In the scope of the “Media Watch on Hate Speech Project”, we publish periodical reports every four months based on the findings of our media monitoring work. Our reports illustrate a general picture of hate speech employed by the Turkish print media, including statistical information on the groups that were targeted, where hate speech was encountered, how hateful discourse was constructed, the events related with the production of such discourse etc. in the period analyzed, together with sample news articles and columns subjected to discourse analysis. We have so far published and disseminated eleven reports to NGOs, universities, newspaper editors and related institutions such as the Press Council and Journalists’ Association of Turkey. The media watch report covering the months of January, February, March and April 2013 is our forth report that we also translated into English.
January – April 2013 Report
The Media Watch on Hate Speech Periodical Report covering the period between January and April 2013 has been published. The report includes three sections; the first section is based on news stories and columns that resort to hate speech against individuals and groups based on their ethnic and religious identities, the second section is based on content targeting LGBT individuals and women. Finally the third section we examined how the Black Sea Tour of People’s Democratic Congress (HDK), which also included members of Peace and Democracy Party’s (BDP), was narrated in national and local media.
In the first 4 months of 2013, the number of news stories and columns identified as containing hate speech showed a slight increase compared with previous periods. But a decrease was observed in the number of targeted groups. Majority of hate speech content took place in the national press and again, similar to the previous periods, columns constituted the genre where hateful discourse was encountered most frequently.
In the period covering the months January - April 2013, Armenians and Jews were the most frequently targeted groups followed by Christians and Turkey Greeks.
News stories and columns containing hate speech did not focus on a specific subject, however certain events in the political agenda constituted a context for the production of such discourse. One of these events was BDP Black Sea Tour which became the most important target of news articles and columns identified as containing hate speech towards Kurds. So although it was relatively less than other groups, hate speech towards Kurds showed a significant increase during the January-April 2013 period.
In the content targeting LGBT individuals, it was observed that the word “transvestite”, it is a misuse of the word in articles. And even lesbian and bisexual individuals are often not directly subjected to hate speech, it would not be incorrect to detect animosity towards both male and female homosexuals where the term “homosexual” is used.
Unlike other periods of the study, in this one, a case study, which investigated discourse constructed in a more sophisticated way and gave more subtle messages of discrimination was included. As mentioned before, BDP’s Black Sea Tour has a specific important for this period. So, this media screening of discriminatory discourse focused on the news articles and opinion columns written on the Black Sea visit of the HDK committee including deputies from the BDP.