrumental functions of history in bringing real and imagined past glories and traumas (back) to life in ways that justify populist authoritarian rule. We acknowledge, however, the constitutive role that history can play for political actors. A particular reading of history informs elites’ understandings of the appropriate national identity for their people and the righteousness of their own position as leaders of those people in ways that transcend purely rationalist accounts. In line with applied constructivist scholarship (Aydın-Düzgit and Rumelili Reference Aydın-Düzgit, Rumelili, Reiners and Turhan2021), we treat understandings of history as constitutive of the “identity proposals” that ruling elites seek to instill among their citizens (Abdelal Reference Abdelal2009, 29). Elites disseminate these proposals by using formal and informal nation-building institutions such as education systems, militaries, museums, holiday celebrations, and, of course, the media (Anderson Reference Anderson1983; Paglayan Reference Paglayan2022; Sarigil Reference Sarigil2023). Control over state institutions is thus both a goal in itself, in terms of power, and a means to achieving a normative goal of “identity hegemony” (Hintz Reference Hintz2016). Regime uses of history in constructing founding narratives and other forms of myth-making support both these pursuits. In brief, they reflect elites’ own inherently subjective interpretations of the past, as well as their strategic curations that selectively prioritize some themes over others.
The constitutive and instrumentalist components that comprise our selective revivification approach entail three points we clarify here. First, this approach acknowledges the emotional and ontological heft that historical elements can carry for elites and the general public alike, while specifying the particular events and figures from layered histories (Iğsız Reference Iğsız2021) that elites invoke to support their political agendas. Second, this approach assumes that selected historical events hold meaning for elites at all times, but that they can be revivified in audiovisual form at politically useful moments. Anniversaries can function as collective memory focal points that “story-tell” historic events in the incumbent’s favor (Sarsfield and Abuchanab Reference Sarsfield and Abuchanab2024; Taş Reference Taş2022); heightened tensions with a neighbor can provide discursive opportunity structures in which populist authoritarians can remind audiences why they must remain in power as rightful guardians of the nation and its borders. For example, although the term Blue Homeland was coined as part of a drill by the Turkish Naval Command in early 2019, a video celebrating the broader maritime initiative by linking it to a sixteenth-century Ottoman corsair’s naval victories in the Mediterranean was released in September 2020—following an “annus horribilis” of territorial disputes and near-conflagrations between Turkey and Greece (Psaropoulos Reference Psaropoulos2020). Finally, our focus on the selective uses of history also facilitates examination of emotion-laden negative themes that much of the “golden era,” nostalgia-oriented scholarship on populist strategies omits. Casting a wide net with our data collection, we find constructed “continuity” not only with the glories of the Ottoman Empire (Ergin and Karakaya Reference Ergin and Karakaya2017; Iğsız Reference Iğsız2021; Karakaya Reference Karakaya, Bevernage, Mestdagh, Verbergt and Ramalho2024; Özer and Özçetin Reference Özer and Özçetin2024, 7) but also with the strategic construction of perennial threats against which the nation requires the incumbent’s protection.
Data Collection, Coding, and Analysis
In studying uses of history in legitimation strategies, we sought to identify forms of curated audiovisual content containing historical references disseminated by incumbent party and state institutions. Thus, although the broader dataset we make available includes all YouTube posts shared by the regime actors we study in the specified time period, for the purposes of this article we excluded the overwhelming majority of posts that consisted of unedited news fragments.Footnote 19 Focusing on curated content that does narrative or storytelling work enables us to study populist incumbents’ intentions via the production and narrative choices made by content creators working in the service of the regime—for example, which historical figures and events to feature, which images and symbols to present in depicting them, and what type of music to select in eliciting affective responses from viewers (Nordensvard and Ketola Reference Nordensvard and Ketola2022). Given the heavy regulation of and intervention in the production and dissemination of news, social, and entertainment media within Turkey (Bulut Reference Bulut2016; Yeşil Reference Yeşil2018), we can comfortably claim that the curated content shared by the ruling AKP and the institutions over which it has consolidated control reflects the party line.
We apply a mixed-methods approach to an original dataset we constructed of all existing videos posted by the ruling AKP, its youth wing (AK Gençlik), and four state institutions—the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Presidency, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), and the Directorate of Communications (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı İletişim Başkanlığı)—on YouTube between 2005 and 2022. Doing so allows us to showcase how the AKP’s multifaceted approach to YouTube involved not only blocking access to the site in Turkey (2008–10, 2014) and requesting content removals (Akgül and Kırlıdoğ Reference Akgül and Kırlıdoğ2015) but also producing its own content in later years. In designing our data collection strategy, we chose a start date of 2005, the year YouTube launched its site, but note the bans mentioned earlier.Footnote 20 This enabled us to track when the first type of videos we study here begin to emerge and how video dissemination varies over time. Because our strategy captures only those videos publicly available during our data collection in 2023–24, we acknowledge that the dataset has the potential to contain a recency bias. Videos of allies-turned-foes (such as earlier, much friendlier footage of the Gülen movement in the AKP case) could have been removed, for example, to reflect shifting coalitional dynamics. Whereas exploring any specific instances of deleted regime videos could provide useful insight into these dynamics, recency bias would likely prove more problematic in collecting videos posted by opposition groups, rather than the government-produced content we study here; indeed, Turkey is among the countries that most frequently request social media platforms to remove oppositional content (“X’s Türkiye Tangle, between Freedom of Speech, Control, and Digital Defiance” 2025). For the purposes of our analysis of regime videos, although we are aware of potential limitations posed by deleted content, our long-term observation of the AKP’s media strategy does not give us reason to believe that working with existing videos significantly affects the broader patterns we find in video emergence and usage.
To study these patterns, we began by using web scraping to collect all existing YouTube posts of all types by these actors (N = 11,165), along with metadata including links, date of posting, and number of views at the time of scraping in July 2023. Working with two research assistants, we then hand-coded the content of each post to identify and separate out those we term storytelling videos—heavily curated videos containing visual cues and stirring narration that construct easy-to-follow plot trajectories—from news fragments and unedited footage. After discussions of several coding iterations involving the two Turkish-speaking authors and two native Turkish-speaking research assistants, we decided on the following criteria for storytelling videos: a duration ranging from 60 seconds to 10 minutes; the presence of a clear narrative plot that unfolds with or without music; visible curation (e.g., resource-intensive production techniques, scripted speech, or image splicing); and content that includes a speaker, voiceover, or subtitles in Turkish so that we capture media intended for domestic audiences. We argue that this crucial element of audience-oriented curation highlights the production level and the political intent of these videos. Indeed, the fact that they comprise a tiny share of the regime institutions’ total YouTube content—134 storytelling videos from 11,165 posts—underscores the cost and effort that go into them.
Within this corpus of storytelling videos, we then classified those that refer to at least one pre-2002 event or figure via words, images, or music as popular history videos (PHVs). We use the term “popular” to capture the people’s sovereignty component integral to how these videos function in populists’ political communication, connoting texts that narrate and elevate the lives of everyday people in a form of “history from below” (Moses Reference Moses1998; Strauss Reference Strauss1991; Velasco Reference Velasco, Smilde and Hellinger2011). As we demonstrate later, the 71 PHVs we found serve discursively to link these everyday individuals and their accomplishments to the regime that protects them and makes the nation proud. Whereas leaders may refer to such individuals in speeches through the use of anecdotes and “everyday knowledge” (Atkins and Finlayson Reference Atkins and Finlayson2013), our approach suggests that audiovisual content carries the advantage of being able to render these everyday figures visible and thus more relatable to audiences. Some of the most frequently viewed PHVs we study narrate and elevate the contributions of specific everyday citizens—a real-life teacher arrested for his religious views under secularist leadership, for example, or a woman who became a symbol of conservatism, motherhood, and anticommunism in the Cold War era (Emen-Gökatalay Reference Emen-Gökatalay2021)—and of unspecified everyday citizens who are depicted in a similar fashion as the “unknown soldier” archetype (Wagner Reference Wagner2013).
We also coded PHVs on many other variables, such as which historical figures or events were depicted, whether there were heroes or enemies, and whether music was used. Notably, although music was not a defining criterion, all 134 storytelling videos—thus including the subset of 71 PHVs—contained music, with musical shifts often used to facilitate plot development via the delineation of scenes or the heightening of drama. This finding speaks to the utility of music as an effective component in political communication by those who design such strategies (Aufderheide Reference Aufderheide1986; Wardani, Listya, and Winarni Reference Wardani, Listya and Winarni2017; Way Reference Way2019). As scholars introducing a 2022 special issue of Popular Music dedicated to populism note, music’s “performative character, affective potential, and significant role in the discursive construction of cultural identities” makes it a valuable resource “on which populists can draw in articulating a ‘people’ or an ‘elite’” (Dunkel and Schiller Reference Dunkel and Schiller2022, 282); Rancier’s Reference Rancier2009 study of Kazakh folk artists similarly elucidates the power of group-specific genres of music in constructing national identities.
We used intertextual analysis to extract storytelling tools that feature historical figures, events, and symbols from our PHVs. A form of critical discourse analysis, an intertextual approach allows researchers to extract various internally coherent themes that emerge across a large body of texts from multiple actors (Fairclough Reference Fairclough1992). Our multimodal approach to intertextual analysis is particularly useful in identifying not only similar content themes but also audiovisual narrative techniques used across videos in regime legitimation strategies. In simple terms, incorporating multimodality facilitates analysis beyond speech-based rhetoric to include how elements such as sound effects, visual symbols, and lighting techniques can quickly produce meaning and resonance for audiences (Machin Reference Machin2013; Van Leeuwen Reference Van Leeuwen and Tannen2015). As a brief example, techniques wielded in a video shared by the Office of the Presidency in 2017 include the use of ominous music and clouds casting shadows over onlookers’ faces as a black-clad “henchman” figure attempts to bring down the nation’s flag. Replete with dark glasses, leather gloves, and a crowbar, the figure represents a nefarious threat to the sacred symbol of the flag. The video then zooms out to show citizens streaming in from all parts of the country to form a human tower and save the flag, as an Erdoğan voiceover proclaims the resilience of the nation against all threats.Footnote 21
Before proceeding, it is important to delimit the scope of this study. We ground our inquiry in the premise unpacked earlier that authoritarian leaders use various strategies to establish legitimacy in pursuit of regime durability. In line with much of this scholarship, we study strategy components and bracket for future research any causal linkage of these phenomena to societal-level outcomes. Thus, we put aside the questions of whether and how these videos affect the target audience. We do not engage in audience reception studies (e.g., using interviews, focus groups, and participant observation)Footnote 22 or analysis of public opinion using surveys, experimental or otherwise.Footnote 23 Instead, we are motivated by existing experimental studies suggesting that regime-aligned audiovisual content can have significant effects on the emotions, beliefs about politics, and political behavior of citizens who support and oppose the regime (Kim Reference Kim2023, Reference Kim2025; Lutscher, Draege, and Knutsen Reference Lutscher, Draege and Knutsen2023; Mattingly and Yao Reference Mattingly and Yao2022).
Here we reflect briefly on viewership, urging caution when evaluating data from YouTube and other platforms. We find that the PHVs we collected seem to have attracted substantial viewership, but precise measurement is challenging. Our dataset includes view counts from the official government YouTube channel, but many videos were cross-posted on other YouTube channels and social media platforms. For example, one video shows one million views on the AKP’s official channel, but it was reposted by 1,900 separate accounts on Twitter (now X; AK PARTİ 2019e). Another video from the same channel recorded 6.9 million views but was not posted on the party’s Twitter account; it circulated widely via other social media users and mainstream media (Milliyet Gazetesi 2018). Such discrepancies are common across the dataset. Some videos gained significantly more traction when reposted elsewhere. For instance, one titled Kızıl Elma—Red Apple, a key symbol in (pan-)Turkish nationalism and now the name of a fighter jet [Özer and Özçetin Reference Özer and Özçetin2024])—had 65,000 views on the Communications Directorate channel, which was part of our dataset but received 731,000 views when shared by the account Netd Müzik (n.d.); pro-government media coverage also raised that video’s profile (Hürriyet Gazetesi 2020; Sabah Gazetesi 2020; T24.com 2020). These variations in channel strategy, cross-posting practices, and media amplification complicate efforts to determine the videos’ total reach and are thus cause for circumspection in drawing determinative inferences about viewership.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2021b)
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).
Author Screenshot (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2017c)
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).
Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c)
Author Screenshot (T.C. İletişim Başkanlığı Reference İletişim Başkanlığı2020c)
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).
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).
Conclusion
In this article we introduced selective revivification as a populist authoritarian legitimation strategy for “film-making” the nation great again. Through a mixed-methods, multimodal study of all history-themed videos distributed by six Turkish government institutions over nearly two decades, we analyzed how selective revivification themes and techniques discursively link the contemporary regime to glorious, trauma-surviving figures in the past. Simultaneously, this narrative emphasizes that these legacies and the ingroup that inherited them must be protected against perennial threats. We argue that populist authoritarian incumbents like the AKP instrumentalize historical events and figures to boost support while facing challenges in delivering on their promises of glorious futures.
Our findings make several contributions to the scholarly literature on authoritarianism and legitimation strategies. First, we add an important visual dimension to the study of the authoritarian legitimation toolkit from which elites draw in pursuit of regime durability. We outline how curated forms of audiovisual content such as these videos provide a particularly potent medium for conveying intricate populist narratives in cognitively efficient yet emotionally evocative ways. An “audio-visualized” approach thus allows political scientists to analyze systematically the symbolic messaging that populist leaders frequently use to generate an aura of historical legitimacy as a basis for this popular support.
Second, we specify the varied regime-boosting properties of history by developing the concept of selective revivification. The videos we analyze not only invoke historical glories, perils, and sacrifices but also emphasize fears of threats from explicit or implicit outgroups. We find that PHV content systematically ties imagery of historical threats with those experienced under the ruling party, serving to legitimize the incumbent as not just a rightful inheritor of glorious legacies but also a necessary protector against villains at home and abroad. In highlighting videos’ ability to distill selective “lessons” from multiple historical eras and present easily digestible “evidence” of why a populist leader should remain in power, we advance the findings of works acknowledging the messy and diverse ways that history and nationalism intersect. Our study thus builds on scholarship examining “heroic nationalism” that celebrates triumphs and “traumatic nationalism” that commemorates shared loss (Lomsky-Feder Reference Lomsky-Feder2011). We illustrate how PHVs can render visible both these themes in the same three-minute package replete with swelling music that reminds viewers of just who in the country’s history is responsible for its glorious wins and whom they should blame for its devastating losses. We similarly build on studies that acknowledge nations can have “restorative, redemptive, and retentive moments.” By showing how pro-regime videos can capture and concisely communicate all three, Ding, Slater, and Zengin’s (Reference Ding, Slater and Zengin2021, 155) example of how Chinese populism exhibits each of these nationalisms is instructive here.
Existing research on pro-regime instrumentalizations of complex histories in other cases suggests opportunities for extensions and refinement of our audiovisual approach. McGlynn’s (Reference McGlynn2020; Reference McGlynn2023) research on historical framing in Russia and Fisher-Onar’s (2022) comparative work on the “post-colonial sensibilities” of revisionist powers, for example, offer useful scholarship to engage here. Whereas Wijermars’s (Reference Wijermars2016, 84) study of memory politics in Russian TV serials points to a “rhetorical toolbox,” we develop an audio-visualized version in storytelling videos.Footnote 25 Important components that our study thus adds include how regimes’ legitimation strategies can cohere around instrumentalized histories, how film-making techniques enhance the dissemination of these histories, and how reliance on historical themes can increase over the course of incumbent rule as challenges arise. We find that more than half the AKP’s storytelling videos feature historical elements, that the proportion of PHVs increases as the party counters challenges to its rule with further authoritarian consolidation, and that the selective revivification strategy peaks in the final two years of our dataset.
Our supply-side analysis of regime strategies also builds directly on research examining audience responses to pro-regime audiovisual products (Kim Reference Kim2025; Lutscher, Draege, and Knutsen Reference Lutscher, Draege and Knutsen2023; Mattingly and Yao Reference Mattingly and Yao2022; Ming-Tak Chew and Wang 2021). Next steps can include cross-national comparisons with other populist authoritarian regimes to determine how and to what extent they rely on selective revivification themes and techniques. Logical points of departure would be similarly personalistic regimes such as Venezuela (Kestler and Latouche Reference Kestler, Latouche and Oswald2022), India (Chacko Reference Chacko2018), Hungary (Csehi Reference Csehi2021), and the Philippines (Buckley et al. Reference Buckley, Brooke and Kleinsteuber2022). Engaging with media elements in their analyses of political strategy, Sagarzazu and Thies (Reference Sagarzazu and Thies2019) and Selçuk (Reference Selçuk2024) draw on the rhetorical corpus of Hugo Chávez’s weekly television series Aló Presidente to demonstrate his strategic deployment of populist messaging. Chakravartty and Roy (Reference Chakravartty and Roy2015) study the mediation of populism in news coverage of Narendra Modi’s 2014 election campaign. Scholars connecting populism to music point to the commissioning by Viktor Orbán’s government of songs that use “the mother tongue” as a tool for constructing “the people” (Barna and Patakfalvi-Czirják Reference Barna and Patakfalvi-Czirják2022), and to Rodrigo Duterte’s vocal “performance” of his “proximity to ‘the people’” through a popular Filipino love song (Dunkel and Schiller Reference Dunkel and Schiller2022).
Cases that scholars classify as populist authoritarian regimes but that vary in terms of levels of personalism, as well as in factors like economic capacity and global status, could generate useful contrasts. China, debated as a case of populist authoritarianism similarly to Russia (Dickson Reference Dickson2005; Tang Reference Tang2016), is well positioned for comparative inquiry. Even though single-party regimes typically promote consensus and emphasize technocratic governance, the Chinese Communist Party deploys populist anti-Western messaging for both domestic and international audiences (Zhang Reference Zhang2020)—a strategy similar to the AKP’s “counter-hegemonic” discourse in “talking back to the West” (Yeşil 2024), Modi’s rhetorical engagement with the Indian diaspora (Plagemann and Destradi Reference Plagemann and Destradi2019), and Venezuela’s anti-imperialist rhetoric under Chávez (Sagarzazu and Thies Reference Sagarzazu and Thies2019) and Nicolas Maduro. Audiovisual analysis could usefully identify which if any historical themes of greatness, sacrifice, or both are deployed by these regimes in claiming legitimacy at home and abroad.
Another potentially fruitful avenue for future research could be testing how contextual or individual-level factors shape variance in audience receptivity to such history-themed legitimation strategies. Audience-based studies generally find conditional effects: citizens are significantly emotionally affected when exposed to this imagery or videos (Elçi Reference Elçi2022; Lutscher, Draege, and Knutsen Reference Lutscher, Draege and Knutsen2023). These effects sometimes translate to changes in political behavior, but this impact differs based on the video, across groups of citizens, and across different points in time of the electoral cycle. These findings point to a need for better understanding how such imagery may evoke diverse effects in citizens and whether certain types of historical narratives are more resonant than others. Future work merging insights on “frame resonance” from the contentious politics literature with audience reception studies can provide useful analytical leverage on these questions (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000; Ketelaars Reference Ketelaars2016); experiment-based research on framing “fluency” would also be instructive here (Bullock et al. Reference Bullock, Shulman and Huskey2021; Shulman and Sweitzer Reference Shulman and Sweitzer2018). Other paths for further inquiry include studying whether leadership changes affect regimes’ instrumentalizations of the past; that is, how and why various leaders choose to spotlight specific historical events and figures. China is also well suited for this type of inquiry. The intersection of Chinese media scholarship (Cai Reference Cai2016; Chin Reference Chin2016; Guo Reference Guo2012) and political scientists’ forays into China’s audiovisual landscape is a fruitful place to start (King et al. Reference King, Pan and Roberts2017; Mattingly and Yao Reference Mattingly and Yao2022).
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Didem Seyis and Ezgi Şiir Kıbrıs for outstanding research assistance. For useful comments on drafts and conference presentations, we extend deep thanks to Henry Allen, Ateş Altınordu, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, Alexandra Black, Senem Çevik, Evgeny Finkel, Aslı Iğsız, Fuat Keyman, Tarek Masoud, Sibel Oktay, Sylvia Önder, Bahar Rumelili, Kjersti Skarstad, and Jenny White. For the opportunity to present this project and have research space for completing it, we are grateful to Senem Aydın-Düzgit and Sabancı University’s Istanbul Policy Center. Lisel Hintz thanks all the members of the post-earthquake Zoom Writing Solidarity Group she runs. Finally, we thank the journal editors and anonymous reviewers for their very valuable feedback.
Data Replication
Data replication (Hintz and Draege Reference Hintz and Draege2025) sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NFJ5KC
Open access
