ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to determine the extent to which individuals’ proximity to the governing party or the opposition affects their discourse on Syrian asylum-seekers in a highly polarized Turkey. This chapter analyzes the tweets of Twitter users in Turkey on Syrian asylum-seekers. A total of 25,000 unique Twitter users and their tweets constitute the extensive dataset presented in this chapter. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used for the data analysis. To determine the political positioning of the Twitter users, their Twitter bios were utilized, while the contents of their tweets were used to analyze their discourse on Syrian asylum-seekers. Using this two-sided perspective, the intention was to provide an understanding of the extent to which the users’ political party identification affected their discourse on Syrian asylum-seekers. The results showed that the sample of Twitter users acted in alignment with the political party that they felt close to. Accordingly, while Twitter users close to the party with a negative attitude toward Syrian asylum-seekers created a negative discourse, those close to the party with a positive attitude created a positive discourse.
