KURDISH JOURNALISM CULTURES

The data analysis of this study shows that the notions of information privacy and journalistic professionalism have an inadequate theoretical, legislative basis in public debates in the Kurdish media landscape so far. While there are mixed and ambiguous interpretations of respect for individuals' private life amongst Iraqi Kurdish journalism cultures to date, the Populist Disseminator and Detached Watchdog are the most predominant models in this fragile region. This is one of the deepest insights of this study that portrays the reality of current Iraqi Kurdish society, where partisanship dominates and professionalism is subordinated as a result of the distribution of media ownership - and consequently the ownership of privacy - since the news organizations and their media workers are dominated and frequently used by the prominent political ruling parties. They also aim to silence opposition voices in Iraqi Kurdish society by using various practices, such as gathering and revealing the information privacy.