Armenian identity in the Turkish and American documentaries through images

Abstract

While cinema carrying the social values of past to present, it is also leading up the embodiment of the dominant perception shapes the present. In this regard, the representation of reality has much importance in the documentaries which particularly have culture, identity and belonging bonding. Documentary, as a part of its difference from fiction in line with reconstruction of reality, is a cultural product. While this product emerges, the reality is often interpreted with stereotypes, prejudices, negative political, cultural and social images. The identity representation about „we? or „other? is reflected with various events, connections and the past. On the other hand, the using of past of social groups, for supporting the ideas they believe in and achieving their goals, has a great role in terms of expressing their opinions in public. At this point documentaries are the areas where the producer-director reveals his/her opinions and emotions. Those personal feellings and opinions are often reflection of collective memory shaped by data of social past. The aim of this study is to analyze on which images the Armenian identity is constructed in the American and Turkish documentaries and the shaping of the representation of Armenian identity on what kind of rhetorics and visuals. Armenian identity will be examined from the perspective of imagology by the method of discourse analysis. Any intangible and tangible image that is used to represent the Armenian identity will be solved with the help of the discourse analysis. In this study, where the image, which contains a fictional structure is used to represent the Armenian identity, the references made by the director while using images to the past, history and values of the community he/she is in, are accepted as the main source of the analysis. It has showed that the perception, brought with historical events contains tension and conflict between Turks and Armenians from 18th to present, is reflected in the cultural products.