In this report, which was issued with the collaboration of Hrant Dink Foundation and Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation, how the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia that had started towards morning on April 2, 2016 along Karabakh border was covered in the media in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey was examined.
The study aims to examine the media of three countries comparatively and to analyze what is highlighted and what is ignored while producing the news items concerning the issue and how the conflicting parties are named. In sum, the purpose is to analyze how media produces discriminatory discourse in times of conflict and war, and to what extent they contribute to the peace discourse.
For this purpose, media outlets to be examined in the three countries were selected first considering various criteria of representation. While investigating print media in Turkey, considering the specific features of each country and the weight of print and online media, online newspapers were taken into account in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Accordingly; the online newspapers Report.az, azadliq.org, Trend.az and Meydan.tv in Azerbaijan; Armenpress, Razm.info, Hetq and Azatutyun in Armenia; and newspapers Hürriyet, Sabah and Sözcü in Turkey had been examined.
Considering that media may not be covering the events on the same dates in every country, the periods to be examined were determined in accordance with the peculiar situation of each country. Thus, the coverage of the above-mentioned media outlets on April 2-5 in Azerbaijan, April 2-6 in Armenia and April 3-7 in Turkey were included in the analysis. The data obtained from the analysis that was made in accordance with the aforementioned criteria in the media of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey reveal that the way the ‘other’ is defined or the way the discriminatory discourse is generated is similar, even when the contexts are different.
Comparing the country reports, the most notable finding is that the psychological war carried out by the number of casualties (soldier or civilian) is regenerated in the media of all three countries. While the humane aspect of war is ignored, the media becomes an agent in the political conflict that takes place through these quantitative data. Such discourses support the militarist language and reinforce the war discourse. Finally, it was seen that Azerbaijani, Armenian or Turkish identities were directly targeted and some statements that clearly portrays other parties as enemies amounting to hate speech were found in the newspapers of all three countries within the related period.
