Forced displacement in the Middle East and the refuge cycle in Turkey and Lebanon - from factual coverage to humanitarian journalism

Abstract. Forced migration in the Middle East has been one of the most underestimated agendas by the Western mainstream media, although human mobility statistics in the region have risen significantly in recent years, also increasing the number of people demanding humanitarian assistance and hindering their human and civil rights guarantees. Focusing on refuge, especially in Turkey, the country with the largest number of refugees in the world, and Lebanon, the one with the highest rate of migrants per capita, this paper aims to identify how humanitarian journalism may be an alternative to the traditional factual coverage, assuring a journalistic practice able to follow the refuge’s cycle, remove human violations of migrants and refugees from opacity and contribute to build a public opinion capable of pressuring for humanitarian policies. The methodology comprises a quantitative coverage analysis of the three most important Brazilian newspapers, Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo e O Globo.