The Influence of Language on the Collective Perception of Alterity: A Study on the Image of Turks in the Greek Media and the Potential for Education

‘Eat your food, child, or else the Turk will come and take you away’. This is a common Greek stereotype about the Turks, illustrating them as bogeyman. But why Greeks have a bad image of their eastern neighbors? The present study has its source of inspiration in a wider research we are currently undergoing, related to the Greek-Turkish relations in the second half of the 20th century and the stereotypes about the Turkish people, promoted by the Greek media. In this paper we aim at remonstrating that the Greek press reinforces ethnic categorization and stereotypes during the bilateral crises, thus cultivating a negative image of the neighbor.