Abstract
A Study on the Function of the Media to Activate the 'Public Conscience' in the Context of Rousseau's Public Opinion Approach
Some social events' (adverse) effects on people can be so profound that the legal punishment of such events is insufficient to ease the public conscience. In such cases, belief in law and justice is damaged, and general unrest may arise. At this point, it is of great importance for the media to step in and for the incident that hurt the public conscience to find a criminal response at a level that will put the public at ease. In this context, the fact that some social events are on the agenda in the media ensures that the event is re-evaluated in terms of legal and public interest and makes it possible to impose penalties that console the public conscience (albeit partially). This situation allows the public to relax relatively. This study aims to analyze social events in the media in the axis of the meaning that Jean Jacques Rousseau attributes to the concept of public opinion with the framework of the approach of 'justice in the public conscience' an idea used for the punishment of crime in the eyes of the public. With the scope of the study, the 'public reaction' dimension of some events that took place in the last three years in Turkey and which was on the agenda in the media. According to the findings obtained from the study, we have understood that the media's bringing (or keeping on the agenda) an event that is not justified in the public conscience despite the application of the relevant law, allowing the said event to be re-evaluated from a legal point of view.
Keywords
Rousseau, Public Opinion, Public Conscience, Media, Public Interest
