About Us
This project aims to mitigate xenophobic discourse in Turkish media and foster inclusion and social cohesion through capacity building training for journalists on Journalism of Tolerance (JT), advocacy programmes and research on xenophobia and media. Although we are initially conducting this project in Turkey, we intend to carry out similar projects in many other countries.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Journalism of Tolerance (JT)
The influx of millions of immigrants, refugees, and other marginalised groups into safe havens in recent decades due to displacement and refugee movements caused by wars, natural disasters, and bad governance has increased the diversity of communities in many countries. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees, which has ushered in different ethnicities, religions, languages, cultures, and lifestyles into Europe and elsewhere, has created a sense of ‘otherness’ towards them among local communities. Furthermore, governments’ welfare projects and assistance to ensure the well-being of the immigrants, refugees, minorities and other marginalised groups creates a radical trend in the sense of ‘otherness’. Locals perceive the inclusion of immigrants, refugees and other marginalised groups into their society as a danger and threat to their identity and life. This sense of ‘otherness’ creates right-wing extremism against immigrants, refugees and other marginalised groups, and is used as a fertile ground for power politics. Right-wing extremism is an ideology that opposes fostering equity and equality for all people in a multicultural society.
Xenophobia is a right-wing trait, which arises as a result of a feeling that the rights to benefit of the natives from the government is being eroded by the prerogatives of the foreign people. According to Heckmann (2001), xenophobia is an ideological thought, which manifests into activities against people of foreign ethnic backgrounds. Discourse is considered to be the favoured vehicle of ideology (Van Dijk 2001). Accordingly, discourse acts as a conduit for the onset and function of xenophobia, between political parties, movements, media, activists and intellectuals.
This conceptual insight, on the one hand, underlines the involvement of the media in constructing and disseminating xenophobia, and on the other hand, highlights the power of the media to address discrimination and intolerance to create a society of tolerance, inclusion and solidarity- the former is a result of the failings of conventional journalism, also described as Human Wrongs Journalism (Shaw, 2012, p. 47) that ‘reinforces instead of challenging the problematic representational imbalances in society…the concentration of power in the hands of the few resourceful people and political communities in global society’, while the latter is facilitated by the practice of Journalism of Tolerance (JT) grounded in the principles of Human Rights Journalism, Peace Journalism and Journalism for Social Change to address both direct and indirect violence with the aim to abolish society’s power imbalance.
JT asks the questions of who? what? where? and how? through critical, diagnostic, and intervention-centric methods within the critical constructivist epistemology to pursue ‘pragmatic objectivity’ (Senthan, 2021) as a tool towards the goals of truth, fair judgment and ethical action, and hence helps create a society where tolerance, inclusion and solidarity prevail.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
What is the purpose of the workshop on JT?
There has been a significant rise in xenophobic rhetoric by the Turkish media, as a consequence of increased immigration in the recent past. The mainstream media has been criticised for reinforcing negative stereotypes and attitudes based on religion, ethnicity, language, culture, colour and origin. The Turkish media not only reinforces the prejudice against these marginalised groups but also subjects them to feelings of danger and defencelessness. A survey conducted under the International Social Survey Programme reported that 65 per cent of respondents associate immigrants with increasing crime rates in Turkey. With over fifty per cent of the respondents blaming immigrants for taking away jobs of the locals and threatening Turkish culture, the anti-immigrant perceptions of the public is glaring. This hate materialises itself through outbursts of social lynching and targeted discrimination and reinforces the polarisation in society. The result of this trend is the marginalisation of refugees and immigrants and the rise in mistrust and hatred against these minority groups, which has become a major challenge for immigrant inclusion and integration and protection of their human rights. Distorted stereotypical representations of asylum seekers and refugees in the media have implications for the promotion and protection of the rights of people seeking sanctuary (Shaw, 2012). The more the refugees are treated as the ‘other’, the more their rights are likely to be violated. On the other hand, political scientists reckon that these anti-immigrant opinions emerge from the locals viewing them as “threats.” The greater they perceive the threats to be, the more there is an increase in their anti-immigrant attitudes and xenophobic behaviours that lead to misunderstanding, polarisation, intolerance and social tensions.
This problematic situation can be remedied by producing information in the media from the perspective of ‘human rights and humanity as news values’ and disseminating them effectually. Since discourse is the vehicle of power/knowledge processing, a qualitative change is necessary for the practice of journalism in the media to address the power imbalance between communities where xenophobia, discrimination and inequalities are rife, thus creating a society of solidarity, tolerance and inclusiveness. It is against this backdrop that a series of workshops have been organised to build the capacity of the journalists on Tolerance Journalism. These workshops will focus on the following six areas. 1. Xenophobia and its effects 2. Comparative perspectives of xenophobia around the world 3. Xenophobia in the Turkish media 4. How to avoid xenophobia in the media? 5. Reporting about immigrants and refugees 6. Introduction to Human Rights Journalism and Peace Journalism.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Why are we organising an international conference?
As part of the “Advocacy” element, we have made all the arrangements to host an international conference under the title “Xenophobia in the Media” with a special focus on the issue of rising xenophobia against immigrants and refugees around the world. The conference will take place in a hybrid format (online and in Turkey at Sakarya University) on 30 and 31 May 2022.
The conference is intended to climax a series of workshops for journalists in Turkey in May 2022 entitled ‘Capacity building for Turkish Journalists on Journalism of Tolerance’ organised jointly by Sakarya University and Centre for Media, Human Rights, and Peacebuilding (CMHRP) with the support of the U.S. Mission Turkey Grants Programme.
The conference will focus on addressing the following objectives:
- Discuss and understand the dynamics of the xenophobia construction in the media around the world with a special focus on Turkey, the effect of xenophobic discourse of the media and how it works, the nexus between xenophobia construction of the media and the social, economic and political conditions, and the impact of the xenophobic discourse of the media on immigrants and host communities.
- Bring together the experience of others and share information and knowledge of research on xenophobia and media from all over the world.
- Deliberate on the means of overcoming the challenges and difficulties that have been identified in combatting xenophobia in the media.
- Explore effective strategies and viable methodologies for preventing xenophobia in the media around the world.
- Establish a network for cooperation and coordination between academics, researchers and journalists studying media, refugees and xenophobia in Turkey and other parts of the world.
- Collect the shared experiences and theoretical reflections with the aim of publishing a book on “Xenophobia in the Media”.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
What research are we doing?
Xenophobia against immigrants and refugees is growing rapidly in many communities and has become a major threat to human rights and social integration. Discourse operates as functional units for xenophobic expressions. As the media plays a vital role in constructing and carrying xenophobic discourse, it is essential to have a clear knowledge and understanding of the functional relationship between the media and xenophobia to effectively devise policy measures to mitigate its risks and promote inclusion. In Turkey, one of the countries that host the largest number of refugees, xenophobia against immigrants and refugees is on the rise, causing intolerance in the community.
This study is a multi-theoretical perspective analysis examining the relationship between media’s threat image construction about refugees, xenophobic expressions and relative deprivation in Turkey. The Turkish media’s reporting of the government’s move to grant university admission to Syrian students in Turkey is used as a case study approach for this research, and the concepts of ‘accessibility effect’ and ‘applicability effect’ of agenda-setting theory are used to supplement the research framework in the study.
This study is a critical research genre intended to cause a positive impact on media’s reporting about immigrants in Turkey. While this research will be published as journal articles and a book, its research findings will serve as a basis for preparing reading materials, training manuals and other documents and guide manuals for the workshops of this project mentioned above. This research will also serve as the main source for an exclusive guide manual about reporting immigrants in Turkey, to be drafted as part of this project.