Different Perspectives of the Dissidents and Supporting of the State on a Tragedy: Ulus and Zafer’s Representations of September 6-7 Incidents

During the London Conference on the 6th of September, upon a news that the Greeks bombed the house where Atatürk was born in Thessaloniki, groups of people gathering for protests in İstanbul, İzmir and Ankara started inflicting violence, terrorize and plunder beyond control towards the houses and workplaces of minorities, especially those of the Greeks and Turks, until the early hours of 7th September. It is of importance that such a terror happened for the first time towards minorities during post-republican era. In this study, it was discussed about how the process of emergence of the 6th – 7th September events, developments after the reality concerning the events on Ulus and Zafer newspapers had been presented. The aim of this study is to examine how Ulus and Zafer newspapers have different relationship with the Turkish government, submitted the violence event. For the purpose, the news and columns related the subject were analyzed by qualitative analysis technique. The view directing the present study was that Zafer newspaper used the style of the government in defining/interpreting/explaining or framing the events and discussed the issue from the perspective of the government or at least tried to keep it within the said limits while Ulus newspaper approached the said events through a totally different definition, questioned the definition and framing of the government and discussed different aspects of the issue.