The representation of Syrian refugees in Turkey: a critical discourse analysis of three newspapers

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how Turkish journalists and newspapers constructed discoursive practices in their newspapers in response to the influx of Syrian immigrants. Distinct from other research on Turkish discoursive practices about Syrian immigrants, this paper selects an important time period in recent Turkish history, with the army’s intervention into Syria and the ballooning number of refugees, and analyzes the discourses regarding representations of those immigrants in the three highest circulation mainstream newspapers, representative of a heterodox of ideological perspectives. Through an application of critical discourse analysis to news items, the study finds various discoursive structures that are employed to otherize the Syrian immigrants, that is to view and treat Syrian immigrants as intrinsically different from Turks.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkish dominant discourse
• Syrian refugees
• representation
• critical discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. According to Minister of National Education İsmet Yılmaz 611,524 out of a total 976,200 school-age Syrian children have enrolled at schools in Turkey in 2017.

2. About 1 million displaced Syrians have moved to Europe as asylum seekers or refugees since the conflict began, according to asylum seeker data from Eurostat, Europe’s statistical agency, and UNHCR data on refugee resettlement. More than 500,000 Syrians moved to Germany and applied for asylum between 2011 and 2017, making it the fifth-largest displaced Syrian population in the world. Smaller numbers of Syrian asylum seekers moved to Sweden (more than 110,000) and Austria (nearly 50,000). Nearly all Syrian applicants who applied for asylum in Europe in 2015 and 2016 either were approved to stay or were waiting for a decision, according to Pew Research Center estimates (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/29/where-displaced-syrians-have-resettled/).

3. I use the concept of the ‘Other’ from the perspective of in-group and out-group structure as belonging to the out-group, which may be subject to discrimination by the in-group.

4. Derridarian hospitality: According to Derrida the absolute hospitality demands the unconditional reception of the foreigner. Hospitality requires that ‘… you give up the mastery of your space, your home, your nation. It is unbearable’ (Kearney 1998).

5. Although Turkey has been experiencing different forms of migration since the establishment of the republic in 1923, it had never been subjected to such a large refugee movement as Syrian the immigration. The first and most important immigration after the founding of the Republic of Turkey (1923) from 1923–1929 involved about 700,000 people from surrounding countries who were ethnically Turkish. In addition, from 1923–1949, about 80,000 people immigrated from Romania. After WWII, there were several other waves of immigrants: roughly 1,000,000 from Iran in 1979; over 50,000 from Iraq in 1988 and about 800,000 Bulgarians in 1989. During the Gulf War in 1991, over 450,000 people fled from Turkey. In the next decade, 10,000 to 20,000 Bosnians, Kosovans and Macedonians arrived in Turkey. All of these in and out migrations pales in comparison to the over 3,570,000 Syrians, who entered Turkey as of 2018, according to the Turkish Republic Ministry of the Interior. The large population of Syrian immigrants have considerably affected Turkey’s social, ethnical and cultural structure. At the time of this research there were 100 news items covering Syrian immigrants on the sections of ‘op-ed/opinion’, ‘national news’, ‘breaking news’, and ‘politics’. However, there were only 12 news items covering other groups in this time period and subsections. That’s why this paper focus solely on the representation of Syrian immigrants.

6. İzmir is Turkey’s third largest city, located on the central Aegean west coast of Turkey. The city holds a central role in Republican Turkish history as a symbol of liberty, security and freedom, earned through a David and Goliath, bloody war of Independence between the occupying forces and the depleted Turkish nation. The founder of the modern Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, gave the decision to begin the Turkish war of independence in İzmir when the city was occupied by Greece in 1919. İzmir represents the secular and Kemalist discourse in the Turkish national psyche, and is an opposing view to the conservative ideology of the ruling government and political class. İzmirian culture is accepted as different from other places not only because of its historical symbolism but also because of the high intellectual culture and elite position it occupies in today’s Turkey.

7. Hatay Province is on the Eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

8. Nevşehir is a province in central Turkey.

9. Kilis is a province in south-central Turkey, on the border with Syria.

10. According to the European Union Commission of Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, Turkey is the country that hosts the biggest population of Syrian Immigrants. The Syrian Immigrants living in Turkey, outside of the immigrant camps, have no access to the essential services.

11. According to Turkish Ministry of Health, Syrian immigrants under the temporary protection have access to the same medical service Turkish citizens have such as protective, therapeutic, and health service (cnnturk.com, 11/10/2016).

12. The population of Syria is 18.284 million as of 2018 according to worddomatters.info.

13. He neglects, however, to ponder the stubborn tidbit that Turkish citizens are apparently purchasing young Syrian girls as wives.

14. Syrian immigrants cannot go to Turkish Universities without passing a separate university entrance exam to qualify. However, there is a limited quota for all foreign national students.

Additional information

Funding

I received no funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Duygu Onay-Coker

Duygu Onay-Coker obtained her Master's degree from Ankara University in Systematic Philosophy and Logic. She received her PhD degree from Ankara University in Journalism in 2016. Her PhD dissertation was on the possibilities of the Paul Ricoeur Philosophy in the context of the ethical problems of mainstream and alternative media. In 2013-2014, she carried out part of her PhD research at Boston College, USA as a visiting scholar with Professor Richard Kearney. She has been giving courses on Critical Media Studies at TED University since 2016.