Syrian migrant discourse and 2023 general elections: A study on Turkish news media's X (Twitter) posts

Citizens follow social events through the news media. Accordingly, especially during political election periods, news media transform into public spaces where social issues are discussed and solutions are proposed, just like the agoras in ancient Greek cities. News media's evaluations of social discussions play an important role in the formation of public opinion. In the case of Türkiye, one of these discussion topics is Syrian migrants. In this study, the Syrian migrant discourse of the Turkish news media during the general elections held in Türkiye in 2023 was analyzed in the X platform sample. The news obtained from news organizations representing the Turkish news media were analyzed. As a result, the Turkish news media's emphasis on the number of Syrian migrants was evaluated as remarkable. It was observed that Syrian migrant news was predominantly structured with a balanced perspective. The publicly financed news media has remained largely silent on the issue of Syrian migrants. This silence brought the public functions and journalistic reflexes of the news media into question. In the last instance, it was observed that the political economy and ideological asymmetry in the Turkish news media played a decisive role in shaping the Syrian migrant discourse.