scholarly journals Evolution of negative visual frames of immigrants and refugees in the main media of Southern Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier J. Amores ◽  
Carlos Arcila-Calderón ◽  
David Blanco-Herrero
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Simultaneous Increase ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Immigrants And Refugees ◽  
Visual Framing ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
The Media ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Mediterranean Migration

The Mediterranean migration crisis especially affects three Southern European countries that represent the main gateways into the continent for immigrants and asylum seekers: Spain, Italy, and Greece. In recent years, feelings of rejection towards migration have been increasing in all of them, accompanied by a simultaneous increase in the number of hate crimes. Similarly, the representation of these groups in European news media seems to have worsened, especially since 2015, the year in which the migratory crisis significantly worsened. This coverage could be affecting European citizens on emotional, cognitive, and attitudinal levels and thus should be rigorously analyzed. The present study is based on the theory of framing and, specifically, on visual framing to analyze the connotative representations of immigrants and refugees spread by the reference media of Southern Europe through images, paying more attention to the negative frames in particular, which represent displaced people as a burden or threat. Specifically, 360 photographs taken between 2014 and 2019 and published by the main media in Spain, Italy, and Greece were subject to content analysis. The findings show a temporal increase in the negative visual frames of immigrants and refugees in the analyzed media. Differences were also found between countries, with Greece presenting a higher percentage of images with negative frames, as well as a greater predominance of this type of frame compared with the other countries. Finally, differences were identified between the media themselves, including the Greek Kathimerini, a media outlet that stands out for the amount and prevalence of photographs framing immigrants and asylum seekers as a burden and threat. Resumen La crisis migratoria del Mediterráneo afecta especialmente a tres países del sur de Europa, que son la principal puerta de entrada de inmigrantes y solicitantes de asilo en el continente. Estos países son España, Italia y Grecia, y en todos ellos los sentimientos de rechazo a la migración han ido en aumento en los últimos años, acompañados por el incremento simultáneo de los delitos de odio. De igual forma, la representación de estos grupos en los medios informativos europeos parece haber empeorado, especialmente a partir de 2015, año en el que la crisis migratoria se agravó mucho. Esta cobertura podría estar afectando a las actitudes de los ciudadanos europeos hacia los desplazados, por lo que conviene analizarla de manera rigurosa. El presente estudio se basa en la teoría del encuadre y, en específico, en el visual framing para analizar los marcos connotativos de inmigrantes y refugiados que transmiten los medios de referencia del sur de Europa a través de sus imágenes durante la crisis migratoria, prestando una mayor atención a los marcos negativos, los que representan a estas personas como una carga o amenaza. Así, a través de un análisis de contenido se examinaron 360 fotografías publicadas por los principales medios de España, Italia y Grecia entre 2014 y 2019. Los resultados muestran un incremento temporal de los marcos visuales negativos de inmigrantes y refugiados en los medios analizados. También se encontraron diferencias entre países, presentando Grecia un mayor porcentaje de imágenes con marcos negativos, así como una mayor predominancia de los marcos negativos que el resto de países. Por último, se identificaron diferencias entre los propios medios, siendo el griego Kathimerini el que destaca por tener una mayor presencia de imágenes con marcos de carga y de amenaza, y una mayor predominancia de estos marcos en sus fotografías.

Words don’t come easy: Al Jazeera’s migrant–refugee distinction and the European culture of (mis)trust

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (7) ◽  
pp. 933-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Kyriakides
Keyword(s):  
Media Representations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
European Culture ◽  
European Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Economic Migrant ◽  
Immigration And Asylum ◽  
Mediterranean Migration

Al Jazeera’s August 2015 editorial decision to substitute ‘refugee’ for ‘economic migrant’ in its coverage of ‘the Mediterranean Migration Crisis’ provides an opportunity to re-frame the relationship between the politics of race, immigration and media representations of refugees. Situating the broadcaster’s publicly announced rationale for the decision within a critique of the migrant–refugee dichotomy enforced by European public policy, this article, first, demonstrates that the policy couplet mobilizes oppositional yet interdependent identities. The discursive distancing of ‘migrant’ from ‘refugee’ in news content does not dislodge their mutually reinforcing power to define the parameters of ‘inclusion’. Second, the article examines how the policy onus placed on refugees to justify their claim as ‘victims’ reproduces racialized codes of belonging that perpetuate the denial of autonomy. Persons seeking refuge in Europe must sustain an identity of ‘non-threatening victim’ if they are to gain recognition in a securitized culture of (mis)trust. Al Jazeera’s intervention strengthens the media representation of refugees as human beings without choice; yet, the broadcaster’s decision to ‘give voice’ by ‘challenging racism’ does not break the European political consensus on immigration and asylum that positions ‘non-Western’ peoples as victim/pariah, to be ‘saved’ and ‘suspected’. The media–policy–migration nexus ensures that refugee exclusion is always possible.

Migration Flows and Migration Crisis in Southern Europe

2018 ◽  
pp. 602-618
Author(s):  
Domenico Maddaloni ◽  
Grazia Moffa
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Neoliberal Globalization ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
Southern European Countries

This chapter examines the main migration flows concerning the countries of southern Europe; those are a) the immigration from developed countries b) the so-called ‘new emigration’, and c) the persistent flow of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. They receive a very different treatment in local political debates, which are dominated by the concern for ‘the crisis,’ (i. e., the whole range of economic, social, and political changes arising from neoliberal globalization). While discussing the current literature on these topics, the chapter shows how these flows are politically constructed for the purposes of the establishment. At the same time, the chapter highlights the relationships between these trends and the general changes affecting southern European countries.

Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Emotions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Bleiker ◽  
David Campbell ◽  
Emma Hutchison
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Front Page ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Visual Framing ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

The issue of asylum seekers and refugees is one of the most contested political issues in Australia. This chapter examines ensuing debates, focusing closely on how refugees and asylum seekers are perceived and responded to in relation to the spatial and emotional dynamics that prevail in Australian society and politics. Specifically, the chapter examines how the issue of asylum is intimately connected to and influenced by highly emotional images circulating in the national media. To do this, the authors first discuss the history of refugees at Australia’s borders. In doing so, the authors underline the key role that political and media representations play in shaping refugee debates and policy. The chapter then undertakes an empirical investigation of two crucial recent periods when refugee debates proliferated in both the media and in politics: August to December 2001 and October 2009 to September 2011. By conducting a content analysis of front-page coverage in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, the authors focus on the particular visual framing that has been used to depict asylum seekers and its emotional and political consequences, highlighting how recurring frames have been used to dehumanize and further displace asylum seekers and refugees in the Australian context. The authors then argue that these visual media depictions associate refugees not with humanitarian challenges and responsibilities, but instead with threats to sovereignty and security.

Europe’s Migration Crisis: An American Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
The Us ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Migration Crisis

The European Union’s 28 member nations received over 1.2 million asylum seekers in 2015, including 1.1 million in Germany[1] and over 150,000 in Sweden. The US, by comparison, has been receiving 75,000 asylum applications a year. One reason for the upsurge in asylum applicants is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel in August 2015 announced that Syrians could apply for asylum in Germany even if they passed through safe countries en route. The challenges of integrating asylum seekers are becoming clearer, prompting talk of reducing the influx, reforming EU institutions, and integrating migrants.[1] Some 1.1 million foreigners were registered in Germany’s EASY system in 2015, but only 476,500 were able to complete asylum applications because of backlogs in asylum offices.

How to Tell the Truth without Outraging the Press?

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Chinese News Media

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 

Reading the Tea Leaves—the News about the News

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadijah Costley White
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Online Video ◽  
Tea Leaves ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Media

This chapter looks at how the media explained, critiqued, and reported on their own role in the branding and coverage of the Tea Party, and what that says about news media function and convergence in a headphone culture. Whether it was a “media war” on Fox News, a reporter’s rant at CNBC, or a defamatory online video triggering the dismissal of a high-ranking Obama appointee for “racism,” one thing was clear—at its core, Tea Party news narratives were also a story about modern journalism. This section of the book explains how members of the news media portrayed (implicitly and explicitly) their own roles, functions, and values as they advanced the Tea Party’s recognition, messaging, and growth through the logics, action, and discourse of branding.

The Architecture of Our Discontent

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Media ◽  
First Year ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Right ◽  
Integrated Media ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

This chapter presents the book’s macrolevel findings about the architecture of political communication and the news media ecosystem in the United States from 2015 to 2018. Two million stories published during the 2016 presidential election campaign are analyzed, along with another 1.9 million stories about Donald Trump’s presidency during his first year. The chapter examines patterns of interlinking between online media sources to understand the relations of authority and credibility among publishers, as well as the media sharing practices of Twitter and Facebook users to elucidate social media attention patterns. The data and mapping reveal not only a profoundly polarized media landscape but stark asymmetry: the right is more insular, skewed towards the extreme, and set apart from the more integrated media ecosystem of the center, center-left, and left.

Agenda-Setting Dynamics during the Campaign Period

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Partheymüller
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Agenda Setter ◽  
Memory Decay ◽  
The Media

It is widely believed that the news media have a strong influence on defining what are the most important problems facing the country during election campaigns. Yet, recent research has pointed to several factors that may limit the mass media’s agenda-setting power. Linking news media content to rolling cross-section survey data, the chapter examines the role of three such limiting factors in the context of the 2009 and the 2013 German federal elections: (1) rapid memory decay on the part of voters, (2) advertising by the political parties, and (3) the fragmentation of the media landscape. The results show that the mass media may serve as a powerful agenda setter, but also demonstrate that the media’s influence is strictly limited by voters’ cognitive capacities and the structure of the campaign information environment.

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