Media's view of Turkey's external migration policy within the scope of the migration problem between Turkey and the European Union: The example of foreign media organizations in Turkey

The global increase in international migration, which has become one of the biggest problems of today, has led to increased interest in this issue and more studies on migration. Cooperation between national and international organizations on migration has increased and global agreements have been signed. In transnational migrations to Turkey, there are nearly 6 million Syrian citizens and around 340,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers from different countries, especially from neighboring countries (Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq), according to the data of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 2023). It is stated that more than 98% of Syrian refugees live in 81 cities across Turkey. With various agreements made between Turkey and the European Union (EU), the passage of refugees to Europe has been stopped, at least partially, and a solution has been found in this way. However, this solution came to a halt after 36 Turkish soldiers were martyred in Idlib, Syria, on February 28, 2020, and Turkey announced that it would not stop refugees trying to go west. During this period, many speculative news were produced by the media and reflected to the public, and an information pollution occurred in the media. The reason for this information pollution is that media organizations take different positions from each other for ideological reasons in this conflict between Turkey and the EU. In this study, news about Turkey's immigration policy on the news sites of foreign media organizations broadcasting in Turkey are examined within the scope of framing theory. The news in question will be analyzed within the framework of critical discourse analysis. The sample of the study consists of United States-based Voice Of America (VOA) Turkish, Russian Federation-based Sputnik Turkey, England-based British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Turkish, Germany-based Deutsche Welle (DW) Turkish and EU-based Euronews Turkish news sites. This study aims to determine the attitudes of news sites regarding Turkey's immigration policies and to determine the similarities of the news they make within the scope of these policies with the policies they follow within the said policies of the countries where they are headquartered. Examining the impartiality of news about Turkey's immigration policies of news sites published in different countries constitutes the importance of the study. As a result of the research, it was determined that foreign media organizations have parallels with the immigration policies of the countries they cover in their news content.