Rape discourses in Turkey : the case of Turkish television series Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne?

Abstract

The television series Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne?, which first aired in September 2010, turned in to a phenomenon. The rape scene in the first episode was anticipated for months and after it aired, scene was talked about for very long time. In mass media, series was addressed widely. There were many different criticisms regarding the rape scene. Mainly, it was blamed for vividly representing the act of rape, thus encouraging and rape and humiliating women in various newspaper articles. However, while doing so, newspapers employed a number of rhetoric that may be elucidated as normalization of rape discourse through concealing by deceiving and trivializing rape. In this study, newspaper articles related to Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne? published in Zaman, Hürriyet, Posta, Radikal and Cumhuriyet newspapers are studied and evaluated in terms of discourse they employ in order to determine rape discourses in Turkish newspapers.