Media and health: Informative potensials of health news in Turkish press

General aim of this study is to investigate informative potentials of healthnews. For this reason, these are being analyzed: (a) definition of relationshipbetween health news and informative level of society, (b) analyzing of writtenmedia and media workers? view to health services, and (c) whether or not massmedia provide their jobs about social health.In this study, the health news has been analyzed in Hürriyet, Posta andZaman newspapers. These are the topics that were analyzed in these threenewspapers: whether or not there is a differentiation between different health newsaccording to time, person and institution. Which subjects were mostly investigatedabout health? Whether or nor the newspapers have obeyed the rules of socialresponsibility. Whether or not these newspapers have determined the agendawhile they were publishing health news.As a conclusion; although the ratio of health news in newspapers is lower;health news are including news characters, expert and institutional persons? viewswere applied, sufficient informative texts were used, texts are not includingmagazines but are pure and reliable.Key Words: Health, health news, written media, informative potential,media ethic.