THE MASS DISCOURSE OF FOOTBALL TEAMS’ FANS IN TURKEY

Besides being a form of activity and team sport, football has reached the power to affect almost every aspect of human life in terms of social, cultural and economic activities. Being a fan of a football team also means having a group identity, to act as a group in the stadium during the football matches and to work in harmony with the group. The chants of fans and the banners that the fans open in the stadiums are transformed into a 'discourse' by becoming a form of communication with the outside world. This article focuses on the ‘mass discourse’ of Turkey’s most renowned football teams’ fans, which are Fenerbah？e FC, Galatasaray FC and Be？ikta？ JC. The sources used in the study are chosen mostly from cheering, slogan, banners and newspaper news which are open to access in electronic culture medium and also from the materials obtained during the master thesis study that we have done before. Fan groups create different discourses in their communication, both within themselves and with other team supporters in relation to the corporate identity of their teams. According to these discourses, the fans also interpret current cultural, social, economic and political events around them. Recognizing the mass discourses also provides an insight how people will respond to what events