THE SENTIMENTAL FRAME OF THE MEDIA: ANALYZING THE NEWS HEADLINES ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES IN ONLINE NEWS SOURCES THROUGH SENTIMENT ANALYSIS AND TOPIC MODELING

Yıl 2026, Cilt: 24 Sayı: 1, 46 - 66, 21.03.2026

Merve Boyacı Yıldırım

https://doi.org/10.11611/yead.1751799

https://izlik.org/JA59XH79CD

Öz

This research examines the representation of immigrants and refugees in Türkiye's online news media through published news headlines. A collection of headlines from four national news sources (TRT Haber, BirGün, Cumhuriyet, and Yeni Şafak) is examined using BERT-based sentiment analysis and BERTopic topic modeling. Negative feelings dominate news headlines across all media venues, while positive depictions are scarce. At the end of 2024 and mid-2025, time series analysis shows increased negativity. Topic modeling revealed border crossings, security, illegal immigration, mass deportation, and refugee discourses tied to national policy. Word cloud and co-occurring word pair studies show that "migrant caught", "irregular migrant", "detained”, "migrant smuggling" and "illegal" are frequently repeated. These discursive tendencies show that immigration is mostly framed as a security danger and control issue. The study uses computational social sciences to show that media content is both communicative and strategic, with social and political effects.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Immigrant , Refugee , Media Framing , Sentiment Analysis , BERTopic , Migration Communication

Kaynakça

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