The study “Divided narratives: How news agencies reinforce one-sided narratives in Cyprus” by Nikolaos Stelgias from Institute of Studies for Politics and Democracy, Nicosia, Cyprus investigated the Cyprus News Agency (CNA and the Turkish News Agency Cyprus (TAK) for the narratives they portray that according to the author exacerbate tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
The longstanding tensions in Cyprus stem from history, with Greek Cypriots seeking unification with Greece and Turkish Cypriots calling for partition ever since the mid-20th century. The island has been split in half, with the Republic of Cyprus in the South and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in the North, only recognized by Turkey. The UN has tried to mediate peace talks, but divisions remain.
The author has also previously analyzed the one-dimensional nationalist positions in the local media (Stelgias 2015, 2016). The two media outlets also analyzed in this study that have been instrumental in shaping public perceptions through news framing that reflects the position of the leadership, are CNA on the south and TAK on the north.
The media landscape in Cyprus does include other actors, and further, recently online news and citizen journalism have challenged the dominant media narratives (Papa and Dahlgren, 2017; Themistokleous, 2021), however, the extent of the challenge remains uninvestigated.
This study nevertheless focused on CNA and TAK and how they approached peace initiatives of the period, and whether their reporting facilitated or hindered the peace process.
The frames and narratives were compiled into a table that summarized them. There were three overarching frames: victimhood – where the community was portrayed as suffering unjust harm, moral legitimacy – emphasizing moral righteousness and legal claims, and security/insecurity – focus on safety concerns and need for protection. The narratives combined the frames: the narrative of victimhood and insecurity, and the narrative of moral righteousness and legitimacy utilizing the former.
In addition to the frames and narratives, there were agendas: CNA set an agenda for reunification, while TAK sought to set an agenda for separate statehood. Both had an ‘omission strategy’, where they excluded certain information to create a skewed understanding and reinforced existing narratives and hindered empathy. In this way, the media shaped perceptions.
The omission strategy by CNA blamed the Turkish Cypriot side as obstructing negotiations by insisting on a two-state solution, omitting that the Turkish Cypriot Left supports bizonal, bicommunal federation and blames the Greek Cypriot side for failed negotiations. Another example is the limited coverage of ‘Champion Angels’, a group formed after 35 Turkish Cypriots lost their lives in Turkey in a devastating earthquake. Thus, CNA hindered the Greek Cypriot audience from understanding grief on the opposing side and made the ‘other’ more distant.
TAK, on the other hand, overemphasized the two-state solution, the official position of Ankara and the Turkish Cypriots. It framed the recognition of the Turkish Cypriot state as essential for peace talks. However, they had no correspondent on the Greek Cypriot side and there were few in-depth articles of issues like the refugee crisis, which was of utmost importance to the Greek Cypriot side. This hindered the Turkish Cypriots from understanding the Greek side. They possessed no understanding of the changing dynamics on the Greek side.
In conclusion, both CNA and TAK reinforced existing biases, creating an us vs them mentality. They omitted counter-narratives, preventing deeper understanding of the opposing side through humanizing stories.
The article “Divided narratives: How news agencies reinforce one-sided narratives in Cyprus” by Nikolaos Stelgias is in Media, War & Conflict. (free abstract).
Picture: Pedestrian Underpass, Kouklia, Cyprus by Dylan Sosso.
License Unsplash.
