Perceptions of Syrians in Social Media: A Review on Youtube Street Interviews

It has been 7 years since Syrian asylum seekers came to Turkey by escaping conflict and negative life conditions in their country. In this process, the host community and Syrian asylum seekers with a population of more than 3.5 million have been engaged in various interactions. Today, new media platforms are emerging as a means of clearly representing this interaction. New media platforms allow positive and negative comments about refugees to be easily accessed from all individuals without being subjected to any censorship due to lack of supervision. Syrian asylum seekers have also recently become one of the topics frequently discussed in these platforms. Within the scope of this, the process of creating a new identity of Syrian asylum seekers and the ability of both host community and newcomer community to adapt to social integration are clearly affected by the new media discourse. Common discourses on these platforms may be a reference point for social integration and cohesion, because negative prejudices of the public are a major obstacle to the successful adaptation of this process and the right steps towards this goal