In May 2018, Mesut Özil, a third-generation Turkish immigrant, was photographed with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This incident was constructed by the media and politicians as an endorsement for Erdoğan in the upcoming Turkish election and resulted in a public discussion about Özil's loyalty to German democratic values. The debate intensified especially after the World Cup and led to Özil's resignation from the national team via social media on 22 July 2018, where he cited racism against him as one of his reasons. Newspapers, news magazines and tabloids all over the world covered the story, discussing racism and the failure of German integration policies. Through a qualitative media content analysis of German national newspapers and tabloid press articles following the publication of the photograph of Erdoğan and Özil on 14 May 2018, this paper will analyse how Özil was portrayed in the media.

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融合失败或种族主义象征：足球明星梅苏特·厄齐尔的案例

2018 年 5 月，第三代土耳其移民梅苏特·厄齐尔与土耳其总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安合影。这一事件被媒体和政界人士构建为在即将举行的土耳其大选中为埃尔多安背书，并引发了一场关于厄齐尔对德国民主价值观的忠诚度的公开讨论。争论尤其在世界杯之后愈演愈烈，并导致厄齐尔于 2018 年 7 月 22 日通过社交媒体辞去国家队职务，他在社交媒体上将针对他的种族主义列为他的原因之一。世界各地的报纸、新闻杂志和小报都报道了这个故事，讨论了种族主义和德国一体化政策的失败。