Abstract
Migration is a phenomenon that has existed since the beginning of human history. The migrations in history were made for such climatic differences, finding better food, and living in more suitable places. However, in the last few centuries, migrations have been mostly carried out for purposes such as wars, conflicts, and adaptation to the new world order. Turkey is a country exposed to migration due to wars in neighboring countries. This study tried to reveal how issues such as migration, immigrants, and refugees, which are considered important problems all over the world in both mainstream and critical news media. The research population consists of all digital newspapers published in Turkey. In this study, Hürriyet, Sabah, and Yenişafak newspapers, such as Cumhuriyet, Evrensel, and Sözcü newspapers, were selected as samples to represent the mainstream media. The news about immigrants in the selected newspapers was examined using the discourse analysis method.
TopIntroduction
Migration has affected humanity in every period of the day. Throughout history, people have migrated for a variety of reasons, such as conflicts and wars, scarcity of food and beverages, and living a better life due to changing climatic conditions. This study explains how migration, immigrant, and refugee phenomena, which are the subject of many interdisciplinary studies, are handled in the news. As a country with increasing migration mobility day by day, it is important to reveal how digital newspapers in Turkey handle migration news and with what discourse they convey it to society. In many previous studies, only those who migrated to Turkey from a certain nation or country were considered. There are studies on how newspapers present the migration to Turkey, especially due to the Afghanistan War in the past and the Syrian War today. In addition, the phenomenon of migration has been discussed in studies concerning various areas of the media. In Koç Akgül et al. (2018) study, websites regarding Syrian refugees were compared. In general, conclusions were reached that the websites were digital media-oriented, fast-traveled information, and had rich content. In Abid et al.'s study (2017), the news language used for Syrian refugees consists of metaphors. In Alp's study (2018), it was investigated whether various discourses regarding Syrian refugees were reproduced in the local press. As a result of the study, it was revealed that local media reproduced various discourses towards Syrian refugees and were effective in this regard. Arcimaviciene and Baglama study (2018) found that most of what is told in the media further deepens the perception of the “outsider” with metaphors and negatively stigmatizes phenomena such as migration and immigrants. Arıdıcı's study (2022) investigated whether Syrian refugees were included in the definitions of a nation in the print media. The most important finding of this study is that nationalism is reproduced in various ways in immigration and Syrians.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Mainstream Media: The widespread and dominant movement of thought shaped by the manipulation of large amounts of people by the state or large capital owners through various mass media.
Critical Media: The general name given to media organizations, institutions and tools that oppose the widely known and consumed media and produce alternatives to it.
News: Information conveyed to the public by mass media about events.
Refugee: Someone who takes refuge in another place or country.
Analysis: The way to get to a conclusion by breaking a topic down into its essential parts, then describing the parts and their relationships.
Migration: The act of individuals leaving their current settlement and moving to another settlement.
Immigrant: People who leave their homeland and migrate to another country to settle.