The Visual Representation of the Female in Turkish Newspapers
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Visualization of Gender in the Turkish Press A Comparative Analysis of Six Turkish Newspapers by Ayşe Esra Özcan A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Science Approved, Thesis Committee Prof. Dr. Marion G. Müller (Chair) Professor of Mass Communication Jacobs University Bremen Prof. Dr. Margrit Schreier Professor of Empirical Methods Jacobs University Bremen Prof. Dr. Nilüfer Göle Professor of Sociology EHESS, Paris PD Dr. Sabine Berghahn Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science Frei Universität, Berlin Date of Defense: June 18, 2009 School of Humanities and Social Sciences Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university or other tertiary institution of education. Information derived from published or unpublished sources has been cited in the text and listed in the bibliography. Ayşe Esra Özcan Bremen, June 18, 2009 CONTENTS 1. Introduction 1 1.1The Political and Cultural Background 2 1.2 The Focus of the Study 11 1.2.1 Print Press 12 1.2.2 Visualizing Gender: Research Questions 14 1.2.3 Research Design and Organization of Chapters 15 2. Theoretical Approaches to Studying Gender Representation in Mass Media 17 2.1 Introduction 17 2.2 Modernity and the Media 20 2.2.1 Modernity and the Turkish Media 24 2.2.2 Modernity, Visibility and Gender 31 2.3 Images of Gender in the Media 42 2.3.1 The Media Representations of Gender: Early decades 46 2.3.2 Approaches to Gender Representation in the Media Today: Post-structuralism and its aftermath 53 2.3.3 Gender Representations in the Turkish Media 57 2.4 Sociological and Semiological Approaches to Visual Research 65 2.5 Iconology and Iconography: Clarifying the terms 69 2.6 Reviewing the Research Questions 75 3. Visual Content Analysis of Gender Representation in Six Turkish Newspapers 76 3.1 Introduction: Research Design 76 3.2 Introducing the Sample of Newspapers and Comparative Newspaper Analysis 3.2.1 Sampling 77 3.2.2 Cumhuriyet and Radikal: Secular Serious Newspapers 88 3.2.3 Sabah and Posta: Secular Tabloid Newspapers 90 3.2.4 Zaman and Vakit: Islamic Newspapers 92 3.3 Visual Content Analysis 96 3.3.1 Coding Categories and Exclusion Rules 98 3.3.1.a Domain 1 99 3.3.1.b Domain 2 102 3.3.1.c Domain 3 104 3.3.2 Pilot Coding and Interrater Reliability Tests 113 4. Results from the Visual Content Analysis 118 4.1 Basic Visual Characteristics of the Newspapers 119 4.1.1 Visual Density: Average Number of Visuals in Newspapers 119 4.1.2 Distribution of Different Types of Visuals in Newspapers 122 4.1.3 Summary 132 i 4.2 Visual Depiction of Gender in Newspapers 134 4.2.1 Females and Males in Numbers: Representation/Underrepresentation ……………………………………………………………………… 134 4.2.2 Gender Homogenous and Gender Heterogeneous Depictions 139 4.2.3 Summary 147 4.3 Covering of Females and Males 150 4.3.1 Nudity 150 4.3.2 Female Headscarf 153 4.3.3 Male Facial Hair 160 4.3.4 Summary 161 4.4 Summary of Results and the Evaluation of the Visual Content Analysis 164 5. Uncovering the Deeper Meanings of Visuals: Qualitative Analysis of Selected Images 167 5.1 Combining Iconology and Semiotics: Why and How 168 5.2 Analyzing the Selected Images 174 5.3 Male and Female Depictions in Comparison 175 5.3.1 Images of Male Professionals 175 5.3.2 Images of Female Professionals 179 5.3.3 Images of Female Nudity 183 5.3.4 Couples 187 5.4 Images of the Family 189 5.4.1 Wedding Photographs 192 5.4.2 Photographs of Father and Child / Mother and Child 195 5.5 The Contexts of Male Facial Hair 198 5.6 Images of Female Headscarf 201 5.6.1 Depiction of Headscarf in Radical Islamic Newspaper Vakit 201 5.6.2 Demonstration and Protest: Images of Headscarf in Vakit and Zaman …………………………………………………………………… 205 5.6.3 Creating Muslim Elites: Females with Headscarf as Role Models 207 5.6.4 Contexts of Headscarf in the Secular Tabloid Posta 213 5.6.5 Headscarf as a symbol of Muslims in Europe 217 5.6.6 Headscarf in Entertainment 223 5.6.7 Islamic Swimming Suit: Testing the limits of tolerance in pools and beaches 227 5.6.8 Headscarf in Funerals: Gendering Grieving and Pain 233 5.7 Images of Atatürk: The Omnipresence of Official Ideology 237 5.8 Summarizing the Results of the Qualitative Visual Analysis 240 6. Conclusion 245 Bibliography 257 A. References and sources in English and in German 257 B. References and sources in Turkish 287 C. Selected Titles from Unpublished M.A and PhD Theses on Women and Turkish Press 292 D. Electronic sources, news articles and commentaries 293 1. Authored commentaries 293 2. Web sources and news articles 296 ii Contents of the CD-Rom of Illustrations 1. Illustrations to Chapters 1, 2 and 3 Pages 1 – 20 2. Illustrations to Chapter 5 Pages 1 – 67 Important note: Due to copyright reasons visual illustrations are not included in this digital dissertation. To see the illustrations mentioned in the text, please refer to the hard copy and the CD by contacting the library at Jacobs University Bremen. If you are interested in the coding sheets used in the study for content analysis, please contact the author: [email protected] iii Tables, Figures and Illustrations Tables Table 2.1: News Subjects in Newspapers, Television and Radio (GMMP Report) Table 2.2: News Subjects in Major Topic Areas (GMMP Report) Table 2.3: Presenters and Reporters in Television and Newspapers (GMMP Report) Table 2.4: News Subjects Appearing in Newspaper Photographs (GMMP Report) Table 3.1: Average Weekly Circulation figures of newspapers Table 3.2: Religious orientation of the newspapers in the sample Table 3.3: Layout style of the newspapers in the sample Table 3.4: Glossary for Visual Analysis of Newspapers Table 3.5: Kappa scale for interrater agreement Table 3.6: Interrater reliability scores for Cohen’s and Erik’s kappa Table 3.7: Interrater reliability scores obtained from Pearson correlation coefficient Table 4.1: Average Number of Visuals in Newspapers Table 4.2: Average number of visuals per coded page by newspaper Table 4.3: Total number of visuals in Secular/Islamic and Tabloid/Serious Newspapers Table 4.4: Distribution of the types of images in 42 newspapers Table 4.5: Frequencies for different types of images in secular and Islamic newspapers Table 4.6: Frequencies for different types of images in tabloid and serious newspapers Table 4.7: Distribution of photographs across newspapers Table 4.8: Distribution of cutouts across newspapers Table 4.9: Distribution of cartoons across newspapers Table 4.10: Distribution of graphics across newspapers Table 4.11: Distribution of montage images across newspapers Table 4.12: Gender representation on different types of images in 42 newspapers Table 4.12a: Distribution of female and male images across different categories in Percentages Table 4.12b: Percentages of females and males in different types of images across Newspapers Table 4.13: Female and male depiction in descriptive numbers in newspapers Table 4.14: Distribution of female and male cutouts across newspapers Table 4.15: Descriptive figures showing total numbers for images coded in Domain 2 in 42 newspapers Table 4.16: Gender depiction in crowd photos in 42 newspapers Table 4.17: Gender Homogenous and Heterogeneous Depictions in Secular and Islamic Newspapers Table 4.18: Gender Homogenous and Heterogeneous Depictions in Tabloid and Serious Newspapers Table 4.19: Gender Homogenous and Heterogeneous Depictions in Individual Newspapers Table 4.20: Sums of female and male nudes in all newspapers Table 4.21: Female and male nudity across newspapers Table 4.22: Presence of headscarf in 42 newspapers Table 4.23: Females with headscarf across different newspapers Table 4.24: Types of female head covering as found in 42 newspapers Table 4.25: Islamic and traditional headscarf in all newspapers Table 4.26: Appearance of Islamic and traditional headscarf in different newspapers Table 4.27: Distribution of the types of male facial hair in 42 newspapers Table 4.28: Average number of bearded males in different newspapers Table 5.1: Checklist for Visual Analysis Table 5.2: Images of male and female professionals in comparison Table 5.3: The content of couple and group photographs in professional and private settings iv Table 5.4: The male beard in newspapers Table 5.6: Depictions of the female headscarf in different contexts Figures Figure 4.1 Average Number of visuals in newspapers Figure 4.2 Average Number of visuals per coded page Figure 4.3 Types of images in 42 newspapers Figure 4.4 Types of images in secular newspapers Figure 4.5 Types of images in Islamic newspapers Figure 4.6 Types of images in tabloid newspapers Figure 4.7 Types of images in serious newspapers Figure 4.8 Female and male representation in newspapers Figure 4.9 Gender homogenous and heterogeneous depictions Figure 4.10 Gender homogenous depictions Figure 4.11 Gender heterogeneous depictions Figure 4.12 Gender depiction in crowd photos Figure 4.13 Females and males in gender homogenous depictions Figure 4.14 Gender homogenous and heterogeneous depictions in newspapers Figure 4.15 Gender homogenous depictions by newspaper Figure 4.16 Gender heterogeneous depictions by newspaper Figure 4.17 Fe/Males nude and dressed in 42 newspapers Figure 4.18 Female and male nudity across newspapers Figure 4.19 Headscarf in 42 newspapers Figure 4.20 Females with headscarf in newspapers Figure 4.21 Islamic and traditional headscarf in newspapers Figure 4.22 Male beard in newspapers Figure 4.23 Headscarf in comparison to total number of females in newspapers Figure 4.24 Distribution of female headcovering Illustrations Important note: Due to copyright reasons visual illustrations are not included in this digital dissertation.