A security threat or an economic consequence? An analysis of the news framing of the European Union's refugee crisis

Abstract

A developing literature on the securitisation of immigration documents the prominence of security-based framing, but its prevalence has not been systematically established in Central and Eastern Europe through an analysis of the relative importance of various immigration-related frames. Using content analysis, this study tests the securitisation of the immigration thesis in the coverage of the refugee crisis between 2013 and 2016 in Czech and Slovak media ( N = 7,910), in particular focusing on frame variation over time, and on differences between quality and tabloid media. The results reveal that the security-threat frame is the dominant frame, while economic framing is significantly less frequent in regard to the topic. While both quality media and tabloids employ the security-threat frame often, it is significantly more prominent in tabloids. In sum, these results confirm the existence of a pre-eminent securitised interpretation of immigration in the region during the crisis.

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

“…Regarding the negative frames, both are more prevalent in the Greek media socio-demographic, political, and economic contexts of the different regions, but also on the media outlet's editorial line, something that seems to be especially notable since 2015 (Amores; Arcila-Calderón; Stanek, 2019; Greenwood; Thomson, 2020; Lenette; Cleland, 2016; Pantti, 2016; Zhang; Hellmueller, 2017). In this sense, while the Spanish media have been transmitting more positive news frames of displaced people than other Western European countries, as López-del-Ramo and Humanes (2016) have already discovered, media outlets in countries such as Greece that are most strongly affected by migratory pressure (and especially conservative media) seem to be drastically worsening their representation of displaced people in recent years, dehumanizing them and associating them more and more with notions of burden on and/or threat to the host societies, in a similar way to the media in Central and Eastern European countries that have strong anti-immigration policies (Greussing;Boomgaarden, 2017;Kovář, 2019). This proves, as Hangartner et al (2017) or Hopkins (2010) have noted, that the most negative image of migration, as well as the most apprehensive attitudes towards displaced people, tend to develop in geographical areas most affected by the massive arrival of immigrants.…”

“…During the current migratory crisis, Central or Eastern Europe media outlets continue to associate refugees with a notion of threat to the security and economy of the country. This happens particularly in Austrian media (Greussing; Boomgaarden, 2017), as well as in Czech and Slovakian media (Kovář, 2019). This negative coverage is also present out-…”

New perspective? Comparing frame occurrence in online and traditional news media reporting on Europe’s “Migration Crisis”

“…Various frames relate to problems associated with the intake of refugees: crime, terrorism, religious conflict, and fear. 10 While crime or security frames are usually identified in prior content analysis of media articles about immigration (e. g., Greussing and Boomgaarden, 2017;Kluknavská, Bernhard, and Boomgaarden, 2019;Kovář, 2019), we distinguish a terrorism frame from a frame more broadly connected to crime. The terrorism frame primarily deals with particular attacks, most prominently the assaults on New Year's Eve 2015/16 in Cologne and the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016.…”

La seguridad como encuadre genérico de los conflictos: El conflicto del Sáhara Occidental en la prensa de España y Francia (2014-2019)

“…A pesar de que el encuadre Conflicto posee unos resultados importantes, hay que señalar que tanto España como Francia han tenido una presencia colonial clave en el Sáhara y Marruecos, por lo que era de esperar que las explicaciones históricas del conflicto tuvieran un papel relevante. A pesar de la peculiaridad del caso, los medios y sus países de origen, se refuerza teóricamente el papel de la seguridad como elemento informativo, principal idea ya demostrada en el caso de otros conflictos (Kovář, 2019;Lusk, 2019). Este hecho, vendría a reconsiderar la intersección entre las teorías que conjugan el periodismo de guerra con el de paz, planteando la necesidad de investigar más qué tipos de encuadres utilizan ambas tipologías de periodismo.…”