The representation of Syrian refugees in newspapers: Analysis of content with priming and framing approaches

By grounding on priming and framing approaches as defined in the political communication literature, this study examines representation of Syrian refugees in Turkey's newspapers. The newspapers, as sample, have been identified as Hürriyet, Yeni Şafak and Sözcü -respectively main stream, pro-government and opposition- in terms of their ideological distance and circulation data. Because it provides more data than its printed versions, the news -which are related to Syrian refugees covered in 2016- in the websites of three newspapers are taken as data and this data is examined through content analysis method. It has been understood from the data acquired during the process of research that the newspapers make news about the Syrian refugees by determining according to the government agenda. Accordingly, the news dominated by episodic framing are reported by the newspapers based on their own ideological distance. This situation, due to the fact that the agenda of the Syrian refugees is not in the forefront, leads both to the government not to find a solution for unrealized situation and the public opinion's unawareness with regard to the issue. It has also been identified in this study that a small number of newspapers have used human-interest framing in order to bring in emotional perspective yet there remains a confusion with regard to the status of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Keywords: Media – Newspapers, Syrian Refugees, Representation, Content Analysis, Priming - Framing.