Content Analysis of Printed News Media Related to Drowning Incidents in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Drowning is a major public health problem in Turkey as it is for other countries. According to the latest statistics, the annual average number of people who drowned in the rivers, lakes, or seas of Turkey is 642. An examination of the language and the presentation style that the media use while covering the news about drowning cases may help us to determine the risk factors of the drowning cases and reduce the number. This study aims to show the awareness level of the Turkish print media on preventing drowning incidents and to discuss the steps to be taken in the Turkish media in order to prevent drowning. To this end, attitudes and presentations of three best-selling newspapers in Turkey—Zaman, Posta, and Hürriyet—and a less-selling one, Cumhuriyet, were studied in accordance with the content analysis method. The results show that the awareness of the Turkish media to prevent drowning incidents is inadequate. The number of drowning cases covered by these newspapers are very few, and they emphasis the forensic aspect of the incidents by using dramatic language without background information.

Key Words:

• health communication
• drowning
• drowning incidents
• news
• content analysis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge Ozcan Bilgeturk and Emrah Ozdemir for their comments on a draft of this article. In addition, they are thankful to the Libraries of Istanbul University and Erzurum University for their support.

Notes

Editor's note: Anatolian denotes the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of the Republic of Turkey. Some refer to Anatolia as Asia Minor (Wikipedia 2014).

Editor's note: Kemalism (Turkish: Kemalizm) is the founding ideology of Turkey. Kemalism was defined by sweeping political, social, cultural, and religious reforms (Wikipedia 2014).