Digitalized media and the new violence area it created: Digital violence

The concept of violence exists in each of all eras of social life as a matter of its nature and has been one of the most important problems of the 21st Century. While violence is spreading its course, media takes part as the most important transmitter. As the violence that the media depicts has altered both conceptually and practically due to the fact of digitalization that outlines the new borders of the concept of media. It should be underlined that violence has got a digitalized face since the digital media had entered our lives upon to the effects of the digitalization on media. Therefore, the prototype violence discourses transmitted via traditional media which can also be defined as pre-digital-media- have become the execution of violence through digital media and as a result, it brings along the risk factors directly threatening the lives of individuals. On the other side, the digital transformation of the media with Web 2.0 has affected the roles of individuals through media. The transitioning of one way communication era -where media messages were sent only by media representatives- to a new era -where each individual with internet access can not only receive media messages but also send theirs- has occured. Therefore, an inevitable interaction has arised upon digital media and this interaction has led to individuals performing violent behavior in digital media and as a result, a new type of violence called digital violence has appeared. In this context, the individuals' encounter rate of digital violence while using internet and mobile phones, the reactions they give to digital violence, the problem of how they handle with digital violence and at this point, to investigate any particular reasons for not asking for help from anyone or anywhere is the main purpose of this research. As one of the quantitative research approaches, survey method has been used with internet users above the age of 13, and "sending annoying / unwanted messages" have been determined as the most common digital violence example in this research. The findings through the survey have been unfolded as follows: The most common reaction when subjected to digital violence was "anger", the most common precaution was "blocking people" and the most common reason for not requesting help was "The individuals can take care of themselves".