Portraying Immigration within Communication Strategies: The Case of Turkey from Different Perspectives

The number of immigrants has reached over 50 million people for the first time since the Second World War. This tendency seems to increase because of long term conflicts and disadvantageous economic, social, and political instability in some regions of the world. The people who live in these regions decide to immigrate to the other areas which are expected to offer advantageous living conditions. One of the regions where current immigration mobility is the most intensely experienced is Syria where the Civil War has continued since 2011. More than 5 million people had to leave Syria to go the European central regions with the expectations of having advantageous conditions to survive with their families. During this immigration mobility, Turkey is one of the main destinations for the immigrants to go to other European centres. According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of refugees has reached over 3.9 million people in Turkey. Thus, Turkey hosts the world’s largest number of refugees and asylum-seekers in the world. This issue as the most tragic humanity problem of the 21st century has been widely discussed in national and international arena. This issue is constantly covered in the printed and visual media due to its importance. With regard to developments and public policies related with the immigration, the media has an important place to inform public and create public awareness. In this study, we aim to analyse the representation of the migration and of the public policies on migration in the media. Especially for collecting data on the media coverage of public policies on migration, we examine the news which were published in the period between April 2014-December 2016, in which the agreement on readmission of migrants signed by Turkey and European Union was rediscussed publicly. In the context of the study, the focus will be on the statements made by the political authorities and the public administrators regarding the issue in the period specified, as well as the media coverage of public policies and discussions on immigration and refugees. In line with the aim of the study, the research data will be collected from the online editions of four newspapers, Hurriyet, Sabah, Cumhuriyet and Yenicag newspapers, which have different editorial policies. The data obtained within the study will be analyzed by quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The concluding part of the study is reserved for discussions and recommendations based on the findings of the research.