During the electoral process, political actors should be able to persuade the electorate to vote for them

and give their consent by making considerable effort on the political public relations domain. In that sense,

the discourse of the political actors and their pre-election pledges in Turkey or from around the world are

no exception to be detached from the economic or social phenomenon. The aim of this study is to examine

the election campaigns and the changes in the campaigns in the context of political public relations and

to draw a panorama, in the light of the economic and social transformations since the transition to the

multi-party system in the Republic of Turkey. Within the scope of this research, the electoral campaigns

(for the general elections) between 1946-2002 were examined. Although there are some sporadic studies

on electoral campaigns in the academic literature that focuses on particular periods, there are few, if any,

examples of thorough and detailed analysis of political public relations, especially given the default time

period.

This research is a qualitative descriptive historical analysis. It examines the discourse of the parties during

their electoral campaigns through newspapers, radio and television broadcasts of the period (research

units). The importance of research is establishing the ties of the campaign processes with the economic

and social structure and presenting the spirit of the time in a holistic way by drawing from the primary

data. The study makes an original contribution to media research by revealing the transformation political

public relations go through from a historical perspective.

Keywords: Economic and social transformations, election campaign, political public relation, political

parties and discourse.