“Violence inflicted to media employees” has been discussed in the “2nd International Congress on Different Violence and Social Perception” organized in Istanbul. Michael Kuyucu – General Manager GBTIMES Turkey, academician- radio and TV program producer- delivered a speech in the congress and said that his study “Mobbing in the Media: A Study on Mobbing Perception of Media Industry Employees” revealed that employees in Turkish media are subject to all forms of violence in their workplaces which in turn effects the operations of media enterprises in an negative way.
Assistant Prof. Dr. Michael Kuyucu who also serves as a faculty member in Istanbul Aydin University conducted a study on media employees and found that mobbing in Turkish media reached to serious levels. He pointed out that media workers employed by media enterprises in various positions said “there is mobbing in the media”.
Women and men perceive the violence encountered in the media in different ways. Male employees say that they are usually subject to psychological violence, on the other hand, majority of female media employees suffer from sexual abuse. Here are the types of violence most frequently encountered by male and female media workers:
Types of Violence Encountered by Male Media Workers:
- Economic Violence
- Psychological Violence
- Egocentric behaviours of executives and bosses
- Restrictions (limitation of the performance- pacifying)
- Breach of Social Security Rights
Types of Violence Encountered by Female Media Workers:
- Sexual Abuse
- Slandering
- Gender Apartheid
- Breach of Social Security Rights
- Being Forced to Resign
Ideological Differences Cause Mobbing!
In the study, he complained about the fact that media enterprises apply mobbing on media workers due to their political views particularly in the recent years. Female media workers stated that they are subject to higher ideological pressure compared to the male workers.
What do Media Workers do Against Mobbing?
In the survey, media employees stated that they do not really show any reactions against violence and mobbing they encountered. Men prefer to share the problem with their friends while women media workers choose to remain silent. 27.34 percent of the male media workers “prefer to share the problem with their friends” and 23.86 percent of female media workers choose to remain silent.
| FEMALE | ||||
| What do you do against mobbing? | Male (n) | (%) | Female (n) | (%) |
| I prefer to remain silent | 40 | 25.47 | 42 | 23.86 |
| I object to the upper management | 23 | 14.64 | 38 | 21.59 |
| I discuss- enter into an argument | 12 | 7.64 | 19 | 10.80 |
| I prefer to resign | 5 | 3.18 | 12 | 6.18 |
| I share the problem with my friends | 43 | 27.39 | 40 | 22.72 |
| I try to stay close and establish food relations with the individual applying mobbing | 34 | 21.65 | 25 | 14.20 |
| Total number of answers | 157 | 100 | 176 | 100 |
Michael Kuyucu who shared his study with the public in the “2nd International Congress on Different Violence and Social Perception” suggested that symptoms experienced by victims should be investigated and facts should be identified in order to prevent Mobbing. Michael Kuyucu said: “Mobbing must be described as an event that leads to aggressive behaviours. In addition, psychological conditions supporting and facilitating mobbing must be determined in organizations. Diagnosis of the mobbing in the workplace by the management is important towards establishing peace among employees, thus improving the performance of the workplace. There is no doubt about the extent of losses it will cause in terms of economics and prestige of a workplace”.
Michael Kuyucu suggested that the media organizations must take certain measures in order to prevent mobbing. Kuyucu summarized actions that should be taken as follows:
- A legal system must be established for the purpose of eliminating the control and power of the businessmen and political ideologies on the media organizations. At this point, media ownership structure must be redesigned.
- The way to unionisation in the media must be opened. Unions must me established for the media employees and media organizations preventing subscription to such unions must be punished.
- Personal and employment-related rights of the media employees must be protected through some legal sanctions.
- Legal regulations must be made to eliminate the required bureaucracy in order to ensure that lawsuits brought in connection with ‘mobbing’ are finalized in shorter times and precedent decisions in the favour of employees are granted.
