Represantation of immigrant in the series Germany: The case of Dogs of Berlin

The concept of representation is a process of meaning. It is a practice in which the indirect relationship of language with thought is displayed. This practice can be provided by creating identities of meaning when applied to media texts. Especially television series are effective media texts in terms of using image and sound together, appealing to a wide audience, and editing the characters and events as desired; in addition, they are areas where representation practice is frequently exhibited. The issue that is focused on this research is how immigrants are presented in a negative way in the Netflix series called the Dogs of Berlin. The German-made Dogs of Berlin series was chosen as the research area. The aim of the study is to reveal what values and judgments of immigrants are represented in the Dogs of Berlin series published on Netflix, and to contribute from an intercultural communication perspective to the studies that explain how media texts construct or re-present the identities that give meaning to people. In this context, the scope of the research is the Dogs of Berlin series and thirty-eight immigrant characters which are represented in the series. The method of this research has a qualitative pattern. Descriptive analysis technique is used to analyze the data and the representation codes in the series are evaluated in the context of the created categories. Crime, social cohesion, mood, occupation, family relations, environment, class and others are created as categories and all of the thirty eight characters are analysed by their favorable and unfavorable behaviours in these categories. The findings of the study are discussed by the immigrant representation, in the process of the discussion the concept of "representation" by Stuart Hall and the concept of "orientalism" by Edward Said are utilized. In the conclusion, the values represented by the immigrant characters in the series are included. In the series, the immigrant character is represented as someone who is brunette by color and has dirty beard, and is engaged in professions that don't have any benefit to society and commits crimes and is angry mode all the time and lives in the ghetto.