Mediatization of Syrian refugees in Turkey: polarized politics, ruptured society

• Autor(a) principal: Simsek, Emre
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/23395
• topic: Syrian refugees; Political polarisation; Media representation; Secular Kemalism; Religious conservatism; Refugiados sírios; Polarização política; Representação mediática; Kemalismo secular; Conservadorismo religioso

The tragic Syrian War, among its devastating impacts thtoughout the region and the globe, had also resulted in displacement of Syrian people from their homelands and had them seek refuge in the neighboring countries and to a lesser extent to other parts of the World. Turkey has been the major recipient of Syrian refugees, which has eventually become the top country with the total number of refugees hosted. An unprecedented experience of hosting more than four million Syrian refugees, has been creating turmoils at the social and political levels, adding further cracks and deepining the existing divides in Turkish politics and society. The demographic, economic, political and social consequences of this experience have especially been detrimental to the secular-religious divide in Turkey, turning the pre-existing rift between the ruling religious conservative government and the secular Kemalist opposition. Currently the Syrian refugee issue is overwhelmingly an ideological battle between these two political poles as well as its aforementioned dimensions. This research attempts to reveal the approach of these two poles towards the Syrian refugee issue and how they instrumentalize the refugee issue for political leverage. In light of the historical divide on the axis of seculars and religious conservatives the research employs a media analysis of two newspaper outlets that are strongly aligned in respective ideological positions. How do the different segments of Turkish society react to the Syrian refugee issue; what political agenda do the ruling and opposing parties lead to instrumentalize the presence of refugees; what is the role of the media in promoting the political agendas and fuelling an ideological battle?