How turkish new media frame femicides?

Absztrakt (kivonat)

The term femicide (female homicide) refers to the intentional murder of women because of their sexual identity (WHO, 2012). In a broad and simplified sense, women are killed because they are women. Femicide has been a global issue as various countries suffer from this problem at different levels and Turkey is also part of the problem (World Bank, 2018). According to We Will Stop Femicide Platform (2021), 290 people lost their lives in the hands of their husbands, sons, lovers, and other family members so far in November 2021. While the effectiveness of the domestic and international laws is a controversial issue (Moroglu, 2012), the media appearance of femicides has been one of the indispensable parts of this discussion when we evaluate the context by using framing and agenda-setting theories. When the monolithic environment of the traditional media is no longer unrivaled (Araguete, 2017), new media platforms such as Twitter can become the primary news source for many people. Discussing this issue from an academic perspective is essential if we ask questions such as: How do media frame these femicides? Is there a common pattern regarding femicide news? Do new media platforms differentiate their attitude toward femicide? Does news coverage of new media play a role in defining the political agenda? As the problem is wider in global, the opportunity for making it comparative research is inconvenient. I specifically selected Twitter as it is a highly used platform in Turkey especially regarding call-to-action for policy makers and governmental institutions. Therefore, this issue will constitute the limitation in this research. I aim to answer questions of what kind/kinds of framing Turkish new media platforms use? Do they play a role in agenda-setting in policymaking? How do new media approach femicides? Another point to think about would be how the researchers viewed the concept of femicide. Even though there is various valuable research on this issue (e.g., Araguete, 2017; Taylor and Jasinski, 2011; Richards et al. 2011) the literature review of this thesis shown that there is a gap in the literature about comparing the approach of traditional and new media platforms regarding femicide cases. Therefore, identifying the role of new media by implementing a content analysis of a selected new media platform such as Twitter will be helpful to understand the role of new media.