The effects of ideological differences and changing political atmosphere on the representation of Syrian refugees in the media

This thesis is aimed to find out how framing styles and discourses of two ideologically different newspapers on Syrian refugees were transformed with the effect of the political atmosphere in Turkey. Yeni Şafak (pro-government) and Sözcü (opposite) newspapers have been selected for this study. Thirty news from each newspaper were collected and the method of critical discourse analysis was used to examine the detailed meanings of the words used in the news. The periods analyzed in the study are 2012-2015, 2016-2019 and 2019-2020 when political atmosphere changes in general and different phases of the Syrian civil war were experienced. When these three periods were compared, it was observed that discourses of Yeni Şafak and Sözcü newspapers varied until the third period. Sözcü objected the stay of Syrian refugees in Turkey in the first and second periods while Yeni Şafak supported the stay of Syrian refugees in Turkey in the first two periods. It was found out that despite their different ideological stances, both of the newspapers converged with each other on adopting a nationalist discourse in the third period (2019-2020). In addition, the political atmosphere during said periods played an important role in the transformation of the discourse of both newspapers on Syrian refugees. Regarding such a transformation, it has been observed that the government's immigration policies are effective due to the changing political atmosphere. As a result, the main factor that determines the framing styles and discourses of the newspapers is their ideological stance, but the changing political atmosphere has defined the way newspapers reflect and frame Syrian refugees. Keywords: Syrian Refugees, critical discourse analysis, ideological differences, political atmosphere