Perception of Syrian asylum seekers and nationalism in Turkey: the case of Ekşi Sözlük

In this thesis, the Syrian refugee perception in "Ekşi Sözlük" and the main reasons of this perception are examined. Firstly, a literature review was made to determine the control variables for the study and then the main arguments of the thesis was presented. The main hypothesis of this study is that nationalism in which Billig's concept of 'Banal Nationalism' is included is expected to be the primary cause of negative attitudes towards asylum seekers. The 'Flagging Nationalism' which can be distinguished easily as well as banal nationalism which cannot be recognized easily will be used to determine nationalism. In addition, the process between nationalism and negative attitudes will be explained with the help of Allport's concept of 'Scapegoat', Social Identity Theory and Young's concept of 'The Logic of Masculinist Protection' in the thesis. In order to test the hypotheses, the methods of content and discourse analysis were used. The analysis of the results showed that the primary reason behind the negative attitudes towards asylum seekers is nationalism and in the process between nationalism and negative perception, scapegoating asylum seekers, emphasizing gender roles and creating fake victimization for inhabitant society is very important.