A Critical reconsideration on the presentation of traffic accidents in print media with specific reference to Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet and Zaman newspapers

Since traffic accidents are highly problematic and worth stressing issue inTurkey, this thesis concentrates on the responsibilities of print medium forrevealing the exact context and content of the incident. Consequentially, it isargued that media centers besides their responsibility of being neutral; alsohave the task of informing, educating, taking attention and accordingly forminga conscious public domain.In that respect this thesis structures it self around three different newspapersrepresenting three different fragments of society -that of Cumhuriyet, Hürriyetand Zaman News, in its analysis of 118 printed traffic accidents between thedates 01-31 January 2005 and 01 October-10 November 2005.As a result of that analysis, this thesis claims that the primary aim of these threedifferent newspapers is not to reflect or to present the news in their totaltransparency but their particular concern through their populist approach is tomediatic exaggeration.Key Words : Traffic accidents, mass media, print media, content analysis