YAZILI BASINDA ÇOCUK TEMSİLLERİ: BİR BEKLEME SALONU OLARAK ÇOCUKLUK

Social representations are social phenomena that members of a social group construct together in the course of daily talk and actions with a purpose of familiarizing the unfamiliar and explaining the world. Media is a field that is considered to be important not only in the formation but also in the expansion of social representations. This study, in which the perspective and methodology of Social Representations Theory are used, has been conducted so as to reveal the prevalent representations concerning children and childhood in our country. Within the scope of the study, child theming articles of four national newspapers with the highest rate of circulation (i.e. Zaman, Posta, Hürriyet, and Sözcü) were examined for one month and the acquired data were examined via the method of thematic content analysis. Results have shown that prevalent representations exist in the printed media in relation to both children and the notion of childhood. This study also reveals that the ethical principles that are developed for journalists on the national and international level are not thoroughly followed while making child related news in the printed media. It has been suggested that the act of journalism should be conducted in a child-rights conscious and ethics based way so that children, who are not only the consumers but also the subjects of the media, can have more and better media coverage.