Identity Representations of Turkey and Europe in Foreign Media: Regional and Global Perspectives on EU-Turkey Relations

FEUTURE Online Paper No. 14 (2018)

This FEUTURE paper examines global (Russian and US press) and regional (Egyptian and Georgian press) perspectives on EU-Turkey relations since 1999 with respect to identity and culture. Using the Critical Discourse Analysis methodology, the research traces the evolution of Turkey and Eu-rope’s identity representations in foreign media, therefore providing an outlook of the way signif-icant Others make sense of the EU-Turkey relationship in the context of Turkey’s EU bid. While the more dynamic (and positive) Egyptian and American press coverage initially contrasted with Geor-gian and Russian newspapers’ static portrayal of Europe and Turkey’s respective identities as an-tithetical, the prominence of certain identity markers in recent drivers contributed to shifts in identity representations supporting the degradation of EU-Turkey relations toward conflict.