Abstract:

Covid-19, one of the rare global epidemic experienced by the modern world, has deeply affected not only the health sector, but also all areas of social life, from politics to economy and from education to tourism. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Covid-19 has been on the top of the agenda in the world media and it started to find a wide coverage in the Turkish media with the spread of the virus in Turkey. Newspapers, which are the leading sources informing the society about the nature and course of the epidemic, also have important social responsibilities in the presentation of Covid-19 news. It is a fact that the news presented by using fear appeal, increases the number of readership. An alternative to this discourse, which has become problematic considering the negative factors it may cause on the psychology of society is the rationality of the discourse developed for the dangers of Covid-19. Hurriyet, Sabah and Cumhuriyet newspapers were selected as samples within the scope of the study, it was investigated how the appeal of fear was used in the presentation of Covid-19 news in the Turkish media. As a result of the research in which the Covid-19 news on the websites of the mentioned newspapers were subjected to discourse analysis, in sensitive periods such as disasters, the mutual importance of developing a sensible language for the media and society was mentioned.

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