CHAPTER ONE FRAMING DECENTRALIZED, INDIVIDUALIZED AND MEDIATIZED VIOLENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY SARPHAN UZUNOĞLU AND BANU BAYBARS-HAWKS As a major theme in mythology, drama, literature, and popular culture; violence and terrorism have become trending topics in both the political and media spheres recently due to the rise of new actors all around the world. Every day we are faced with a new story of violence driven by states, individuals or non-state actors. We learn more about new organizations or individuals that instrumentalize violence with various motives. The most important characteristic of violence that people agree on is that it is intentional. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (WHO 2002). If we Google the term violence, according to statistics that we come across in Google Trends, the leading subjects are “violence—TV genre,” “domestic violence—field of study,” while leading search terms are on “domestic violence,” “domestic,” “women violence,” and “violence against women.” Violence, according to Google – one of the most global manifestations of the new media world – is mostly conceptualized as domestic forms of violence. However, these are not the only definitions of violence. When talking about violence, we refer to different categories such as physical, non-physical, warfare, and others. Violence is in every aspect of our lives. It is nearly impossible to finish a political conversation without mentioning the role of violence or violent actors—especially in