Gender-based digital violence: A research on Twitter accounts of women journalists

This doctoral thesis, titled "Gender-Based Digital Violence: A Research on Twitter Accounts of Women Journalists", deals with digital violence, which is a new form of violence against women and grows by being fed from online environments, on a gender level. New media, which provides a great deal of convenience in daily life practices, can also become tools of abuse of users, thus mediating the reconstruction of negativities. Therefore, digital violence, which has become a growing risk day by day, emerges as a phenomenon that requires policy development. In this context, this study aims to make digital violence visible, as a form of violence against women that has not yet been discussed and no policy has been developed, and to raise awareness both among those who experience digital violence and among policymakers, non-governmental organizations, media, service providers and application developers. In this study, the victimization of digital violence by women journalists was examined with content analysis along with user comments on the Twitter platform. After the analysis of user comments, it was seen that the most common victimization of digital violence by women journalists are harassment, insults, accusations, discrediting, manipulation of private life information, and hate speech. However, women journalists with a high rate of interaction experienced digital violence more frequently. With this study, it has been concluded that technology has a masculine structure and therefore digital violence is a type of violence that reproduces gender inequality and is likely to turn into offline violence. Considering that digital violence also mediates the patriarchal order, gender roles, and the desire to maintain the dominance of women, it is a fact that women need a safe environment in digital areas as well as offline areas. Keywords: Gender, Violence Against Women, Digital Violence, Women Journalists, New Media