‘Refugees are not welcome’: Digital racism, online place-making and the evolving categorization of Syrians in Turkey

Abstract

This article argues that digital publics unleash and bolster everyday racism, creating an unregulated space where anonymity and ubiquity enable the dissemination of racist message. By creating broader visibility and wider reach of racist texts and facilitating more participation for racists, social media platforms such as Twitter normalize gendered and place-based racialization of refugees. Recently, hostility and hate became the norm in derogating the refugee identity on social media platforms. To investigate the complexity of digital racism, this article presents a unique case study on Twitter, capturing the widespread user reactions in the aftermath of the mass resettlement of Syrians in Turkey. It examines varying racialization of Syrians on the Turkish Twittersphere, using sentiment and qualitative content analyses of hashtags and mentions on Syrians, when they hit Twitter trends for Turkey for a year, first, for mundane events and, second, during the Turkish state’s occupation in Northern Syria.