Online harassment toward women in social networks can occur in many forms such as contempt, profanity, insult, sexual desire, pruriency, physical threat, misogyny, and so on. Particularly, women with high social status and influence over society, such as female journalists, are more frequently exposed to online harassment. In an area such as sport, where male hegemony is dominant, female sports journalists are exposed to online harassment both in social media and in their professional lives. In modern Muslim countries such as Turkey, the controversial position of women is reflected in social media networks, and female journalists can receive harassment, as well as support. As a result of the present study, which evaluated the online harassment experienced by female sports journalists in Turkey on Twitter, as well as the subdimensions of the harassment observed using the netnographic method, it was determined that female sports journalists are frequently exposed to online harassment on Twitter. Based on the findings obtained in the present study, the most frequently received comments on Twitter by female sports journalists are derogatory and sarcastic, focusing on the physical appearance of women, exclusionary from a hegemonic perspective, and involving emotional harassment, physical threat, and profanity, respectively.

Kitle iletişim araçlarının en önemli özelliklerinden biri de gündem belirlemeye olan katkısıdır. Bu katkıyı sağlarken kullandığı etmen ise haberdir. Haber aynı zamanda farklı kamuoylarının oluşturulmasında etkili olur. Özellikle haberin bilgilendirme boyutu tüm dünyayı etkisi altına alan COVID-19 pandemi salgınıyla birlikte daha da artmıştır. Bu dönemde haberler kitleleri bilgilendirici, yönlendirici ve gündem belirleyici önemli bir unsur haline gelmiştir. Diğer taraftan ciddi habercilik anlayışı yerine daha soft olarak adlandırılan ve genellikle ünlülerin yaşamı üzerine odaklanan magazin haberleri, salgın döneminde önemli bir toplumsal gerçeklikten kaçış aracı olarak ön plana çıkmıştır. Bu çalışmada, COVID-19 pandemi salgınında Türkiye’de magazin haberlerinin içerikleri incelenmiştir. Çalışmada, sokağa çıkma yasaklarının başlandığı 11 Nisan tarihinden 30 Nisan'a kadarki süreçte örneklem olarak alınan Posta, Sabah ve Hürriyet gazetelerinin internet siteleri içerik analizi yöntemiyle incelenmiştir. Elde edilen veriler, istatistiki analizlerle değerlendirilmiştir. Değerlendirme sonucunda magazin haberlerinin gerçek ile kurgu arasında sınırları aştığı ve okuyucuyu toplumsal gerçeklikten uzaklaştırıcı haber yaptığı gözlenmiştir.

The main purpose of this research is to determine how conventional and digital sports content producers in Turkey present women’s sports news on Twitter, as well as “how much, where, how, why, and when” these stories are shared, as well as “who” the Twitter users are and “what” are they saying in their comments. Between June 25 and July 31, 2022, a sample of Twitter accounts and tweets were reviewed. It was found that 3.41% ( n = 612) of the 17,932 sports news items examined were reserved for women’s sports news. It was discovered that the gatekeepers in the news employed language that highlight failure, sexism, and personal life as well as instructive and successful expressions in women’s sports news. Additionally, 85.54% ( n = 888) of the comments included comments about women’s bodies, sexist stereotypes, and compared negative expressions. The majority of the comments ( n = 1038) on female sports news studied on Twitter were posted by male users ( n = 962). The language users use in their comments on sports news on Twitter, presented by traditional and digital sports content producers, support the patriarchal and dominant structure in the world of sports and sports media.