"Cut the kids in half": new urban childhoods in Turkey through the lens of the mainstream media, 1977-1997

This thesis questions how the concept of childhood was redefined by the mainstream media in the aftermath of the fiscal crisis of the late 1970s. The research was based on popular daily newspapers representing the centre, social democratic left, and conservative right. Some important characteristics of this new era were the erosion of the traditional structures of modernity, persistent inequalities which were especially visible in cities, and social responses to increasing social insecurity in the forms of anxiety and fear aggression. This study uses the term "new childhood" with a concern similar to the scholars who have concocted new concepts such as neo-liberalism, new globalisation, advanced capitalism, and liquid modernity to comprehend the profound social, political, economic, and cultural transformations that took place in this period. The introductory chapters where I briefly outline the theoretical framework, describe children's living conditions in the period, explain my methodology, and introduce my sources are followed by three main chapters. First, I discuss the economic and political pressures that shaped news media, and explain how new trends in journalism changed the social meanings of news. Second, I question how the media reassessed conventional meanings childhood, and claim that traditional social responsibilities over children's well-being were allocated to families and children themselves. Third, I turn to the media's responses to persistent and increasingly visible inequalities, and demonstrate the different standards and distinct sets of values journalists employed when making news about unequal childhoods. I conclude that the traditional definition of childhood as a shared life stage was shattered, and "new childhood" was constructed as an exclusive privilege.