A comparative analysis of news on violence against women: Hürriyet, Sözcü and Yeni Şafak newspapers

The powerful and transforming effects of newspapers have been still lasting in societies from past to present. Like all developed and developing societies, all forms of violence against women are regarded as a big problem in Turkish society, as well. This study aims to compare and explore the differences of the portrayal of violence against women among three newspapers, Hürriyet, Sözcü and Yeni Şafak. For this aim, printed copies of these newspapers between the dates 01/04/2018 and 30/09/2018 reporting 398 crimes of violence against women were statistically analyzed and 33 common news reporting violence against women were thoroughly investigated in terms of language, style, photography, headline, wording and the way of reporting events through Critical Discourse Analysis by Teun A. Van Dijk. All those 398 crimes of violence against women are covered by these three newspapers - Hürriyet, Sözcü and Yeni Şafak in different percentages; 46%, 45% and 9% respectively. When the news on violence against women in Hürriyet and Sözcü were examined, they have similarities in terms of the frequency of reporting the news, the ways of publishing the visuals, language and style; however, it was found out that Yeni Şafak published less news on violence against women and in different ways. When the data was analyzed, it was thought that Hürriyet and Sözcü had a populist discourse aiming at boosting newspaper sales. In short, having different ideologies, Hürriyet, Sözcü and Yeni Şafak showed vast differences in the percentage of their news on violence against women.