Internet as a new medium of communication is of particular importance to the communication students and researchers. It is usually agreed that this new medium is a substantial alternative and internet provides several challenging solutions to the known problems of the conventional media. However it has its own problems, while proposing new freedoms, it brings new threats (Chalaby, 2000). As compared with all other media, internet is still a good and challenging alternative especially for marginal voices. Therefore internet is a real alternative for those who are not in the mainstream standing (Atabek, 1997).

Traditional or conventional media have always a key position in manipulating the societies since long times and people will even in the long run continue to be informed and manipulated by these types of media although internet penetrates more people day by day (Althaus and Tewksbury, 2000). However it is reasonable to specifically investigate the content and the effects of the new media for analysing the changes in the attitudes of people who are usually manipulated by the mainstream conventional media. Although mainstream conventional media is the key element, for instance in creating and maintaining the hostility between the people, we can still trace many interesting positions of the same topics in the “new” media.

Conflicts based on values are harder to be resolved than the conflicts based on the interests (Yagcıoglu, 1996) and the mainstream conventional media is much responsible for transmitting the values needed for such creation of conflicts and hostilities. This function of the mainstream conventional media is usually performed in an environment of professional rules and controls, therefore manipulation towards hostility is usually not an overt action. This also applies to the Turkish and Greek mainstream media where “hate speech” used to be a dominant character (Tılıç, 2000; Hadjidimos, 2000) until recently and this character is now harder to be traced after the introduction of friendlier governmental/official policies. Commercialisation and conglomerate media ownership -which typically characterise the conventional mainstream media- are stated among the most important reasons for such a problem creating media style both in Turkey and Greece (Ozgunes and Terzis, 2000). However internet is providing freedom to those who wishes to escape such a controlled environment as well. Therefore the traces of such hostility in internet are more overt, and many groups tend to transmit their conflict-producing thoughts through the internet rather than the conventional media.

In order to analyse the contents of the web sites in the above mentioned context, I chose 6 sites which are judged to be representative for several similar sites as they fit into one of these categories: official, non-official/activist, academic, personal/independent. The sites investigated and their contents are as follows:

www.turkishforum.com is a site by the Turkish Promotion Fund. This site is an example of a governmental content although the site does not clearly indicate that its content reflects the Turkish governments’ view. However this Fund is totally controlled by the Turkish Prime Ministry and the content of the site is clearly official. This site has several links on Turkish foreign policy issues, however among them Greece owns a special page full of links such as “Greek support for terrorism to Megali Idea”, “Visual proof of Greek support for PKK”, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend: Greeks & Armenians” etc. Western Thrace also gets a page full of links on the human rights violations of Greece and Turkish minority rights. As clearly seen Greece is the hottest foreign policy topic for which only the problems and conflicts are stated/reported. However, as it is the case for the Greek counterpart, the site of the Greek Foreign Ministry- Turkish Forum uses a diplomatic language and does not employ a harsh narration style into the topics. The site of the Greek Foreign Ministry (www.mfa.gr) is of similar character. It has a special foreign policy page on Turkish Greek relations which includes links such as “Turkey’s most recent aggression against Greece: the island of Gavdos”, Greek Minority of Turkey”, “Turkish Claims in the Aegean” etc. Similar to its Turkish counterpart this site emphasises only the problems as to the relations between Greece and Turkey, however again in a controlled language.

www.turkatak.gen.tr a site by activist/nationalist non-governmental Turkish group. As the name suggests it promotes the “attacking” Turkish ideas. These attacking ideas are usually directed on Greeks which deserve a full page of links such as “Greece and international terrorism”, Greek atrocity in Anatolia”, “Greek violation of minority rights”, “The Greek Friendship (!) to Turkey” etc. This site clearly pushes on the problematic issues and uses a “hate speech” style narration on its arguments. www.hr-action.org a site by a human rights activist group. By human rights, this group particularly understands the violation of human rights in Turkey only, not anywhere else in the world and its pages are totally devoted to the links fully criticising Turkey, in human rights context. However, through the banners, the links and the web hosting facility it can be traced that this site is supported by some Greek groups. In parallel to this, the site has a harsh push on the problematic issues and employs a “hate speech” style narration.

www.duth.gr the site of Demokritos University of Thrace. As a site by an academic organisation it has many link of scientific interest. However the links on the Turkish history are rather manipulative style. Although these might be labelled as methodologically well done works of history, the wordings of the texts are rather “ideology constructive”. The title of the page “Chronological Index of the Main Crimes Against Humanity Committed by Turkey From 1878 to the Present Time” clearly demonstrates this attitude which contributes to the complexity of severe problems. A search of the word “Turk” in the search engine employed in this site yields three items, all of which give a severely negative Turkish image: “Turkish Crime - Chronological Index”, “Turkish Barbarism…” and “Turkish Crime - Greek Holocaust…” A personal/independent site (www.photius.com/thus) however carefully elaborates on the relations mainly from a humanistic perspective and contributes to the peaceful solution of the problems by not wording its content in a “hate speech” style and challenge the “academic” content. This site is on a long list of sites on the page “A collection of Links Related to Greek Turkish Cooperation and Friendship” (members.tripod.com/~ dimos/grtr.html).
 
 

Conclusions drawn from the examination of the contents of these sites can be summarised as follows:

1. The main points of conflicts based usually on historical hostilities and value oriented perceptions are transmitted by non-governmental, unofficial activist group sites more abruptly and openly. They do not particularly care linguistically for the “other” in their narration and usually create harsh examples of “hate speech”.

2. Governmental or formally supported sites are more careful in transmitting such value-based ideas and don’t particularly create “hate speech”, however they do not specifically employ any methodology in preventing additional conflicts through their content. Academic sites are not free from this genre of history narration through their implicitly approved missions.

3. Some personal or independent group sites are taking special measures towards conflict resolution and/or they promote friendly and peaceful solution to the problems. Internet offers a good opportunity for such sites and provides a substantial alternative to the controlled content of the mainstream media.

References:

ALTHAUS S.L. and TEWKSBURY D., 2000, “Patterns of Internet and Traditional News Media Use in a Networked Community”, Political Communication, 17.

ATABEK Ü., 1997, "İletişim Teknolojileri: Yeni Olanaklar mı? (Communication Technologies: New Opportunities?)", Türkiş Yıllığı 97.

CHALABY J.K., 2000, “New Media, New Freedoms, New Threats”, Gazette, vol.:62, no:1.

HADJIDIMOS K., 2000, “The Role of Media in Greek-Turkish Relations”, Balkanmedia, volume ix, spring.

OZGUNES N. and TERZIS G., 2000, “Constraints and Remedies for Journalists Reporting National Conflict: The Case of Greece and Turkey”, Journalism Studies, volume 1, no: 3.

TILIÇ Doğan L., 2000, “A Short Comparative History of Greek and Turkish Media: From the Birth of the First Newspapers to Late 1990s”, İletişim, 2000/7.

YAGCIOGLU D., 1996, “A Brief Introduction to Conflict Analysis and Resolution”, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8945/conf.html.