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Transforming Our Language: Rights Based Journalism About Sexual Violence
Project Period: March 2017 – January 2018
The language used by the media has been one of the most discussed topics at the workshop projects we have been conducting since our establishment by which we aim to transform the perception through terms/myths about sexual violence. Especially through our experience on the field, we see that creating an empowering language for the survivors of sexual violence is one of the preconditions of decreasing the damage caused by sexual violence. We witnessed that the media mostly assists the language which we are trying to overcome and transform and also that the survivor is defined as “victim”, “helpless”, “vulnerable”.
One of the first steps in the struggle against sexual violence is to transform the perception and initiate discussion in the society about the inaccurate beliefs and myths about sexual violence. The main purpose of “Transforming Our Language” project is to raise awareness and to render a change in the language used by the media. CSMD aims for a transformation through the power of media about sexual violence by “using the right words” in the whole society. With that, aims for popularizing an approach that is more equal, that underlines the rule of law and anticipates respect for each individual in society.
The transformative effect of communication and solidarity for a social transformation underlies “Transforming Our Language: Rights Based Journalism About Sexual Violence” project. To that end, we plan to conduct workshops to raise awareness on written and visual news language about sexual violence for the students in the faculties of communication, and media workers. During the project CSMD will publish 2 issues of a journal which will start a periodical publication on sexual violence that aims to fulfil a need on this area. Especially the experts’ work on basic sciences such as law, psychology and sociology on sexual violence and the translations of international academic work on the subject will be given place in order to contribute to building up literature on sexual violence.
Aims of the project:
- Raise awareness and provide transformation in the language of the media;
- Encourage the use of accurate sources in the struggle against sexual violence thus creating a transformation in the media about this;
- Sexual violence to be put on agenda thus the silence around it would get broken;
- Developing collaboration with media members and NGOs against the interventions on the freedom of press and building bridges between civil society journalism and mainstream journalism.
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PROJECT TEAM
Project Coordinator: Pınar Büyüktaş
Trainer: Şehlem Kaçar
Content Development: CSMD Team
Journal Editor: Merve Karabulut
Video Editor: Özge Özgüner
This project is supported by Open Society Foundation (Turkey), the United States Department of State, and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung with the funds of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany.
* The content of this page does not reflect the official opinion of Open Society Foundation, the United States Government and of Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence.
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