Shifting the refugee narrative? An automated frame analysis of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis

Abstract

In 2015, Europe faced the arrival of over 1.25 million refugees fleeing from war-affected countries. The public mainly learned about this issue through domestic media. Through the use of computerassisted content analysis, this study identifies the most dominant frames employed in the coverage of refugee and asylum issues between January 2015 and January 2016 in six Austrian newspapers (N = 10,606), particularly focusing on potential differences between quality and tabloid media, and on frame variations over time. The findings reveal that, apart from administrative aspects of coping with the arrivals, established narratives of security threat and economisation are most prominent. Humanitarianism frames and background information on the refugees' situation are provided to a lesser extent. During the most intense phases of the crisis, the framing patterns of tabloid and quality media become highly similar. Media coverage broadens to multiple prominent frames as issue salience sharply increases, and then 'crystallises' into a more narrow set. In sum, the results confirm a predominance of stereotyped interpretations of refugee and asylum issues, and thus persisting journalistic routines in both, tabloid and quality media, even in times of a major political and humanitarian crisis.

Die behauptete und die gelebte Migrationskrise: der widersprüchliche Fall Italien

“…Was vielmehr benötigt wird, ist eine integrative Perspektive, die das Zusammenwirken unterschiedlicher Teilkrisen auf verschiedenen sozialräumlichen Ebenen in den Blick nimmt und vor allem auch der zeitlichen Dimension, d.h. dem Prozess der Herstellung der Krise, Beachtung schenkt. Dieser Ansatz, der davon ausgeht, dass Migration als räumliche Definitionsmacht auf verschiedenen Handlungsebenen wirkt und dass die Krise durch unauflösliche Widersprüche und radikale Handlungslogiken zwischen den verschiedenen Handlungsebenen produziert wird, wird hier als sozialgeographische Perspektive gefasst (Hampshire, 2015). Allein in der ersten Hälfte des Jahres 2018 sind laut IOM (International Organisation for Migration) 1405 Menschen auf ihrer Flucht über das Mittelmeer umgekommen -Vermisste nicht eingerechnet.…”

“…Krisen sind damit Ausnahmesituationen, die vor allem auch den Medien neue Interpretationen auf eine schon länger bestehende Problemlage ermöglichen. Im Falle der Migrationskrise bedienen sie sowohl in der Regenbogenpresse als auch in den seriösen Magazinen immer wiederkehrende Stereotypen: Sicherheit, Kriminalität und Viktimisierung, außerdem Konkurrenz auf dem Arbeitsmarkt (Greussing andBoomgaarden, 2017:1763…”

Mooring, migration milieus and complex explanations

“…This can be seen over time in media treatments of migration. For example, Greussing and Boomgaarden (2017) have recently keyword analysed the coverage of the 2015 migration "crisis" across six Austrian quality and tabloid newspapers. The core modes of coverage coalesced in order of prevalence around: security threat, economization, criminalization and humanitarian issues.…”

Watchdogs, Advocates and Adversaries: Journalists’ Relational Role Conceptions in Asylum Reporting

“…Given the fact that approximately 40,000 asylum seekers in total had arrived in Finland in the previous four decades, the new situation became an intense political and societal issue, prompting both citizen activism in solidarity with asylum seekers and anti-immigrant demonstrations and violence. Indeed, dubbed a "refugee crisis" by the news media and political commentators, the Finnish debate in many ways echoed discourses elsewhere in Europe that focused on the perceived risks of migration (e.g., Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017;Harrison, 2016; see also Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010), but also featured powerful expressions of solidarity and condemnations of xenophobia (Holmes & Castañeda, 2016). Significantly for our purposes, the refugee debate involved critical questions about the role of the news media in these developments.…”