Hrant Dink Foundation launched “Media Watch on Hate Speech” project in 2009 and an extensive media scanning work has been carried out since then. In this project, which is acknowledged both nationally and internationally, all national newspapers and about 500 local newspapers are scanned based on predetermined keywords (e.g. Armenian, Christian, Muslim, Jew, British, Kurd, Turk; separatist, traitor, giaour, pervert, reactionist, bigot etc.) by the media monitoring center, and news articles and columns containing offensive and hateful discourse against different ethnic, national, religious, sexual and gender identities are determined. These media items are published on nefretsoylemi.org with brief analyses on a daily basis and shared via Facebook and Twitter accounts followed by around 22,000 people. Every four months, a report containing quantitative and qualitative analyses on the hate speech items that are found in the related period is issued.

As part of the Media Watch on Hate Speech project, we have been engaged in collaboration with Istanbul Bilgi University Department of Communication under the consultancy of Assistant Prof. Itır Erhart and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nazan Haydari Pekkan since 2015. As part of this collaboration, university students taking ‘Independent Interdisciplinary Work’ (IIW) course participate in this project and contribute to media monitoring work. These students attend a one-day workshop organized by Hrant Dink Foundation and get training on media monitoring methods and identifying hate speech. Then, they start to work for monitoring newspapers and identifying hate speech during the academic term. 

In 2015 fall semester, 9 students out of 12 who participated in the workshop passed the course successfully. And in 2016 spring semester, 8 students participated in the workshop on February 24, 2016 in Hrant Dink Foundation Anarad Higutyun Building. 5 students out of 8 who participated in the workshop successfully completed the required work. In 2016 fall semester, 12 students participated in the workshop which was held on October 17, 2016. In the workshop, the key findings and methodology of the project that has been continuing since 2009 and the rudiments of hate speech and discriminatory discourse were told to the students. Then, group studies were held to discuss selected news articles and columns. Students will continue to monitor media and analyze press with a critical perspective in collaboration with Hrant Dink Foundation until December 2016.