ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes a fair quantity of articles published in Turkish metal fanzines in reaction to the invention of Satanism in the mass media. It begins with the inside perspectives from newspaper journalists Engin Baş and Taylan Bilgiç. From a political perspective, the discourse over Satanism represents a means of redefining boundaries between secular and religious concepts of state and society. The public discourse over metal and Satanism was not solely limited to the mass media. The chapter focuses on several articles published in Sebek and Non Serviam, the two most popular metal magazines at the time in order to outline the different reactions to the satanic panic of 1999. Turkish metalheads repeatedly blamed the mass media of being manipulative. Erhan, the former drummer of Istanbul black metal band Omen, even claimed that newspaper journalists had offered him money in order to present himself as a Satanist. Besides ignorance, some metalheads also identified political motives behind the invention of Satanism.
