"Take personal responsibility": Biological citizenship and individualization in Turkish diabetes news

This study examines how diabetes news in the Turkish national press articulates biological citizenship and how this discourse is shaped through sourcing practices. It is based on a qualitative content analysis of 139 diabetes-related news articles published on the websites of the Turkish newspapers Hürriyet and Sözcü throughout 2023. The analysis considers modes of news production, sourcing preferences, reported causes and complications of diabetes, and treatment and prevention recommendations. The findings show that diabetes coverage gives prominence to an individualizing register of biological citizenship, foregrounding lifestyle regulation, personal responsibility, and self-management. Social inequalities, structural determinants, and public responsibilities are not entirely absent, but remain marginal within the news discourse. Food-centered recommendations, complication narratives that mobilize fear and anxiety, and articles based on single or unspecified sources make diabetes intelligible primarily as a condition to be managed through individual regulation of the body. The study also shows that this self-management orientation persists even in articles based on mixed or relatively stronger sourcing. It argues that biological citizenship is articulated and reproduced not only at the level of content but also through sourcing practices and wider journalistic contexts. It further suggests that this discourse calls citizens/patients to self-management through a persistent sense of lack.