Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Communication Dean Prof. Dr. Nazife Güngör was a guest at the symposium titled “Mediatic Consumption of Psycho-Social Exhaustion: Violence,” hosted by Marmara University. Güngör, making evaluations on the topic “The Role of Media in the Spread of Violence,” stated, “A society that enjoys violence, becomes desensitized to it, and sees violence as trivial has emerged.”
“Media aestheticizes violence”
Prof. Dr. Nazife Güngör, pointing out that violence is a societal problem, said: “People enjoy violence. Violence has become the easiest path for the entertainment industry. We can see that individuals are becoming desensitized to violence. There is nothing as easy as showing violence to society. Today, it has become an easily resorted-to building block from a societal perspective. Besides its ease, media is the side that turns violence into art. While seeing and watching violence leads to habituation, violence also becomes a tool of power, an entertainment sector, and a societal problem. Along with being an ideological tool, media aestheticizes and artisticizes violence.”
“A society that has become desensitized to violence has emerged”
Güngör, stating that violence has become an easily resorted-to method and society has become desensitized to it, said: “With social media, users have also started to employ violence. Once it settled into the entertainment sector, it became a fundamental tool. We observe violence becoming aesthetic and ideological. As we see all kinds of weapons and violence, we notice that people are not disturbed. Unhealthy mindsets and individuals are growing up. Seeing a weapon, seeing blood, deaths, wounds – these do not scare society; we have become so accustomed to this situation that it has been etched into our brains and emotions. The greatest danger is the formation of societies that become desensitized to violence.”
“Problems need to be solved from the ground up”
Prof. Dr. Güngör, emphasizing that different methods should be applied to solve problems, stated: “It’s not going to happen with RTÜK’s penalties and prohibitions. If there is a problem, the codes need to be deciphered. The whole world is experiencing these difficulties. Violence is being embedded into society artistically. Watching violence cannot be entertainment. Longer-term methods are essential. Education is needed at the foundation of society. It would be better to have productions that are high-quality and capable of analysis. The media sector should produce more accurate content. The problems experienced need to be solved from the ground up. We can see proper productions and scenarios. I believe we need to compromise on fast production, consumption, and populism, which are the cornerstones of the capitalist system.”
“Psychological violence should not be overlooked”
Üsküdar Üniversitesi Solution-Focused Women's Issues Application and Research Center (ÜSÇÖZÜM) Director and Faculty of Communication lecturer Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aylin Tutgun Ünal, in her speech at the symposium, emphasized that while the symptoms of physical violence are more apparent, psychological violence is neglected. Drawing attention to psychological violence being a serious problem, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aylin Tutgun Ünal said: “In business life, social life, and private life, bullying (mobbing) has become an increasingly widespread problem. Alongside all forms of physical violence, we must also work to understand mobbing perpetrated by women against women. For awareness to be created and for preventive/curative work to be done, the root causes of the problem need to be researched. We have focused our efforts at our ÜSÇÖZÜM center to increase our projects.”
“We must increase our social media literacy skills”
Ünal, stating that the emotions spread by content shared on social media disseminate across online social networks, said: “We must be aware that by sharing content containing emotions such as fear, anger, and panic, we are also instrumental in the spread of violence. We must increase our social media literacy skills.”
“Those who do not tolerate differences are more prone to violence”
Ünal also drew attention to the importance of accepting differences, saying: “In many studies we conducted using the Scale of Acceptance of Differences, it was revealed that women show greater tolerance for differences. Men have lower tolerance for differing opinions and values. Research and solutions aimed at fostering tolerance for differences are important at this point. We can say that individuals who cannot tolerate differences in their environment are more prone to resorting to violence.”