The Presentatoin of alternative medicine in Turkish press

Media is the basic producer of consumption relations and one of the mainvehicles for the spread of the established consumer culture to the masses.Media has a great impact and power over the emotions, thoughts and beliefsover the individuals. This qualitative study is based on the assumption that themedia produces itself and the conditions that creates itself and the compulsorymutual interest in the development of the capitalist economic and cultural marketstructures through alternative medical practices as reflected in the contemporaryTurkish press.This study is about the prevalence of alternative medical practice inmedia. Turkish press in the most circulating daily newspapers Posta, Hürriyetand Sabah within the first 6 months of 2005 are researched. Statistical analysesof these news, which are sorted out according to their categories, are conductedwith the SPSS program. During this time span, a total of 1034 alternativemedicine news were published in those 3 newspapers. Among those 34%appeared in Posta, 39% in Sabah and 27 % in Hürriyet newspaper. In eachpaper there was an average of two alternative medicine story every day. Amongalternative medical practices nutrition-diet stories(42%) were at the top of thelist, whereas herbal treatments were second. According to treatment methodsweight loss-obesity news(36 %) were at the top of the list. It is evident that morethan half of the news(57%), which are within the category of columns andongoing commentaries, are written by the cooperation of media workers,dieticians and therapists, called by Bourdieu as new cultural intermediaries, whoare responsible for the providing of services, production of symbolic goods, andtheir marketing and sale.The fact that only 4.4% of these news stories were critical of the subjectand 95 % had an approving quality to them and that almost all these reportsoffered one of the practices or a product as a recommendation eradicated theoptimistic picture from the scene. For this reason we can reach the conclusionthat instead of making people conscious information, under the guide ofinforming and commentary, it looks like there is the promotion for the sale anduse of certain practices and products that come with these treatments.Keywords: Media, health, alternative medicine, traditional medicine,Turkish press,