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Article published In:
Media, Migration and Human Rights: Discourse and Resistance in the Context of the Erosion of Liberal Norms
Edited by Ekaterina Balabanova and Ruxandra Trandafoiu
[Journal of Language and Politics 19:3] 2020
► pp. 518–542

Immigrants and Syrian refugees in the Turkish press

Analysis of news discourse in the context of the ‘refugee crisis’

ORCID logo | University of Connecticut

This paper examines the way in which news reports and op-eds published in daily newspapers in Turkey handle the issues of asylum and refugees. The paper aims at revealing the patterns of discriminatory discourses towards refugees and also seeks an answer to the question of how much a discourse that will facilitate the acceptance of refugees and that will help them to be perceived as equipped with public rights finds a place in the Turkish press. The study examines the newspaper discourse on matters of immigration and asylum that is built within the news reports and op-eds of 7 national and 7 local newspapers from 1 June 2017 to 30 November 2018. The texts were first subjected to content analysis and then the selected news reports were treated based on the main components of the news discourse.

Keywords: media discourses, refugees, discrimination, rights-based journalism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Immigrants and refugees in news reports and op-eds
    • 3.1What the newspapers deem worthy of reporting: Actors, sources and topics
    • 3.2Criminalization, perception of threat, over-dramatization and lack of empathy
    • 3.3Denial of responsibility or blaming the victim
  • 4.What did not make it to the agenda: Refugee women and children
  • 5.A journalism perspective reporting rights claims and violations
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.19054.dog
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