Research Information System
in: Migration Studies: Eurasian Perspectives, Merve Hazer Yiğit Uyar,Apak Kerem Altıntop,Yaşar Onay, Editor, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, İstanbul, pp.307-324, 2023
Disinformation about immigrants is increasingly being operated on and significantly undermines democracy and the integration process. This study seeks to discuss and reveal the role of disinformation campaigns ruled by actors such as politicians and journalists in the public attitudes toward immigrants in Turkey. Anti-immigrant disinformation campaigns have a long history, however; it has become one of the main determinants of attitudes toward immigrants as a consequence of rising populism and the far-right around the world. Especially, the politicians fed by the polarization and the far-right politics are very insistent on showing that the source of the current economic, political and social problems is that immigrants are coming to their country. One of the main ways to do this is to scapegoat immigrants and hold disinformation campaigns about them.
To uncover anti-immigrant disinformation campaigns, this study will segregate between disinformation and misinformation and develop a model by which we can identify what is and is not disinformation. While disinformation is false content that is intentionally designed to cause harm, make money or gain political influence, misinformation is that person who shares the knowledge or news doesn’t unaware that is false. This conceptualization enables a sharp distinction to be made between the actors who produce disinformation campaigns and unintentionally share misinformation. Thus, in order to unveil the actors creating the disinformation campaign, we will employ content analysis, retrieving data from the fact-checking organization in Turkey, to examine and categorize the false content about immigrants. As a result of the analysis, we will aim to show who carried out the anti-immigration disinformation campaigns and what their purposes are. Identifying the network of actors who operate disinformation campaigns and discovering their targets and goals may provide a framework for tackling and preventing the disinformation that undermine democracy and the integration process.