The Portrait of Syrians: Media Framing across Electoral Cycle in Türkiye

Creative Commons License

Çetin C.

SIYASAL-JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCES, cilt.35, sa.1, ss.15-35, 2026 (ESCI, TRDizin)

Özet

This study investigates the visual framing of Syrian refugees in Turkish media during electoral cycles marked by intensified political rhetoric. As migration becomes a polarizing issue, media may contribute to the politicization of refugee representations, reflecting or reinforcing dominant depictions. Using quantitative visual analysis, this study examines 3,748 news articles published between 2014–2023 by three major Turkish news sources (Habertürk, Hürriyet, and TRT News) between 2014 and 2023, including two non-election years (2020–2021). Images were coded into five categories to track shifts across elections. The findings show a statistically significant increase in ‘criminal’ and ‘dehumanized’ portrayals, particularly during local elections, indicating a patterned shift in visual framing that coincides with periods of heightened political attention to migration. Media outlets diverge in approach: mainstream newspapers often amplify security-focused narratives, while the state-run TRT emphasizes humanitarian frames, portraying Türkiye in ways that emphasize its capacity to protect vulnerable refugees. These distinctions demonstrate variations in editorial tendencies that may reflect sensitivity to political context. This study contributes to migration and media scholarship by offering empirical insight into how visual tropes—such as criminalization, dehumanization, and victimhood—are mobilized differently across electoral cycles and media outlets, shaping how refugee politicization is constructed visually.