A Study Turkish Sports Newspapers’ Coverage of Beşiktaş’s European Matches

The football coverage of Turkish sports newspapers is an area of concern as certain framing decisions raise questions of journalistic ethics in the light of the agenda-setting theory. This study investigates nationalism, militarist metaphors, metaphors of physical fight and the coverage of referees on 116 cover pages of Turkish sports newspapers before and after Beşiktaş played in European competitions during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 seasons. The results obtained by using quantitative content analysis show that militarist metaphors and metaphors of physical fight are more common in post-match articles whilst nationalist language is more common in pre-match articles. Nationalist language, militarist metaphors and metaphors of physical fight are most common in post-match articles published after a Beşiktaş victory. There are no positive mentions of the referee and negative mentions occur at the same percentage after a Beşiktaş victory and defeat. Finally, militarist metaphors and metaphors of physical fight are present in more than half of the articles.