International Journal of Public Relations AND Advertising Studies

Abstract

When the historical development of mass media is examined, the processes in the world and in Turkey

are usually examined separately. At the heart of this, we can find the idea that the developed countries

led the way in terms of technological developments and therefore the communication instruments were

spread to other countries with the technologies in question being transferred from these developed

countries. What we observe in case of mass media is also valid for advertising. Indeed, the fact that

mass media that is based on technology has an important role in the announcement of the brand that

is the subject of advertisement is effective in the development of advertising.

Each new communication instrument has been a steering force in enabling advertising to get into the

desired market together with the changing technology and consumer structure. It is striking that the beginnings

of the development of advertising in Turkey exhibit almost the same qualities with the Western

countries even though they differ historically. The term “announcement” was widely used in the Ottoman

Period and it was replaced by the term “advertising” in the Republican Era; however, the transition to

modern advertising did not take place right away. This study aims to look at the very first years of advertising

–while it was still based on the Ottoman Empire- after the proclamation of the Republic and seek

to find answers as to what the content of the advertisements in these first years were, what was the

rationale behind them, and how the system operated. By using the method of literature review, the characteristics

of certain advertisements from the Republican era have been put forward and it has been found that the content of the advertisements were formed in accordance with the social and ideological

structure of the country, that the form and content of the advertisements differed from the Ottoman

Period, and that “advertising” was assigned with certain functions in these foundational years such as

promoting the consumption of domestic products and encouraging the national capital for production.