Project leader : Åsa Elden

Email: asae@sri.org.tr

The overall aim of this project is to study the understanding of gendered violence in the Turkish media. This context will be related to national and international discourses of efforts to combat violence against women, and the role media is given in these. A crucial entrance is the Turkish women’s movement response to the image of gendered violence (re)produced through the media. The project’s theoretical ambition is to develop a cultural understanding of the relation between gender, power and the media in a Turkish context, with a specific focus on how violence against women is connected to a creation of contrasts, in a process of “otherisation”. With the overall aim follows concrete research questions: Is it possible to identify different understandings of violence, and if so do they follow e. g. political and/or religious positions? How are different understandings valued in media? Do media representations of violence against women connect this phenomenon to other forms of violence and oppression? Are there connections between official national and international initiatives regarding women’s rights to live a life free from violence, and media representations?