A Contextual Comparison of Violence Depicted in Television and Netflix Series

Abstract

This study compared violence depicted in seven Netflix “original” Turkish series and seven Turkish television (TV) series, which have the highest prime-time ratings in Turkey in terms of intensity and context through the message system analysis, which George Gerbner and colleagues developed as part of the Cultural Indicators Project. The findings indicated that TV series contained twice as much violence as Netflix series in terms of duration and number of scenes, that violent depictions on both platforms were severe, that violence was mostly perpetrated by men against men who did not know each other although the violence between the sexes statistically differed, that lethal weapons were used more intensely in TV violence, and that the resulting deaths were portrayed more on TV than on Netflix. In other words, TV, which is subject to a control mechanism, uses violence more intensely as an ideological tool than Netflix, which is not subject to any control mechanisms.