Özet:

This study aims to understand the presentation of immigrants in the media within the context of COVID-19 pandemic through examples from Turkey. The main problematic of this study consists of how COVID-19 pandemic affect the immigrants; what kind of problems the immigrants face in pandemic conditions; how the immigrants are presented in the media within the context of COVID 19; and how immigrants are treated in the media under pandemic conditions in Turkey. In this sense, as the borders were closed along with the pandemic, it was observed that the immigrants cannot perform remigration, apart from migration. Because of the pandemic, the immigrants became unemployed, and faced with economic problems. The fact that digital media in Turkey shows immigrants as the source of problems led to an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. It was observed that migrants were presented as carriers of the virus in digital media in Turkey. It was seen that the Syrians in Turkey were presented in the digital media as Syrian, refugee, asylum seeker, dependent on Turkey, supported by Turkey, exempted from laws, disregarding the rules, exempted from punishment, perturbator, unemployed, unprotected, exposing to violence, doomed, virus carriers, diseased and risky people. Although Syrians in Turkey were seen as the source of problems in the digital media, the fact that Turkey is home to millions of Syrian immigrants shows that Turkey is not an anti-immigrant country. In the face of the manipulation of migrants by the media and the production of disinformation-based news, it was observed that Turkey took care of Syrian and Afghan migrants in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic and produced solutions to their problems. Although Turkey hosted different migration movements and different immigrant identities from past to present, it was seen that the media’s perspective on immigrants was realized in a way that is disconnected from the historical and sociological reality in question.

Anahtar Kelimeler: