The mediating role of fear of crime in the relationship between women's consumption of violence news and fear of intimacy in their romantic relationships

Violence against women, which can be considered as a critical social problem and a source of concern in Turkey, often encountered by media users as a content or image on television news, newspapers, internet and social media, due to the reaction it arouses in the society and the newsworthiness it carries. Understanding the impact of these contents on women is important in terms of determining how the media shapes social perceptions and to what extent it has an impact on women's daily lives. Therefore, this thesis study is aimed to examine the effects of violence news in the media on women. The frequency of following the violence news in the media, fear of crime and fear of intimacy of 262 women aged between 18-40 were measured and their relationships with each other were analyzed. Due to the lack of scales measuring the frequency of following violence news in the media and fear of crime, authentic measurements were created by considering the scales used in the literature and by consulting expert opinion. The reliability and validity of these measures were analyzed. The findings revealed that there is a meaningful relationship between the frequency of following news in the media and fear of crime, and between fear of crime and fear of intimacy. These results indicate the effects of violence against women news in the media on women. In addition, to better understand the relationships between these variables, mediation analysis was conducted, and the findings were carefully discussed.