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Earthquake Exclusive Media Monitoring Report

Aftermath of the massive earthquakes that heavily struck southern Turkey, misinformative allegations targeting refugee and migrant communities in the disaster region rapidly spread through diverse media mediums. During this period, the uncontrolled flow of information on social media quickly turned into disinformation and hate speech trends, paving the way for violent attacks and lynch attempts in the region.

2023 Elections Exclusive (First Round) Media Monitoring Report

For the first time in Turkey’s political history, migration policies have become the main discussion topic in an election process and heavily shaped the electoral campaigns of political leaders. This report provides an in-depth analysis on the discourses of the prominent political parties and presidential candidates during the first round of elections. The acquired findings reveal that the anti-immigrant sentiment in Turkey is becoming stronger not only in politics but also among the electorate via social media platforms.

2023 Elections Exclusive (Second Round) Media Monitoring Report

Anti-immigrant sentiment, which grew stronger after the first round of elections, reached its peak in the second round following the politicians’ statements on sending refugees back to their countries. These statements carried the anti-immigrant stance to the center of the election agenda by triggering a radical increase in disinformation and hate speech targeting refugees and immigrants on social media.This report chronologically examines the discourses of prominent political parties and presidential candidates on migration policies and their socio-political reflections on the general audience in Turkey.

Turkey’s Elections at the Arabic Language Media: Comprehensive Analysis on Media Coverage and Discourses

Given its significant impact on the Middle East region and the refugee community, the Arabic language media showed great interest in the 2023 elections in Turkey from the start of the electoral campaigns until the announcement of the final results. This research provides a comprehensive discourse analysis of the election coverage in written, visual, and audio media content, as well as its reflections on the refugee community in social media.

Media Representation of Refugee and Migrants in Turkey

Given its geopolitical location as a transition country, migration has always been on the agenda of Turkey. However, Turkey’s transformation from a transition country to a host country has not always been easy. Over the last years, the country has experienced many incidents in which the prominent anti-refugee/migrant discourse in the media triggered hate attacks, lynch attempts, and violent uprisings targeting refugees and migrants in various regions. Examination of the main discourses in migration reporting is a key to understand this currently rising anti-refugee and migrant statements at the societal level in Turkey. On this basis, the research we’ve conducted in cooperation with Heinrich Böll Stiftung Thessaloniki Greece, aims to provide a general framework illustrating the main representation trends in the reporting of migration-related topics by various media organizations in Turkey. In addition to reporting, MMA has provided visualization and video production support for all the publications of “Along the Balkan Route Research Series” to expand the visibility of these issues in Turkey, Greece, Bosnia Herzegoniva and Crotia

June 2023 Monthly Media Monitoring Report

Following the general elections, June 2023 stood out as a period in which anti-immigrant sentiment gained significant power in Turkey while anti-immigrant protests and hate crimes were frequently featured in the news. In the international migration agenda, the sunken vessel accident at the coast of the Peloponnese took the lives of hundreds of refugees. The news covering the accident described refugees only in numbers, and their representation as human beings remained limited.

July 2023 Monthly Media Monitoring Report

The most prominent development on the July agenda was increasing mass deportations under the current attempt of the government to “combat irregular migration” in Turkey that eventually turned into a witch hunt for refugees and migrants. Meanwhile, the demographic statistics on irregular migration and “Syria is safe now” claims sparked a public discussion following prominent politician’s anti-refugee promises for upcoming local elections.

August 2023 Monthly Media Monitoring Report

Along with the rapid increase in xenophobia, violence and hate attacks targeting refugees and migrants came to the forefront in the agenda of August. During this period, various calls for hate attacks and misinformative discourses disseminated on social media, while the country had witnessed many anti-refugee protests and a rising trend of mass deportations.