Futures Studies, Alternative History and Use of Press Archives

In this article, the concept of "alternative history" will be introduced, which is notisable concept in the fields of history, literature and futures studies. "Alternative history" is also known as "counterfactual history ", "virtual history", "echronia", etc. and is both a literary-media genre and an "alternative" way of thinking and writing. In the alternative history, by posing the questions "What if...?", it is possible to rethink the past developments. In the field of "futures studies", one of the main goals is to identify alternative futures, and practicing alternative pasts is a suitable method for training in alternative thinking. Conventional futures studies scenarios are different alternatives to get from the present to the future, and in "alternative history" different scenarios are drawn from the past to the present. But how is this subject can be related to the history of the press? One of the appropriate sources for operationalizing this method in the fields of history and futures studies is using the press archive. That part of the press archive, especially newspapers, which is available, is a good source for knowing the path of contemporary historical events. The path of events is documented in the press archive and can be extracted. After extracting the path of the event developments from the past until now, it is possible to draw different hypothetical paths and arrive at "alternative history". In order to properly benefit from the press archive, there are considerations that I will address in this article.