top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now

Refugee Crisis in Turkey: Exploring the Public Perception and Patterns on Twitter

by Baris Yazici 
2022 Digital Humanities Summer Scholar

Fact sheet about the refugee crisis in Turkey

Methodology

Public perception of the refugee crisis

Responses to the refugee crisis

Limitations & Suggestions

Works Cited

Fact Sheet

According to official sources...​

  • “Turkey hosts the world’s largest refugee population with 3.7 million Syrians under temporary protection and over 320,000 refugees and asylum-seekers under international protection” (UNHCR Turkey 2022).

  • The share of refugees compared to its total population is highest in Kilis with 42.8% (Refugees Foundation 2022).

  • The share of refugees in the EU is 0.6% of its total population. For Turkey, the number is 4.4% (European Commission 2022).

Methodology & Tools

  • Twitter’s API, R Studio, and Voyant were used.

  • Approximately 35,000 tweets were pulled and analyzed.

  • Frequency, content, and rhetoric analysis was conducted.

Fact Sheet

Public Perception of the Refugee Crisis in Turkey

Perception of Number of Refugees

​Between June 8th-16th, there were 248 tweets talking about how many million refugees there are in Turkey, which was searched using the keyword “there are … million refugees”.

Out of 237 people...

  • 110 think the number is 10 million (or more depending on how they used the number). For example, they may say “there are 10 million refugees in Turkey” or “there are more than 10 million refugees in Turkey”. 

  • 32 think the number is 3 million.

  • 28 think the number is 5 million.

  • 27 think the number is 20 million.

  • 19 think the number is 15 million.

  • 13 think the number is 4 million.

  • 7 think the number is 12 million.

  • 1 thinks the number is 30 million.

​

Almost half of the people in the dataset believes that the true number of refugees in Turkey is 10 million!

​

  • 11% → 20 million

  • 11% → 12 or 15 million

  • 46% → 10 million

  • 12% → 5 million

  • 19% → 3 or 4 million

​

What does this mean?

People don’t trust official sources, as well as news sites.​​​

@TueGder4 on 06.15.2022: “I don't want refugees in my country. I don't want to hear any logic, idea or excuse to host 10 million refugees. I do not trust the statements of any institution of the government.”

Perception of Who Refugees Are

2016: “Social Representations of Social Media Users toward Syrian Refugees in Turkey” (Özdemir and Öner-Özkan)

Refugees are described by social media users as:

  • Fake war victim

  • Beggar

  • Terrorist

  • Rogue

  • Traitor

  • Stranger 

  • Looter

  • Bully

  • Someone who causes disorder

  • Insurgent

​

2021: “Othering Through Hate Speech: An Analysis of Hate Typology Against Refugees on Twitter” (Alikılıç and Gökaliler)

 

People use words like “traitor, thief, coward, murderer, terrorist” when talking about refugees on Twitter. These words were also very frequent in the tweets I analyzed.

​

2022: There are newly emerging patterns.

​

3079 tweets that used “#ÜlkemdeSığınmacıİstemiyorum” (“#Idon’twantrefugeesinmycountry”) were collected. Out of the 3079, 214 were referring to refugees as: 

​

  • Harasser: 96/3079

  • Pervert: 53/3079

  • Immoral: 17/3079

  • Rapist: 48/3079

​​

8000 tweets that used the keyword “taciz” (“harassment”) were collected from 06.12 to 06.18. 1277 out of 8000 tweets were referring to below mentioned groups when tweeting about harassment. 

 

  • Afghan: 397

  • Syrian: 354

  • Foreign national: 105

  • Immigrant: 114

  • Asylum-seeker: 195

  • Pakistani: 112

​

Public Perception

Responses to the Refugee Crisis in Turkey

Embracing Racism

484 tweets using the keyword “Irkçıyım” (“I’m racist”) were collected from 06.07 to 06.16.

​

Most frequent themes of the tweets were:

  • Hatred towards refugees without mentioning any reason why

  • Refugees are disturbing social order and cause harm

  • The economic downfall of Turkey is because of refugees

  • Refugees are rapists, perverts etc

​

Why are people racist? Here is their explanation.

 

“Racism is protecting ourselves”

​

@HELN19031 on 06.12.2022: “Where are you people who turn a blind eye and make propaganda? If this is racism, then yes I am racist. I do not want immigrants from any nationality, Afghan or Syrian in my country. The thief, rapist whoever wishes is coming to Turkey.”

@mustafa8381591 on 06.12.2022: “I am racist. Send back all the fugitives and refugees, we are fed up. We are hurting every day. We have to deal with their perverts. We have to protect everyone, our women, our daughters, our sisters. But for some reason, the soldiers and police don't even care.”

@ysn2317 on 06.14.2022 [replying to a video of a foreign national man harassing a woman]: “Anyone who sees this and does not tremble with anger is a son of a bitch. If this is racism, I'm a fucking racist... 🤬”

@bahri_kc on 06.14.2022 [replying to a video of a refugee punching a woman]: “Am I racist? I am racist against all those who disturb people's peace, those who prevent them from living their daily life, those who cause material, moral or physical harm.”

​

Victory Party and Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ: Who are they?​

From 06.06 to 06.15, 22161 tweets that use one of the keywords “Afghan, Syrian, Pakistani, refugee, asylum-seeker, #Idon’twantrefugeesinmycountry, immigrant” were collected. Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ was in the top 5 words used most frequently (and the only politician on the list).

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Screen Shot 2022-07-12 at 18.53_edited.png

The Victory Party is a far-right nationalist, anti-refugee, Kemalist political party in Turkey founded in 2021 under the leadership of Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ.

Their motto: “Victory Party will come, and the refugees will go!”

​

Understanding the Views of the Supporters of Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ
From 06.07 to 06.15, 766 tweets that use the word “Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ” or tagged him were collected and analyzed. 

Some of Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ supporters interpret his views in a more radical manner than Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ's original views

​

  • @cipliyim on 2022-06-07: “If #ÜmitözdaÄŸ becomes the new power of the country, he will sentence many people to death”.

  • @MesutAkko11 on 2022-06-14: “I don't want PKK in parliament. HDP should be closed. The CHP administration should resign completely.”

  • @HalklarB on 2022-06-12: “In my country, I do not want not only asylum seekers, but also politicians, journalists, funders, who want refugees.”

​

There exists a fallacy that Ümit ÖzdaÄŸ can hundred percent resolve “every” issue

​

  • @ZPBasiskele on ​​2022-06-09: “The Victory Party is the only party that has the ability, program and will to produce solutions to all the problems in Turkey.”

  • @MTANRIKULUU on 2022-06-13: “Let these men come to power, there will be no refugees left. Agriculture will peak.”

  • @mahmutyldran2 on 2022-06-13:  “It's easy to send 8 million refugees, but it will get harder as their population grows. Then the economy, then the Terror will all be resolved. Just be with us @umitozdag @zaferpartisi”

  • @nilgunsadikoglu on 2022-06-10: “I support the victory party because I want to walk the streets without being harassed.” 

Responses to Refugee Crisis

Limitations and Suggestions

  • The data is efficient in showing the trends in social media users’ responses to the refugee crisis, but it is only from Twitter, thus (at least for now) cannot be generalized to the general population.

  • Data is from a short period of time, so the study should be replicated to get more accurate results.

  • Twitter can be used to understand the public opinion instead of huge, costly surveys.  

  • Findings of this study can be supported by surveys and/or experiments.

Limitations
Works Cited

Works Cited

bottom of page