Environmental news in the visual dimension

Abstract

It was not until recent years that the importance of environmental issues began to be recognized and understood in Turkey. Turkey has failed to achieve the desired goals about environmental issues because effective legal arrangements have yet to be made. Consequently, environmental problems have increased in Turkey. The problems such as air, water and soil pollution, destruction of forests, urban spread, excessive water consumption and pesticides are on the environmental agenda. It is the media that should undertake the responsibility of attracting public attraction about environmental pollution. The mass media in particular must have sufficient information to raise public awareness. On the other hand, environmental journalism is a field that requires expertise. Nevertheless, environmental news based on converted magazine items are published in newspapers in order to reach more readers. The aim of this study is to evaluate the visual dimension of the environmental news commonly covered in Turkish newspapers. Focusing on a nine-year period, the study aims to investigate how environmental problems are perceived, what visual elements are highlighted, what the pictures accompanying the relevant news are about, how often news about the environment is covered, and which news is identified as environmental. The study universe comprises the three-best selling popular newspapers in Turkey. This study employs content analysis