THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AWARENESS AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ISSUE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF DIGITAL PUBLIC RELATIONS AND ONLINE EVENTS

Aim: Since Covid 19 – social isolation process started, 131 femicides and 95 suspicious deaths occurred from April to August 2020 in Turkey. In this context, it can be construed that digital public relations and online event managements have become increasingly crucial in terms of improved social awareness. The research objective is to implement a scale, which has been developed for digital public relations, online events and awareness concepts, on persons who participated in 7 different Webinars themed on women and violence, hence to put forward the power of creating any behavioral change in awareness extent of online events in the scope of digital public relations. Methods: For this research study, a scale has been devised based on the online event model designed as per digital public relations. In this context, the survey method, one of the quantitative research method, has been used. The Cronbach Alpha measure and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin statistic have been used in order to test reliability and adequacy of the survey, respectively, thus the reliability-adequacy measures have been determined. Results: Research findings reveal that the higher online event driven awareness is the more behavioral changes are in digital public relations; that women, when compared to men, are more responsive to digital public relations applications, and have a better level of awareness by comparison; that 18-25 age group is more responsive with better level of awareness to digital public relations applications when compared to 26-33 age group; and that parents’ educational background makes no difference in this. Conclusions: In light of the research findings, it can be seen that digital public relations applications help to create awareness in terms of online events, and also pave the way for behavioral changes. In this context, it needs highlighting that digital public relations applications should be further improved in particular matters such as violence against women in which creating awareness is crucial.