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Görsel Tabakalaşma: Birleşik Krallık Medyasında Göçmen ve Mülteci Kadınların Temsilleri

Year 2025, Volume: 9 Issue: Toplumsal Cinsiyet Özel Sayısı, 273 - 292, 27.09.2025
https://doi.org/10.25295/fsecon.1717131

Abstract

Bu makale, Birleşik Krallık medyasındaki göçmen ve mülteci kadınların görsel çerçevelenmesini sistematik olarak incelemektedir. Çalışma kapsamında BBC, Daily Mail, Financial Times ve Metro gibi dört önemli medya kuruluşunda yer alan görseller, siyasi olarak hassas dönemlere denk gelen 20 aylık bir süreç boyunca analiz edilmiştir. Literatürde, göçmen kadınların temsiline yönelik çalışmalarda genellikle mağduriyet ya da güçlenme gibi ikili karşıtlıklar öne çıkarılsa da milliyet, hukuki statü ve ırksallaştırılmış hiyerarşiler gibi kesişimsel farklılıklar büyük ölçüde göz ardı edilmiştir. Bu eksikliği gidermek amacıyla, feminist, postkolonyal ve eleştirel medya teorilerinden beslenen titiz bir görsel içerik analizi yöntemi kullanılarak, görsel çerçevelerin farklı gruplar arasında kırılganlığı nasıl ırksallaştırdığı, ahlaki tanınmayı nasıl dağıttığı ve sosyal tanınırlığı nasıl kodladığı incelenmiştir. 3.647 görselden oluşan veri setine dayalı analiz, önemli farklılıklar ortaya koymuştur: Ukraynalı kadınlar, genellikle entegrasyon ve aidiyet çağrıştıran normalleştirici görsel çerçevelerle sunulurken, Afgan, Filistinli ve Rohingyalı kadınlar ise daha çok kimliksizleştirilmiş veya mağduriyet vurgusu içeren temsillerle sembolik dışlanmaya maruz kalmaktadır. Regresyon analizi, milliyet, görsel çerçeve seçimi ve siyasi bağlamın zaman içerisindeki değişiminin, kadınların yüzlerinin görünür olup olmadığını anlamlı biçimde belirlediğini ortaya koymuştur. Bu çalışma, görünürde insancıl olan temsillerin aslında nasıl ırksallaştırılmış eşitsizlikleri ve politik görünmezliği yeniden üretebildiğini göstererek, görsel tabakalaşmaya ilişkin akademik anlayışı zenginleştirmektedir. Gelecek çalışmaların bu görsel çerçevelerin toplumdaki etkilerini daha iyi anlamak amacıyla izleyici alımlamasına odaklanması önerilmektedir.

Supporting Institution

TÜBİTAK

Thanks

Bu çalışma, TÜBİTAK 2219 burs programı kapsamında Sussex Üniversitesi’nde yürütülen araştırmaya dayanmaktadır. Desteklerinden dolayı TÜBİTAK’a teşekkür ederim.

References

  • Altınoluk, D., & Tunç, T. B. (2022). “Bu kent kimin?”: Yerli kadınların göç anlatısı. B. Koca & D. Altınoluk (Eds.), Suriyeliler her yerde! Yerliler ve göçmenler (75–90). İletişim Yayınları. https://iletisim.com.tr/kitap/suriyeliler-her-yerde/10274
  • Andreassen, R. (2005). The mass media’s construction of gender, race, sexuality and nationality: An analysis of the Danish news media’s communication about visible minorities from 1971-2004. University of toronto
  • Banet-Weiser, S. (2018). Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Duke University Press.
  • Berry, M., Garcia-Blanco, I., & Moore, K. (2015). Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: A content analysis of five European countries: Report prepared for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/56bb369c9.pdf
  • Bleiker, R., Campbell, D., Hutchison, E., & Nicholson, X. (2013). The visual dehumanisation of refugees. Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 398-416.
  • Butler, J. (2009). Performativity, precarity and sexual politics. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 4(3).
  • Carpi, E., & Pınar Şenoğuz, H. (2019). Refugee hospitality in Lebanon and Turkey. On making ‘the Other’. International Migration, 57(2), 126-142.
  • Çetin, C., & Gürelli, M. (2024). Narratives of securitization: Media portrayals of Refugees in Türkiye during election periods. İletişim Kuram ve Araştırma Dergisi, (68), 70-89.
  • Chouliaraki, L., & Musarò, P. (2017). The mediatized border: Technologies and affects of migrant reception in the Greek and Italian borders. Feminist Media Studies, 17(4), 535-549.
  • Chouliaraki, L., & Stolic, T. (2017). Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: A visual typology of European news. Media, Culture & Society, 39(8), 1162-1177.
  • Crawley, H. (2022). Saving brown women from brown men? “Refugee women”, gender and the racialised politics of protection. Refugee survey quarterly, 41(3), 355-380.
  • Eagleman, A., Burch, L. M., & Vooris, R. (2014). A unified version of London 2012: New-media coverage of gender, nationality, and sport for Olympics consumers in six countries. Journal of Sport Management, 28(4), 457-470.
  • Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of communication, 43(4), 51-58.
  • Friese, H. (2009). The limits of hospitality. Paragraph, 32(1), 51-68.
  • Galpin, C., & Rohe, M. (2025). Constructing difference in postsocialist Britain: the role of historical memory in media narratives of German and Polish migrants. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-23.
  • Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (2013). New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Springer.
  • Greussing, E., & Boomgaarden, H. G. (2017). Shifting the refugee narrative? An automated frame analysis of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(11), 1749-1774.
  • Hall, S. (1997). The spectacle of the other. Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (223-290).
  • Holmes, S. M., & Castañeda, H. (2016). Representing the “European refugee crisis” in Germany and beyond: Deservingness and difference, life and death. American Ethnologist, 43(1), 12-24.
  • Kray, S. (1993). Orientalization of an “almost white” woman: The interlocking effects of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in American mass media. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 10(4), 349-366.
  • Kyriakidou, M. (2015). Media witnessing: Exploring the audience of distant suffering. Media, Culture & Society, 37(2), 215-231.
  • Loza, Y. (2023). Challenges of orientalist productions and frames of an imagined other: a media monitoring analysis. Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, 5(3), 178-192.
  • Ibrahim, Y. (2010). Distant suffering and Postmodern subjectivity: The communal politics of Pity. Nebula, 7.
  • Martikainen, J., & Sakki, I. (2021). Visual (de)humanization: Construction of otherness in newspaper photographs of the refugee crisis. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(16), 236-266.
  • Martikainen, J., & Sakki, I. (2024). Visual humanization of refugees: A visual rhetorical analysis of media discourse on the war in Ukraine. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(1), 106-130.
  • McCombs, M. E., Shaw, D. L., & Weaver, D. H. (2018). New directions in agenda-setting theory and research. Advances in foundational mass communication theories (131-152). Routledge.
  • Meuzelaar, A. (2025). Caring for others who look just like us: The representation of Ukrainian refugees on Dutch television. Media, Culture & Society, 01634437251328201.
  • Mohanty, C. (1988). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review, 30(1), 61-88.
  • Nielsen, R. K., Schulz, A. W., Fletcher, R., & Robertson, C. T. (2023). The BBC is under scrutiny. Here’s what research tells us about its role in the UK. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
  • Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. Algorithms of oppression. New York university press.
  • Rottenberg, C. (2014). The rise of neoliberal feminism. Cultural studies, 28(3), 418-437.
  • Xu, Z. (2023). The mediation of humanitarian crises under authoritarianism. Doctoral dissertation, Universität zu Köln.
  • Xu, Z., & Zhang, M. (2023). The politics of pity under authoritarianism: How government-controlled media regulates Audiences' mediated experiences of distant suffering. International Journal of Communication, 17, 19.
  • Zhou, C. (2024). The politics of constructing counternarratives against Orientalism in popular media reception: the case of Mulan (2020). Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 1-26.

Visual Stratification: Representations of Immigrant and Refugee Women in UK Media

Year 2025, Volume: 9 Issue: Toplumsal Cinsiyet Özel Sayısı, 273 - 292, 27.09.2025
https://doi.org/10.25295/fsecon.1717131

Abstract

This article systematically investigates the visual framing of immigrant and refugee women in four major UK media outlets (BBC, Daily Mail, Financial Times, and Metro) over a twenty-month period spanning politically charged events. While existing literature has identified recurrent visual tropes depicting migrant women primarily through binaries of victimhood or empowerment, it frequently overlooks intersectional nuances of nationality, legal status, and racialized hierarchies. Addressing this gap, this study employs a rigorous visual content analysis informed by feminist, postcolonial, and critical media theories, emphasizing how visual frames differentially racialize vulnerability, distribute moral recognition, and code social legibility across groups. The analysis, based on a dataset of 3,647 images, reveals significant disparities: Ukrainian women are often portrayed through normalizing frames that suggest integration and belonging, whereas Afghan, Palestinian, and Rohingya women frequently appear in anonymized or victimized representations, reinforcing symbolic exclusion. Regression modeling indicates that nationality, visual framing choices, and temporal political contexts significantly predict whether migrant women’s faces are visible. This article enhances the scholarly understanding of visual stratification by demonstrating how ostensibly humanitarian imagery can reproduce racialized inequalities and political invisibility. Future research is encouraged to explore audience reception of these visual frames to elucidate their societal implications further.

Supporting Institution

TÜBİTAK

Thanks

This study is based on research conducted at the University of Sussex with support from the TÜBİTAK 2219 fellowship. I thank TÜBİTAK for its support.

References

  • Altınoluk, D., & Tunç, T. B. (2022). “Bu kent kimin?”: Yerli kadınların göç anlatısı. B. Koca & D. Altınoluk (Eds.), Suriyeliler her yerde! Yerliler ve göçmenler (75–90). İletişim Yayınları. https://iletisim.com.tr/kitap/suriyeliler-her-yerde/10274
  • Andreassen, R. (2005). The mass media’s construction of gender, race, sexuality and nationality: An analysis of the Danish news media’s communication about visible minorities from 1971-2004. University of toronto
  • Banet-Weiser, S. (2018). Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Duke University Press.
  • Berry, M., Garcia-Blanco, I., & Moore, K. (2015). Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: A content analysis of five European countries: Report prepared for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/56bb369c9.pdf
  • Bleiker, R., Campbell, D., Hutchison, E., & Nicholson, X. (2013). The visual dehumanisation of refugees. Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 398-416.
  • Butler, J. (2009). Performativity, precarity and sexual politics. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 4(3).
  • Carpi, E., & Pınar Şenoğuz, H. (2019). Refugee hospitality in Lebanon and Turkey. On making ‘the Other’. International Migration, 57(2), 126-142.
  • Çetin, C., & Gürelli, M. (2024). Narratives of securitization: Media portrayals of Refugees in Türkiye during election periods. İletişim Kuram ve Araştırma Dergisi, (68), 70-89.
  • Chouliaraki, L., & Musarò, P. (2017). The mediatized border: Technologies and affects of migrant reception in the Greek and Italian borders. Feminist Media Studies, 17(4), 535-549.
  • Chouliaraki, L., & Stolic, T. (2017). Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: A visual typology of European news. Media, Culture & Society, 39(8), 1162-1177.
  • Crawley, H. (2022). Saving brown women from brown men? “Refugee women”, gender and the racialised politics of protection. Refugee survey quarterly, 41(3), 355-380.
  • Eagleman, A., Burch, L. M., & Vooris, R. (2014). A unified version of London 2012: New-media coverage of gender, nationality, and sport for Olympics consumers in six countries. Journal of Sport Management, 28(4), 457-470.
  • Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of communication, 43(4), 51-58.
  • Friese, H. (2009). The limits of hospitality. Paragraph, 32(1), 51-68.
  • Galpin, C., & Rohe, M. (2025). Constructing difference in postsocialist Britain: the role of historical memory in media narratives of German and Polish migrants. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-23.
  • Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (2013). New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Springer.
  • Greussing, E., & Boomgaarden, H. G. (2017). Shifting the refugee narrative? An automated frame analysis of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(11), 1749-1774.
  • Hall, S. (1997). The spectacle of the other. Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (223-290).
  • Holmes, S. M., & Castañeda, H. (2016). Representing the “European refugee crisis” in Germany and beyond: Deservingness and difference, life and death. American Ethnologist, 43(1), 12-24.
  • Kray, S. (1993). Orientalization of an “almost white” woman: The interlocking effects of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in American mass media. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 10(4), 349-366.
  • Kyriakidou, M. (2015). Media witnessing: Exploring the audience of distant suffering. Media, Culture & Society, 37(2), 215-231.
  • Loza, Y. (2023). Challenges of orientalist productions and frames of an imagined other: a media monitoring analysis. Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, 5(3), 178-192.
  • Ibrahim, Y. (2010). Distant suffering and Postmodern subjectivity: The communal politics of Pity. Nebula, 7.
  • Martikainen, J., & Sakki, I. (2021). Visual (de)humanization: Construction of otherness in newspaper photographs of the refugee crisis. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(16), 236-266.
  • Martikainen, J., & Sakki, I. (2024). Visual humanization of refugees: A visual rhetorical analysis of media discourse on the war in Ukraine. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(1), 106-130.
  • McCombs, M. E., Shaw, D. L., & Weaver, D. H. (2018). New directions in agenda-setting theory and research. Advances in foundational mass communication theories (131-152). Routledge.
  • Meuzelaar, A. (2025). Caring for others who look just like us: The representation of Ukrainian refugees on Dutch television. Media, Culture & Society, 01634437251328201.
  • Mohanty, C. (1988). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review, 30(1), 61-88.
  • Nielsen, R. K., Schulz, A. W., Fletcher, R., & Robertson, C. T. (2023). The BBC is under scrutiny. Here’s what research tells us about its role in the UK. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
  • Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. Algorithms of oppression. New York university press.
  • Rottenberg, C. (2014). The rise of neoliberal feminism. Cultural studies, 28(3), 418-437.
  • Xu, Z. (2023). The mediation of humanitarian crises under authoritarianism. Doctoral dissertation, Universität zu Köln.
  • Xu, Z., & Zhang, M. (2023). The politics of pity under authoritarianism: How government-controlled media regulates Audiences' mediated experiences of distant suffering. International Journal of Communication, 17, 19.
  • Zhou, C. (2024). The politics of constructing counternarratives against Orientalism in popular media reception: the case of Mulan (2020). Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 1-26.
There are 34 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Gender, Policy and Administration, Women's Studies
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Canan Çetin 0000-0001-6228-6313

Publication Date September 27, 2025
Submission Date June 11, 2025
Acceptance Date August 15, 2025
Published in Issue Year 2025 Volume: 9 Issue: Toplumsal Cinsiyet Özel Sayısı

Cite

APA Çetin, C. (2025). Visual Stratification: Representations of Immigrant and Refugee Women in UK Media. Fiscaoeconomia, 9(Toplumsal Cinsiyet Özel Sayısı), 273-292. https://doi.org/10.25295/fsecon.1717131

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