Abstract:

This study aims to reveal the general perception of Syrian asylum seekers who immigrated to Turkey due to the war in Syria within the scope of the Twitter social media platform before the Turkish society. For this purpose, firstly, the importance of the Syrian asylum seekers issue was revealed. Then the role of social media in creating the perception of Syrian asylum seekers was emphasized. In the data collection part of the study, tweets sent in May 2021 containing the keyword “Suriyeli” (Syrian in Turkish) and referring to Syrian asylum seekers were examined. In the analysis part, the Maxqda qualitative data analysis program was used. Tweets are initially divided into positive and negative perceptions. Then, the encoded tweets were divided into categories and analyzed using the content analysis method so that their causes and nature were revealed. As a result, it has been shown that the Turkish people have a “negative” and “discontent” perception of Syrian asylum seekers to a large extent. In the beginning, the reasons for this, there are perceptions that Syrian asylum seekers are very numerous and that being outnumbered leads to various security, economic and social problems.

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