Health news in newspapers: The effects of medicalization of life, individualized health and consumption to woman

The object of this study is to analyze the themes of consumption culture, medicalizing society, and individualized health in relation to social roles that are ascribed to women. We focus particularly on the extent to which news messages address health issues at the individual or the policy level. We evaluated 518 news items on the basis of ?individualized health?, ?medicalizing society?, and ?consumption culture? concepts, drawing our sample from health news published in 2011 in the four highest-circulation newspapers (Posta, Sabah, Zaman, Hürriyet). Content analysis techniques were used to analyze the data.We conclude that health news controls women?s bodies and reinforces consumption culture, viewing health problems as individual rather policy matters. Although, popular news media to raise consciousness about health problems, they fall short on social responsibility. While media heighten awarenness of health issues, they should not commodify health problems and reduce the to individual, cosmetic problems Key Words: Health News, Women, Medicalizing Society, İndividualized Health, Consumption