Questioning the Compass of the Western Media: Early Perceptions of the July 15 Coup Attempt in Turkey

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Summer 2021) ◽  
pp. 157-180
Author(s):  
Murat Önder ◽  
Hazan Güler Sarı ◽  
Emrah Ayhan

This study investigates how the Western media reacted immediately after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, in which a group of armed forces loyal to FETÖ aimed to overthrow Turkey’s democratically elected government. To this end, 91 news reports and articles in ten newspapers from the U.S., the UK, Germany, and France, dating from July 15 to July 18, 2016, were analyzed. Based on content analysis, the early perceptions of the Western media were categorized by sentiment as positive, neutral, or negative in terms of their tone, feeling, and emotion regarding the coup attempt. The findings show that only 42 publications were neutral only reporting the news, while 44 publications were positive about the coup attempt favoring the junta and failing to support the democratically elected government. On the other hand, only five publications expressed negative opinions about the coup attempt by showing strong support for democracy and expressing anti-coup views. Frequency analysis also shows that the most commonly used keywords and phrases in the news and articles were Erdoğan’s authoritarianism (58 times), the polarization of society (32 times), Erdoğan’s oppression (28 times), Erdoğan dividing the country (16 times), and the instability of Erdoğan’s regime/dictatorship (15 times). Overall, the analysis shows that journalists are not free of bias; most of them missed or neglected the damaging consequences of the coup attempt on Turkish democracy and society due to their negative perceptions about the incumbent government.

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-144
Author(s):  
Niu Mengdi ◽  

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of publications by Western media and Chinese media during the period of the unrest and protests caused by an amendment to the “Fugitive Offenders Ordinance” in Hong Kong in the summer of 2019. The relevance is explained by the fact that in the summer of 2019, Hong Kong immediately became the center of attention of the world community and the press. The innovation lies in comparative analysis of Chinese and Western media texts in the aspect of tolerance. The purpose of the study is to identify the reporting frames on Hong Kong protests in different countries (China, the USA, the UK) and analyze their characteristics. The author’s attention is focused on the problem of tolerance / intolerance in the discussing of events in Hong Kong by Western and Chinese media. Content analysis, frame analysis and the method of comparative studies are used in this article. Content analysis of the news reports from The Washington Post, People’s Daily and the BBC website from July to August 2019 was conducted to clarify their tones and directions, as well as the meaning of the metaphors used by journalists. The frame analysis is to identify differences in event assessments, information sources, theme settings, report objects, main subjects and event definitions in the analyzed media. The language features in texts were also compared.By results of the study, we see clear ideological bias and tendentiousness in reports from the Western media, and also the inability to have a tolerant vision. The Chinese media also strongly show peculiarities of ideology and obvious propagandistic tendency. The dogmatism of propagandistic thoughts interferes with objective perception of the situation. Conclusions: mass medias holding different positions, “choosing” and “constructing” social realities in their news reports, painting different pictures and choosing their own perspectives to reflect attitude of the authority towards participants in the movements. In this way, they take completely irreconcilable positions. Keywords: Hong Kong, protest, assessment, reportage, tolerance/intolerance


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Angel Alvarez-Mon ◽  
Carolina Donat-Vargas ◽  
Maria Llavero-Valero ◽  
Alfredo Gea ◽  
Melchor Alvarez-Mon ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Media outlets influence social attitudes toward health habits. Analysis of tweets has become a tool for health research. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to investigate the distribution of tweets about women´s health and the interest generated among Twitter users. METHODS We investigated tweets posted by 25 major U.S. media outlets about pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women´s health between January 2009 and December 2019 as well as the retweets generated. In addition, we measured the sentiment analysis of these tweets as well as their potential dissemination. RESULTS A total of 376 tweets were analyzed. Pre-menopausal women´s health accounted for most of the tweets (75.3%). Contraception was the main focus of the tweets, while a very limited number were related to infertility (1.4%). With regards to medical content, the effectiveness of contraceptive methods was the most frequent topic (46.2%). However, tweets related to side effects achieved the highest retweet-to-tweet ratio (70.3). The analysis of sentiments showed negative perceptions on tubal ligation. CONCLUSIONS The U.S. media outlets analyzed focused their content on contraception, while Twitter users showed great interest in side effects.


2020 ◽  
pp. bmjmilitary-2020-001455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Blair Thomas Herron ◽  
K M Heil ◽  
D Reid

In 2015, the UK government published the National Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 2015, which laid out their vision for the future roles and structure of the UK Armed Forces. SDSR 2015 envisaged making broader use of the Armed Forces to support missions other than warfighting. One element of this would be to increase the scale and scope of defence engagement (DE) activities that the UK conducts overseas. DE activities traditionally involve the use of personnel and assets to help prevent conflict, build stability and gain influence with partner nations as part of a short-term training teams. This paper aimed to give an overview of the Specialist Infantry Group and its role in UK DE. It will explore the reasons why the SDSR 2015 recommended their formation as well as an insight into future tasks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Lisa Scullion ◽  
Katy Jones ◽  
Peter Dwyer ◽  
Celia Hynes ◽  
Philip Martin

There has been an increasing focus in the UK on the support provided to the Armed Forces community, with the publication of the Armed Forces Covenant (2011), the Strategy for our Veterans (2018) and the first ever Office for Veterans’ Affairs (2019). There is also an important body of research – including longitudinal research – focusing on transitions from military to civilian life, much of which is quantitative. At the same time, the UK has witnessed a period of unprecedented welfare reform. However, research focused on veterans’ interactions with the social security system has been largely absent. This article draws on the authors’ experiences of undertaking qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) to address this knowledge gap. We reflect on how QLR was essential in engaging policy makers enabling the research to bridge the two parallel policy worlds of veterans’ support and welfare reform, leading to significant policy and practice impact.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Burdett ◽  
N. T. Fear ◽  
S. Wessely ◽  
R. J. Rona

Abstract Background Around 8% of the UK Armed Forces leave in any given year, and must navigate unfamiliar civilian systems to acquire employment, healthcare, and other necessities. This paper determines longer-term prevalences of mental ill health and socioeconomic outcomes in UK Service leavers, and how they are related to demographic factors, military history, and pre-enlistment adversity. Methods This study utilised data from a longitudinal sample of a cohort study UK Armed Forces personnel since 2003. A range of self-reported military and sociodemographic factors were analysed as predictors of probable Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, common mental disorders, alcohol misuse, unemployment and financial hardship. Prevalences and odds ratios of associations between predictors and outcomes were estimated for regular veterans in this cohort. Results Veteran hardship was mostly associated with factors linked to socio-economic status: age, education, and childhood adversity. Few military-specific factors predicted mental health or socio-economic hardship, except method of leaving (where those leaving due to medical or unplanned discharge were more likely to encounter most forms of hardship as veterans), and rank which is itself related to socioeconomic status. Conclusion Transition and resettlement provisions become increasingly generous with longer service, yet this paper shows the need for those services becomes progressively less necessary as personnel acquire seniority and skills, and instead could be best targeted at unplanned leavers, taking socioeconomic status into consideration. Many will agree that longer service should be more rewarded, but the opposite is true if provision instead reflects need rather than length of service. This is a social, political and ethical dilemma.


Author(s):  
Ryan Shandler ◽  
Michael L. Gross ◽  
Sophia Backhaus ◽  
Daphna Canetti

Abstract Does exposure to cyber terrorism prompt calls for retaliatory military strikes? By what psychological mechanism does it do so? Through a series of controlled, randomized experiments, this study exposed respondents (n = 2,028) to television news reports depicting cyber and conventional terror attacks against critical infrastructures in the United States, United Kingdom and Israel. The findings indicate that only lethal cyber terrorism triggers strong support for retaliation. Findings also confirm that anger bridges exposure to cyber terrorism and retaliation, rather than psychological mechanisms such as threat perception or anxiety as other studies propose. These findings extend to the cyber realm a recent trend that views anger as a primary mechanism linking exposure to terrorism with militant preferences. With cyber terrorism a mounting international concern, this study demonstrates how exposure to this threat can generate strong public support for retaliatory policies, depending on the lethality of the attack.


Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 4-8
Author(s):  
Martha Bennett Stiles

Seventy-three years ago the U.S. connived in the secession of the Republic of Panama from Colombia in return for the privilege of building a canal across the Panamanian Isthmus "on a strip of land leased in perpetuity." Within this 533-square-mile zone the U.S. was to exercise, forever, all those rights that it "would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory..." Today the significance of that "if" is much debated.Although Ronald Reagan's campaign position—that the Panama Canal Zone is as much a part of the U.S. as is Alaska—has been deplored by the Ford Administration, it maintains strong support in the Senate.


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