ECREA16-Abstract

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Saturday, November 12

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PN 300

Press Freedom and Soft Censorship in Iraqi Kurdistan: The Cases of Rudaw and NRT TV

J. Faris

, P. Maeseele

, K. Smets

University of Antwerp, Communication Studies, Antwerpen, Belgium

Soft censorship is an indirect but significant mechanism of media control which impedes journalistic independence and democratic debate, and restricts

freedom of expression. Recently some papers and international reports have been published on the influence of soft censorship on democratic transition

processes (Hung 2013; Bernhard&Dohle204; Kenyon 2014; Bensaid&Ziani 2015; Reporters without Borders 2015).The aim of this paper is to analyse the im‑

plications and mechanisms of soft censorship in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region in which there has been no critical media research to date. In so doing we will

focus on media organizations Rudaw and NRT TV. First, their reporting on the presidential elections in Kurdistan Region\Iraq will be analysed between June

2015 and January 2016. Second, in-depth interviews will be conducted with 16 journalists who work for Rudaw and NRT TV regarding their reporting on

the presidential elections, focusing on their journalistic choices and on the restrictions they have encountered.

PN 301

Diaspora, Social Networks and the Internet

J. Yilmaz Keles

Middlesex University, Dept. of Leadership- work and organisation, London, United Kingdom

A key characteristic of diasporas without a home-state is their strong ethnic group consciousness, based on shared memories of trauma and loss but also on

the shared political aspiration for an imagined homeland (Anthias 1998; Bruneau 1995; Cohen 1997; Safran 1991). Diasporas sustain a sense of community,

across and beyond the locality, through various forms of communication and online and off-line networks (Peters 1999; Raghuram 2008; Keles 2015).

The internet, in particular, has reconnected geographically dispersed people. This new virtual, deterritorialised conversation between diasporic individuals

may help build social capital through exchanging information and political knowledge and enhancing grassroots’activism such as fund-raising for home‑

land politics and sharing business ideas and relations across national borders. This may also allow diasporas to form multiple belonging and deterritori‑

alized, cosmopolitan identities (Nedelcu, 2012). These networks simultaneously constitute resources and opportunities for individuals and social groups

to overcome disadvantages in the majority society. In this sense, the paper attempts to explore the role of the internet in connecting diasporas without

a home nation state, encouraging subordinated people to participate in civic society and creating a collective source of digital social capital in the diaspora.

It examines the role of the internet and more specifically social media in building networks and accumulating social capital for the Kurdish community in

the UK. Some scholars working in the field of social capital have identified the corrosive effect on social capital as defined by Putnam (2000) of the privati‑

sation of leisure through domestic consumption of electronic entertainment which has undermined membership and activism in local civic life. However

diasporic communities offer a counter case study where social capital, rather than being in decline has been enhanced through the capacity of the internet,

by compressing time and space (Nagel and Staehel 2010) to enable diasporas to create virtual communities and‘network capital’, defined as the“capacity to

engender and sustain social relations with individuals who are not necessarily proximate, which generates emotional, financial and practical benefit.”(Lars‑

en et al. 2008: 93). This article explores the linkages between diaspora, the internet and the concepts of social capital. Drawing on three different research

projects on the Kurdish community in the UK including data I have collected with 20 Kurdish young people in the UK on return migration and the social me‑

dia (2015).This paper is also based on the research I have collected with 25 Kurdish transnational audiences from diverse backgrounds in London to examine

the role of the transnational media in articulating and mobilizing different political and identity positions for Kurdish migrants in 2009 and with colleagues

for IOM-Iraq on Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure migration status in the UK (2011). It argues that the internet, particularly in the form of social media

contributes to the growth of social networks, social capital and the community’s cultural and political participation within and across nation state borders.

PN 302

Media Freedoms Through Young Eyes: Perceptions Among Kurdish Youth in London and Istanbul

K. Smets

University of Antwerp / Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Communication Studies, Brussel, Belgium

It is widely acknowledged that media freedoms play a central role in shaping intercultural dialogue, peace building and democratization (Howard 2002;

Radoli 2012; UNESCO 2014). There is growing academic interest in this area, and increasingly, scholars also turn to citizens and audiences in order to investi‑

gate public perceptions of media freedoms. Few studies, however, address such perceptions among youth who are living in a context of conflict. Addressing

this empirical gap, and drawing upon critical strands of research on media freedoms and cultural studies, this study explores how Kurdish youth perceive

media freedoms within the context of the on-going conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish insurgent groups. Growing authoritarian tendencies

and media surveillance in Turkey form the background of this study. In order to include a diasporic perspective on the topic, two different populations

are studied: Kurdish youth (18–30 years old) in London and in Istanbul. These populations differ significantly in terms of demographic variables, identity

construction and media consumption, but have important commonalities such as their aversion to the Turkish regime and their avid use of social media.

The study fits within a larger project on media and conflict among Kurds, conducted in 2013–2016, but for the current paper the main data are 13 focus

group interviews with young Kurds, as well as a series of informal conversations conducted during fieldwork in London and Istanbul. The results point on

the one hand to severe irritations about the lack of media freedoms in Turkey and the harmful effect on youth’s imaginations of peace building. On the other

hand the study clearly shows that respondents value and exploit the potential of newmedia technologies to circumvent these obstacles, instead conceiving

alternative‘imaginations of peace’, as Baser and Celik (2014) describe it. Mainstream European media (especially British media) are seen as allies for Kurdish

emancipation, although this also has its limits due to the perceived biased and orientalist reporting on minorities such as the Kurds. Furthermore, results

show remarkably similar results among Kurds inTurkey and in the diaspora, which opens up questions about the tensions between national media freedoms

and transnational networks of solidarity.