KAMU TAHAYYÜLÜNDE KADIN MÜLTECİLERİN TOPLUMSAL DIŞLANMASI: YETERSİZ TEMSİL VE KİŞİLİKSİZLEŞTİRME

Bu çalışma, Suriyeli kadın mülteci haber görsellerini ve görsellerde kullanılan temsil pratiklerinin kadın mültecileri nasıl konumlandırdığını, ve bu temsil pratiklerinin kadın mültecilerin toplumsal dışlanmasına yönelik işleyişlerini ele almaktadır. Çalışmada, 2015 yılında en çok okunan dört Türk gazetesinde yayınlanan Suriyeli kadın mülteci fotoğrafları incelenmektedir. İçerik analizi ve görsel analiz yöntemleri kullanılarak görsellerdeki temsil öğeleri - özne, tema, kamera uzaklığı, kamera açısı, yer/mekan - incelenmiş ve kadın mültecilerin görselleştirilme şekilleri ortaya çıkarılmıştır. Çalışmanın bulguları, Suriyeli kadın mültecilerin yetersiz temsil edildiğini ve temsil edildikleri nadir anlarda da temsil edilme şekillerinin onları uzak, pasif, ve kitleler arasında kişiliksizleştirilmiş özneler olarak konumlandırdığını ortaya koymaktadır. Kırılgan kadın grubu içerisinde yer alan kadın mültecilerin yetersiz temsili ve kişiliksizleştirilmesi, 1) kadın mültecilerin bireysel hayat hikayelerini ve çeşitli yaşam deneyimlerini kamunun tahayyülünden silmekte ve kadın mülteci eylemliliğini reddetmekte, 2) kadın mültecilerin karşılaştıkları sorunların kamusal alanda tartışılmasını önlemekte, bunun sonucunda da 3) kadın mültecilere yönelik toplumsal anlayış ve empati oluşumunu engellemektedir. Bu açıdan çalışma, Suriyeli mülteci kadınların temsil şekillerinin toplumsal kabulleri için bir engel teşkil ettiğini savunmaktadır.

SOCIAL EXCLUSION OF WOMEN REFUGEES IN PUBLIC IMAGINATION: UNDERREPRESENTATION AND DEPERSONALISATION

This paper studies the news images of Syrian women refugees and the representational practices employed in them to question how these portraying practices position women refugees, and how they actually act as ways of socially excluding them in the host community. Analysed are the newspaper photographs of Syrian women refugees published in top-selling four Turkish newspapers in 2015. Using a content analysis fed by visual analysis, the ways of visually portraying women refugees is studied by investigating the representational elements and practices in the images, which are subject, theme, camera distance, camera angle and location. The findings reveal that Syrian women refugees are underrepresented and in the rare cases of their appearance, the way they are portrayed position them as distant, passive and depersonalised subjects as part of the masses. The underrepresentation and depersonalisation of women refugees, who are among the vulnerable women group 1) erase the individual life stories and varied lived experiences of women refugees from public imagination and deny the female refugee agency, 2) prevent the emergence of the public talk on the women refugee problems, which in turn 3) prevent the formation of a social understanding and empathy towards women refugees. Thus, it is argued that the ways in which Syrian women refugees are portrayed in the media act as barriers for their social inclusion.

___

  • Amores, J.J., Arcila-Calderón, C. and González-de-Garay, B. (2020). The Gendered Representation of Refugees Using Visual Frames in the Main Western European Media. Gender Issues, (37), 291–314.
  • Amores, J. J., Arcila, C., and Stanek, M. (2019). Visual Frames of Migrants and Refugees in the Main Western European Media. Economics & Sociology, 12(3), 147–161.
  • Alhayek, K. (2014). Double Marginalization: The Invisibility of Syrian Refugee Women’s Perspectives in Mainstream Online Activism and Global Media. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4), 696–700.
  • Bell, P. (2001). Content Analysis of Visual Images. in Handbook of Visual Analysis (pp. 10-34). London: Sage.
  • Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books
  • Bleiker, R.; Campbell, D.; Hutchison, E. and Nicholson, X. (2013). The Visual Dehumanisation of Refugees, Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 398-416.
  • Bock, M. A. (2017). Visual Communication Effects: Photography. In The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
  • Breen, M. J., Haynes, A., and Devereux, E. (2006). Fear, Framing and Foreigners: The Othering of Immigrants in the Irish Print Media. International Journal of Critical Psychology, 16, 100–121.
  • Chouliaraki, L., and Stolic, T. (2017). Rethinking Media Responsibility in the Refugee ‘Crisis’: A Visual Typology of European News. Media, Culture and Society, 39(8), 1162–1177.
  • Doğanay, Ü. and Çoban Keneş, H. (2016a). Yazılı Basında Suriyeli ‘Mülteciler’: Ayrımcı Söylemlerin Rasyonel ve Duygusal Gerekçelerinin İnşası. Mülkiye Dergisi, 40(1), 143-184.
  • Doğanay, Ü. and Çoban Keneş, H. (2016b). Hak Temelli Bakış Açısının Yokluğu ve Ayrımcı Söylemler Açısından Gazete Haberlerinde Mülteci Kadınlar. In Haber Okumaları (pp. 252-294). İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları.
  • Efe, İ. (2019). A Corpus-Driven Analysis of Representations of Syrian Asylum Seekers in the Turkish Press 2011–2016, Discourse & Communication, 13(1), 48–67.
  • Erdoğan, M. (2015). Syrians in Turkey: Social Acceptance and Integration Research. Hacettepe University Migrations and Politics Research Center. Retrieved online at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/46184 on 05.10.2022.
  • Global Media Monitoring Project (2020). Who Makes the News? Retrieved online at https://whomakesthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/GMMP2020.ENG_.FINAL_.pdf on 29.12.2022.
  • Geçici Koruma (2022) Göç İdaresi Başkanlığı. Retrieved online at https://www.goc.gov.tr/gecici-koruma5638 on 05.10.2022. Greenwood, K. and Thomson, T. (2019). Framing the Migration: A Study of News Photographs Showing People Fleeing War and Persecution. International Communication Gazette, 1-24.
  • Greer, C. (2007). News Media, Victims and Crime. in Victims, Crime and Society. (pp. 20-49). London: Sage Publications. Humprecht, E., and Esser, F. (2017). A Glass Ceiling in the Online Age? Explaining the Underrepresentation of Women in Online Political News. European Journal of Communication, 32(5), 439–456.
  • Johnson, H. L. (2011). Click to Donate: Visual Images, Constructing Victims and Imagining the Female Refugee. Third World Quarterly, 32(6), 1015-1037.
  • Malkki, L. H. (1997). Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism and Dehistoricization. in Siting Culture: The Shifting Anthropological Object. (pp. 223-254). New York/London: Routledge.
  • Mannik, L. (2012). Public and Private Photographs of Refugees: The Problem of Representation. Visual Studies, 27(3), 262-276. Mert Elmas, Ş. and Paksoy, A. F. (2020). Türk Basınında Suriyeli Sığınmacı Kadınların Temsili. Türkiye İletişim Araştırmaları Dergisi, (35), 184-210.
  • Narlı, N., and Özaşçılar, M. (2021). Representation of Syrian Women and Children Refugees’ Health in Turkish Daily Newspapers. Journal of International Migration & Integration, (22), 167–181.
  • Narlı, N., Özaşçılar, M and Turkan Ipek, I.Z. (2020). Turkish Daily Press Framing and Representation of Syrian Women Refugees and Gender-Based Problems: Implications for Social Integration. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies. 18(1), 1-21.
  • Ross, K., and Carter, C. (2011). Women and News: A Long and Winding Road. Media, Culture and Society, 33(8), 1148–1165.
  • Syria Regional Refugee Response. (2022). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2022). Retrieved online at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria on 25.12.2022.