Abuse by the Powerful? Exploring the role of media narratives and political discourse in the immigration-crime nexus

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Philip Birch ◽  

This paper considers the role of media narratives and political discourse in the immigration-crime nexus by exploring, as a case study, the recent experience of the South Sudanese community in Australia. Over recent years this cohort of relatively new arrivals have been subjected to a raft of negative media coverage and political commentary. This paper deliberates on the narrative of this African community group and their subsequent portrayal, and considers if it is both legitimate and accurate. At a time when many Australians see the benefits of immigration, this paper examines the role the media and politics plays in undermining this community sentiment, reflecting a level of abuse by the most powerful in society towards the some of the least powerful.

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 39-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Szylko-Kwas ◽  
Katarzyna Gajlewicz-Korab ◽  
Anna Grutza ◽  
Anna Jupowicz-Ginalska

In this article, the authors present the results of their research conducted in Polish and German online media in 2016. The major topic of the abovementioned research was the European refugee crisis in Poland and Germany and its representation in websites of four quality newspapers: Wyborcza.pl, Rp.pl, Faz.net and Sz.de. The aim of this article is to analize the role of media in public opinion-shaping in both countries. Through a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the data, the authors answered the following questions: 1) Are the media narratives of both countries different from each other? b) If so, how is the migration problem presented in Poland and in Germany? c) What are their most noticeable features? Among the most important conclusions are the following: 1) The media coverage of both countries is highly politicized; 2) Neither German nor Polish journalists of the opinion-forming quality newspapers did measurably support an isolationist policy. The research has been conducted within the scope of an International project called LEMEL (L’Europe dans les médias en ligne). This program was initiated by Cergy-Pontoise University and is now held annually. Several European countries participate in it (scientists from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania are permanent members of the project’s research group). The aim of the project is a synchronous and diachronic comparative analysis of the content presented in their respective national online media. The analysis focuses on the way Europe and its problems are presented in the abovementioned media content.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Naeem Afzal

The media’s tendency to widely represent conflicts, through legitimization or de- legitimization, makes us believe that media narratives may not be perceived as ‘neutral stances’ for the public consumption. This study investigates the policy of a mainstream newspaper, The News International (NI), in Pakistan and discursive strategies manipulated by its editorial writers to portray the Arab Spring. It, specifically, examines how the selected newspaper editorials thematically constructed the uprising; (re) formulated the public opinion by echoing the Arab Spring-centred perspectives; and mostly backed the revolting protesters against the dictatorial rules in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Syria. The data consist of purposefully selected editorials, which were published between January 2011 and December 2012. This particular timeframe has been distinguished for peak media coverage of the events. The qualitative data (editorial content) are analysed by using NVivo. Through discourse analysis approach, it is revealed that editorial writers employed several recurrent themes (e.g., protests, democracy, horror) to project a positive image of the protesters’ movement and fully utilised their prerogative in constructing a ‘pro-Arab Spring’ discourse. This study concludes that such ‘opinion discourses’ serve as an eye-opener to the role of media in representing conflicts from different angles while staying in different societies. It also provides insights into the ways newspapers (dis) empower readers by promoting certain factions of a conflict and devaluing others.


2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gertrud Pfister ◽  
Rikke Schou Jeppesen

Artiklen beskriver og forklarer de forandringer, som sporten har gennemgået, og den indflydelse, som disse forandringer har haft på udøvere og på deres kroppe og images. Der er særlig fokus på mediernes rolle i forhandlingen om konstruktion af ambivalente maskulinitetsformer. Gertrud Pfister & Rikke Schou Jeppesen: Images, Bodies and Masculinities. Media discourses about Ski JumpersToday ski jumping can be considered a typical media sport: it has very few participants and no basis to become a »sport for all« movement. Nevertheless, the few specialists and their main events attract masses of spectators and great media attention. The high demands of skill and strength as well as the danger involved have made ski jumping a typical male sport. Since its beginnings in the 19th century a ski jumper was looked upon as the epitome of »true manhood«. Today ski jumpers are celebrities with fragile egos, skinny bodies, boyish looks, ambivalent masculinities and fan communities of teenage girls. With a constructivist theoretical approach, we will describe and explain the changes that have taken place in ski jumping and the effects of these changes on the athletes, their bodies, their images and their masculinities. The focus will be on the media representation of two German ski jumpers, Martin Schmitt and Sven Hannawald who dominated this sport between 2000 and 2003. Sources are the articles about these athletes in 6 German print media. With a qualitative content analysis, we explore the media coverage of ski jumping and the way the athletes are presented. The correlations between the images and the »doing gender« of the athletes and their presentations in the media along with the role of the media in constructing new and ambivalent masculinities will be the key issues of this article.


Author(s):  
Thomas Ibrahim Okinda

This chapter assesses the role and performance of the Kenyan media in women's participation in 2013 Kenya general election with particular emphasis on radio, television and newspapers. Kenya has a diverse, vibrant and largely free media whose coverage of the election was useful in informing, educating and mobilizing women to vote. However, limited and biased media coverage of women candidates, inadequate civic and voter education may have inhibited women's electoral participation as few women contested and won electoral seats in the 2013 Kenyan polls. Therefore, the media should enhance the visibility of women, political rights and issues of women as the country endeavours to enhance gender equality in political representation. To achieve this, the media should partner with women, the electoral body, government, political parties and other stakeholders in Kenya in order to improve women's media coverage and political participation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 528-548
Author(s):  
Thomas Ibrahim Okinda

This chapter assesses the role and performance of the Kenyan media in women's participation in 2013 Kenya general election with particular emphasis on radio, television and newspapers. Kenya has a diverse, vibrant and largely free media whose coverage of the election was useful in informing, educating and mobilizing women to vote. However, limited and biased media coverage of women candidates, inadequate civic and voter education may have inhibited women's electoral participation as few women contested and won electoral seats in the 2013 Kenyan polls. Therefore, the media should enhance the visibility of women, political rights and issues of women as the country endeavours to enhance gender equality in political representation. To achieve this, the media should partner with women, the electoral body, government, political parties and other stakeholders in Kenya in order to improve women's media coverage and political participation.


Modern China ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 009770041988273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Abb

This article explores the growing role of think tank experts in Chinese media coverage on international issues and determines the degree to which voices in this spectrum diverge from each other as well as the official line espoused by China’s central media organs. It combines a large-sample sentiment analysis of commentaries published by three major institutes that have developed significant public profiles with an in-depth discussion of selected pieces written by especially prolific experts. Based on the results, I argue that Chinese expert commenters sometimes enrich media coverage and show a substantial variety in opinions among them, but prevailing political constraints, skewed incentives, and a slanted media environment keep them from realizing their full potential as public intellectuals. This limits their usefulness both for improving policy outcomes and for managing public expectations about China’s rise.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Rugg

This article critically examines the media coverage surrounding National Football League (NFL) player James Harrison in 2010 and 2011. In 2009, medical research linking hits to the head and the Alzheimer’s-like condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy prompted the league to institute rule changes to limit violent tackles. Harrison was repeatedly punished by the league office and criticized by sports media outlets for his violent tackles and recalcitrant attitude. Guiding both the discipline and media coverage of Harrison are narratives rooted in a neoliberal logic situating the existence of and responsibility for football violence within the individual decisions of football players. Intensifying these narratives is the NFL and its media partners’ invocation of discourses of Black criminality to construct the most damaging moments of football violence as unsanctioned acts that operate “outside the game.” This invocation serves to place the authority over the judgment and legitimation of football violence within the White corporate morality of the league’s offices and its media partners, allowing them to preserve the sport’s central place in producing and maintaining dominant American masculinities through football violence while casting off the responsibility for the consequences of that violence to the footballing bodies that administer and receive it.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van Aelst ◽  
Rosa van Santen ◽  
Lotte Melenhorst ◽  
Luzia Helfer

AbstractThis study on the role of media attention for the Dutch question hour answers three questions: to what extent is media attention a source of inspiration for oral parliamentary questions? What explains the newsworthiness of these questions? And what explains the extent of media coverage for the questions posed during the question hour? To address this, we present a content analysis of oral parliamentary questions and related press coverage in five recent years. The results show first that oral questions are usually based on media attention for a topic. Concerns about media influence should however be nuanced: it is not necessarily the coverage itself, but also regularly a political statement that is the actual source of a parliamentary question. The media are thus an important “channel” for the interaction between politicians. Second, our analysis shows that oral questions do not receive media attention naturally. Several news values help to explain the amount of news coverage that questions receive. “Surfing the wave” of news attention for a topic in the days previous to the question hour seems to be the best way to generate media attention.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Birkner ◽  
Daniel Nölleke

Using the concept of mediatization, in this article, we analyze the relationship between sport and media from a sport-centered perspective. Examining the autobiographies of 14 German and English soccer players, we investigate how athletes use media outlets, what they perceive as the media’s influence and its logic, and—crucially—how this usage and these perceptions affect their own media-related behavior. Our findings demonstrate the important role of the media for the sports systems from the athlete’s point of view and demonstrate the research potential of mediatization as a fruitful concept in studies on sport communication. On the one hand, the sport stars reflect in their autobiographies that their status and income depend on media coverage; and on the other hand, they complain about the omnipresence of the media, especially offside the pitch and feel unfairly treated by the tabloid press, both in England and in Germany.


Transfers ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Stjernborg ◽  
Mekonnen Tesfahuney ◽  
Anders Wretstrand

This study focuses on Seved, a segregated and socioeconomically “poor” neighborhood in the city of Malmö in Sweden. It has attracted wide media coverage, a possible consequence of which is its increased stigmatization. The wide disparity between perceived or imagined fear and the actual incidence of, or exposure to, violence attests to the important role of the media in shaping mental maps and place images. Critical discourse analysis of daily newspaper articles shows that Seved is predominantly construed as unruly and a place of lawlessness. Mobility comprises an important aspect of the stigmatization of places, the politics of fear, and discourses of the “other.” In turn, place stigmatization, discourses of the other, and the politics of fear directly and indirectly affect mobility strategies of individuals and groups.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document