Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ILEF DERGISI, cilt.12, sa.2, ss.297-341, 2025 (ESCI, TRDizin)
This study examines how major European online news outlets visually represent Syrian and Ukrainian refugees, offering a comparative analysis of the visual narratives that accompany coverage of two recent mass-displacement events. While previous research has documented textual double standards in media framing, far less attention has been paid to the role of images in shaping public perception. Photographs, often assumed to be denotative and objective, in fact carry powerful connotative meanings that can reinforce or contest prevailing discourses. The dataset consists of 200 lead images (100 per case) published between August and December 2015 for Syrian refugees and between February and July 2022 for Ukrainian refugees, drawn from leading online outlets in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Using MAXQDA, images were qualitatively coded scene composition, and identifying information); (2) framing and composition (photographic perspective, subject composition, and the presence and role of nonrefugees); and (3) embodied displacement (expressions, bodily positions, spatial environments, and surrounding objects). Qualitative frequency tables and code-clouds support comparative interpretation. The findings reveal sharply divergent visual narratives. Syrian refugees are predominantly portrayed through distant, chaotic, and depersonalized imagery-anonymous masses, men-only groups, scenes of struggle, barbed wire, and survival objects-resulting in a dehumanizing and threatening visual frame. Ukrainian refugees, by contrast, are more often depicted as identifiable individuals or families, in orderly environments, with supportive officials, personal belongings, toys, and pets-producing a narrative of familiarity, proximity, and legitimacy.These visual asymmetries demonstrate that photographs do not merely illustrate news but actively construct hierarchies of deservingness. The study underlines the need for closer scholarly attention to visual media, particularly in an era where images are central to shaping public understanding of forced migration.