The Discourse of Risk in Health News Stories

Survival, safety, and risk have been the most fundamental issues throughout human history. The emergence of modern risk, as we perceive it, is parallel to the emergence of modernity. The ones that promote modernity and modern risks are the superstructures such as art, philosophy and mass media. This study examines the risk discourse in health news stories. News items about infectious and deadly diseases, abortion, children's sexual abuse, and autism, reports about preventive measures against various diseases, the reasons of diseases or news about the things that need to be done were analyzed by critical discourse analysis method. In the study, in which both the news of traditional journalism and the news of citizen journalism are analyzed, it was understood that citizen journalism did not present a meaningful difference in terms of risk discourse. In addition, the risk discourse in health-related news stories has been seen as a tool to perform certain behaviors or to consume certain products. It has been understood that the health-related news stories serve for; government policy, dissenter opinion, patriarchal structure or views against current social discourses, views based on national unity and cohesion, or an attitude that serves for pharmaceutical companies