Back to Reality: The Complex Relationship Between Patterns in Immigration News Coverage and Real-World Developments in Dutch and Flemish Newspapers (1999–2015)

Abstract

Although prior studies investigating immigration news typically documented a dominant focus on negativity and threats, only limited empirical research is available, which scrutinizes the way real-world developments affect these patterns in immigration news. This study aims to fill this void. First, we report results of a large-scale and longitudinal content analysis (N = 4,340,757) of trends in immigration news coverage in two Western European cases, Flanders (the northern, Dutch-speaking, largest region of Belgium) and the Netherlands, from 1999 to 2015. Both the salience of immigration as a news topic on itself and its linkages with three prominent issues (i.e., crime, terrorism, and socioeconomic issues) are explored. Second, this study builds on previous insights by comparing dynamics in immigration news to realworld events and developments. Overall, the results show that the linkage of immigration to issues of crime, terrorism, and the economy in Flemish and Dutch newspapers was considerable throughout the 17-year period under study. Yet there is limited evidence for a close relationship between news and real-life developments; hence, trends in immigration news seem largely unaffected by trends in society.

The European media discourse on immigration and its effects: a literature review

“…In fact, German immigration news coverage had a distinct peak in late 2001, right after 9/11 (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009). Jacobs, Damstra, Boukes, and De Swert (2018), however, found that the relationship between immigration media coverage and real world developments (e.g. immigration or crime statistics) is low overall.…”

Mediatization and the Disproportionate Attention to Negative News

“…In the context of political communication, studies have documented the discrepancies between media coverage and real-world developments (e.g. Jacobs et al 2017;Vliegenthart and Boomgaarden 2007) and the over-time tendency of media to become increasingly focused on negative incidents (e.g. Farnsworth and Robert Lichter 2006;Semetko and Schoenbach 2003).…”

“…In other words, does the volume of media reports on negative or riskrelated incidents increase over time while real-world data show a decreasing trend of these incidents and how do these patterns relate to public responses? By exploring the relation between patterns in news attention and trends of real-world events, this research touches upon the journalistic core principle of news production (Jacobs et al 2017).…”

“…In other words, does the volume of media reports on negative or riskrelated incidents increase over time while real-world data show a decreasing trend of these incidents and how do these patterns relate to public responses? By exploring the relation between patterns in news attention and trends of real-world events, this research touches upon the journalistic core principle of news production (Jacobs et al 2017).In an attempt to understand over-time patterns of incongruence between media coverage and real-world data, the study draws on insights from the theory of mediatization, as a long-term journalistic and social development. At heart, mediatization emphasizes a process of social change in which media have become deeply integrated into different levels of society (Hjarvard 2013;Mazzoleni 2008;Strömbäck and Esser 2009;Strömbäck and Esser 2014).…”

“…This process highlights news media's gatekeeping function, where journalists and editorial boards determine which events make it into the news and which do not (Shoemaker and Reese 1996;Shoemaker and Vos 2009). In deciding what the audience is exposed to, news media can constitute and portray a so-called alternative social reality (Altheide 1976;Vasterman 2005) that might deviate from reality based on hard numerical real-world indicators (Jacobs et al 2017). This presented alternative social reality can be explained by the media logic that steers the production of news and other media content (Altheide and Snow 1979).…”