CTAD-CUMHURIYET TARIHI ARASTIRMALARI DERGISI, cilt.16, sa.31, ss.79-117, 2020 (ESCI)
Ikdam, which started to be published in 1894, succeeded in taking a remarkable place in the history of Turkish media. On the other hand, Sehbal had a rather diverse identity. It was a magazine published every fortnight between the years 1909 and 1914 by the intellectuals supporting the Union and Progress Party. It focused on visual (and popular) broadcasting. Ikdam and Sehbal followed the Turco-Italian War, the significative phenomenon of the time, from the point of view of their editorial policies and published the related news to the society accordingly. Indeed, while Ikdam emphasized the need for armada with headlines such as "We're in Need of Armada" in October 1911, it also published articles estimating the probable route of the Italian armada in November and March 1912. The newspaper reported the attacks of the Italians to the Dardanelles in spring 1912 in addition to their maneuvers in the Aegean Sea. The news included bombardment of some islands by the Italian armada; the situation and occupation of islands of Tilos, Kasos, and Kos; information blocking of some islands like Rhodes; and blockade and occupation of Rhodes. During the period, the newspaper tried to inform the public about the motions of the Italian armada based on the foreign media. In Ikdam, occupation of the islands was reported with regard to European conjuncture and commented that Greeks tried to benefit from the condition, especially from the situation of the Dodecanese Islands. Sehbal reported mostly the phases of war taking place in Tripoli. There was a sufficient number of visual elements in the magazine, including pictures of islands under Italian assault such as Rhodes. This broadcasting policy can be considered as a feature that provided integrality and complementation in terms of broadcasts of newspapers such as Ikdam as well as formation of the feeling of nostalgia for losing the Dodecanese Islands. This study aims at analyzing how the Ottoman media regarded the Italian assault of the Dodecanese Islands and how they published it based on two media organs with different qualities.