Evaluation of public service advertisements for preventing violence against women in the context of mass communication

First of all, violence is a negative and unhealthy behavior that individuals exert against each other. Based on this, the causes of violence should be examined with an interdisciplinary method and perspective. Violence against women is a phenomenon that occurs due to the malfunctions in the formation process of male-female relations, female-male identities and roles, or in other words, masculine and feminine roles, as well as individual and psychological reasons. This phenomenon in the world and in Turkey, has long occupied the agenda in recent years, there has been in daily life. Mass media, on the other hand, developed in the 20th century and with this development, it was seen as the control mechanisms belonging to the political powers that started to fulfill the function of controlling the masses in this century. This series of developments, which started with radio and continued with television, took its current form with the internet technology that developed and spread at the end of the century, and social media networks that developed with the broadcasting of the internet. In this development, change, transformation and shaping processes, the communication environment provided by social media networks has become widespread as the news and communication channels of individuals expand and increase. As this environment becomes widespread, violence against women has started to take place in social media environments as in the third page news of newspapers and become the subject of these. Upon this, the state has tried to do its part on this occasion and started to inform the public about many social problems and issues, as well as violence against women. In this study, 8 samples were selected from public service advertisements covering violence against women prepared by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies (MFSP) (and the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services-MFLSS) and broadcast on television and social media between 2012-2020. analysis and in-depth analysis based on interpretation were made using Barthes's semiotics and Fairclough's critical discourse analysis techniques. According to the analysis; In 5 out of 8 public spots, women were physically abused or killed. 3 of them were shown as happy and self-confident individuals. In 2 of them, it was shown that males were visually angry and one of them used physical violence. No male character was used in 3 of them, and violence against women was only mentioned in the scenario in these spots. In 2 of them men behave well to their wives. In general, life section and dramatization techniques were used in spots. The types of attraction varied according to the nature of the message given in the spots. Music, on the other hand, was used as background music and attraction element in every public spot. As a result; It has been observed that in most of the public advertisements used to create positive behavioral change, violence against women is tried to be reduced by using mostly negative elements.