Violence Against Refugees and the Turkish Mainstream Media

Abstract

The Syrian Civil War is the last and most bloody episode of Arab Spring, and at the same time is an information war between two imperialist sides: pro-Russian Eurasianist and pro-Western “Freedom Fighter.” The aim of this study is to show the representation of the violence committed against refugees as it is presented in the Turkish media. The analysis is done in the context of the 2015 European migrant crisis in the EU. The sample of analysis was made from news published in the Turkish mainstream/ pro-government media. The study uses Marxist semiotics discourse analysis and has sought to identify the parts of the information war in the structure (economic and political relations of the media) and position (on ISIS, on ISIS attacks in Turkey and the controversial EU–Turkey refugee deal) within the Turkish media.