The panel discussion titled “A Comparative Perspective: Hate Speech and Discriminatory Discourse in Europe and Turkey”, which was organized by Hrant Dink Foundation as part of the Media Watch on Hate Speech Project, was held on September 6, 2016. 

Jonathon Lee, Communication Coordinator of European Roma Rights Center, participated as a speaker and faculty member of Anadolu University Department of Communication Sciences and Turkey Coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project Prof. Dr. Nezih Orhon moderated the panel discussion and gave a speech. 

Jonathon Lee talked about the fields of study of European Roma Rights Center, its services and also the works that they carry out in collaboration with Open Society Foundation on hate speech and hate crimes in Italy and France. Furthermore, he mentioned the methods they used in their comparative study based on Italy and France, the challenges they experienced during the project and the solutions to such challenges.

Stating that racism and xenophobia has risen in the last decade in France and Italy like in many European countries, Lee pointed out that the atmosphere facilitating the increase in hate crimes and hate speech is mainly caused by state policies. Mentioning some state policies that have been implemented in France and Italy in recent years, Lee referred to the population policies and socioeconomic inequalities that Roma people were subjected and the “voluntary” migration that they were forced to due to the destruction of their living spaces.

Furthermore, he pointed out the key role of media in parallel with the state policies and stated that hate speech against Roma people in media is closely related to the rise in populist xenophobia. Speaking about the methods used in the project, Lee stated that they used methods such as observation of instances of violence and hate speech, collecting data, evaluation of the efficiency of public officials and law enforcement concerning such incidents and determining the scope of systematic failures in protecting Roma people from crime.

Speaking after Jonathan Lee, Prof. Dr. Nezih Orhon talked about the aim of ‘Global Media and Monitoring Project’ (GMMP), in which he actively engaged, researches conducted as part of this project and their results.

Emphasizing that GMMP is a research and advocacy initiative aiming to achieve gender equality in media, Orhon stated that the project, which might be summarized as mapping the representation and portrayal of women in news media (newspaper, radio, internet, social media, etc.), provides useful data for education, political advocacy, public awareness, gender equality, women’s rights activism, media and communication policy development. 

Referring to the data concerning Turkey obtained in researches that have been conducted since 1995, he pointed that the findings about Turkey and other countries had been somewhat similar until 2015, but a substantial regression concerning the representation and portrayal of women in media started by 2015. He also noted that women are “visual” subjects in news media and the news covering economy, politics, law, crime and violence are majorly androcentric.

Orhon also stated that mostly quantitative methods (such as coding) are used in the research, which consists of ratio-analysis of media, and focusing only on such methods causes problems. Pointing out that researches should be deepened by including qualitative methods in media monitoring projects, Orhon concluded his speech saying that a research method that covers all elements having a part in the process of producing news would be more efficient.