The Pathos in Turkey’s Journalistic Discourse Toward Syrian Migrants
Duygu Öztin PasseratFollowing the civil war that broke out in 2011 in Syria, Turkey has so far welcomed more than 3.5 million Syrians. At the beginning of this migration, Syrians were perceived favorably, because the Turkish people believed that Syrians would go back to their country at the end of the civil war. Unfortunately, this war continues and the Syrians, now numbering 3,609 842 million, have not returned to their country. Meanwhile, the Turkish people face growing socioeconomic problems such as unemployment, inflation, and the Arabization of signs on the streets of the country, creating much more xenophobic and racist feelings and acts toward Syrians. The media has played an important role in the construction of this discourse and this work aims to analyze this discourse. To do this, we will analyze some randomly selected news reports and headlines published between 2014 and 2018 from national and regional newspapers. We will answer the questions: “How are Syrians represented in the newspapers?” “What is the role of media and journalistic discourse in building the positive and/or negative ethos of Syrians?,” and “How does journalistic discourse influence the reader?”
Le pathos dans le discours journalistique en Turquie, vis-à-vis des migrants syriens
Duygu Öztin PasseratA la suite de la guerre civile éclatée en 2011 en Syrie, la Turquie a accueilli jusqu’à présent plus de 3,5 millions de Syriens. Au début de cette migration, les Syriens étaient bien reçus/perçus, car le peuple turc croyait que les Syriens allaient rentrer dans leur pays à la fin de la guerre civile. Malheureusement cette guerre perdure et les Syriens ne sont pas retournés dans leur pays avec en plus le nombre de Syriens qui atteint maintenant les 3, 609 842 millions de personnes. Entre temps le peuple turc confronté à des problèmes socio-économiques grandissants tels que le chômage, l’inflation et l’arabisation des enseignes dans les rues du pays, comment à développer des sentiments et des actes nettement plus xénophobes et racistes envers les syriens. Les médias ont un rôle important dans la construction de ce discours. L’objectif de ce travail est d’analyser ce discours. Pour ce faire, nous allons analyser quelques dépêches et titres choisis aléatoirement entre 2014 et 2018 des journaux nationaux et régionaux. Nous allons répondre aux questions : « Comment les Syriens sont-ils représentés dans les journaux ? », « Quel est le rôle du discours médiatique et journalistique dans la construction de l’éthos positif et/ou négatif des Syriens ? », « Comment le discours journalistique manipule-t-il le lecteur ? ».
Following the civil war that broke out in 2011 in Syria, Turkey has so far welcomed more than 3.5 million Syrians. At the beginning of this migration, Syrians were perceived favorably because Turkish people believed that the Syrians would go back to their country at the end of the civil war. Unfortunately, this war continues and the Syrians, now numbering 3.6 million, have not returned to their country. Since 2014, the Turkish people were confronted with growing socioeconomic problems such as unemployment, inflation and the Arabization of the signs on the streets of the country, which triggered the emergence of a much more xenophobic and racist discourse toward Syrians. The media played an important role in the construction of this discourse. Disseminating information, the ultimate goal of the print media, is a discourse in action and the construction of meaning in the information discourse encompasses a dual process: transformational and transactional processes. In the information process, the context, characterization, storytelling and argumentation of the events play an essential role. This is why the lexicon used in the context or definition of Syrians also shows the point of view of the speaker and the enunciator (or speaker/enunciator) and plays a triggering role in the receiver/reader. This is why there are various appointments of Syrians including archetypes such as guest, migrant, Syrian, refugee etc. Government political actors label them as guests to mitigate the reaction of the Turkish people toward the Syrians to appeal to the feelings of hospitality of the Turks, while the Turkish people call them Syrians (derogatory in this case) or refugees to denigrate and humiliate them.
Moreover, the Syrians, Turkey’s scapegoat, are being used by the government in foreign policy and by the opposition in domestic policy to criticize the government, which is responsible for having conducted this Syrian policy. In this study, we will analyze the role of the media in building this hostile discourse, sometimes resulting in hatred toward Syrians. To do this, we will analyze some randomly selected dispatches and headlines. We will address the questions: “How are Syrians represented in the newspapers?”, “What is the role of media and journalistic discourse in building the positive and/or negative ethos of Syrians?” and “How does journalistic discourse influence the reader?”
The analysis shows that the media, and especially the print media, aware of the emotions and negative perception of Syrians among the Turkish people, build a discourse based on misinformation to be able to influence readers and subsequently provoke racist and xenophobic behaviors toward Syrians. In doing this, it gives importance to legibility, visibility, and dramatization as perfectly defined/described by Charaudeau but it transgresses the stage of intelligibility, the one which, according to Charaudeau, aims to explain events and cases.
