"Domestic Violence is Presented in the Language of the Aggressor"

Assoc. Prof. Mine Gencel Bek from Ankara University spoke about how creating news items was not only a question of intention, but also an issue. She spoke about the text analysis she had carried out on articles on news about domestic violence:

Language of the attacker

"Domestic violence usually becomes newsworthy when the woman dies. This news is created by police /court reporters, and only if it has been heard on the police radio. It is thus news that uses the police as a source and uses police language. In addition, the statements the attackers make to the police are used, and their discourses are used even for the headlines. As a result, we have news items in the language of the police and the attacker."

Domestic violence is often reported on a sensationalist "third page" in Turkey, which the academic says is problematic:

"Many news items that are reporting a social problem pretend as if the events are only individual. That is why even a little change, such as showing the logo of the anti-domestic violence campaign next to such an article, makes a difference, because it shows that there is a wider social problem."

Subjectivity of photographs

Photographer Yücel Tuna then discussed the use of press photography with the participants.

"There are many different realities: that of the event, that of the photographyer, that of the editor, that of the reader...This is not the fragmentation of reality in postmodernism, but the differentiation of reality. We should not talk about optical reality, but about the reality that is created by the photographer's feelings. We must talk about the reality of the photographer in order to grasp the subjectivity of photographers."

Importance of trade unions

Prof. Özden Cankaya finally reiterated the importance of trade union activity:

"The tendency for trade union membership after the 1980s also affected journalism as a profession. We have discussed the pointlessness of fearing dismissal because of trade union membership, and we have heard examples of people leaving trade unions and then being dismissed. The function of journalism has changed; in order to return to its real role, journalists need trade unions, not bosses." (CB/EÜ/AG)