The global narrative surrounding migrants, refugees, and people on the move is often fraught with biases, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations. While crucial for informing public opinion, media coverage can inadvertently perpetuate stereotypes, fuel discrimination, and distort realities. This leads to a climate where migrants and refugees are often misunderstood, marginalized, and even targeted with hate speech. Such narratives hinder efforts for inclusive societies and contribute to the polarization of public debates on migration. Media Representation of Migrants and Refugees offers a comprehensive solution by bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives to examine and challenge prevailing media narratives critically. By inviting scholars and practitioners from diverse fields such as Social Sciences, Humanities, Media, Communications, and Government, the book aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between media representations and the lived experiences of migrants. Through rigorous analysis and empirical studies, the book seeks to uncover underlying biases, highlight best practices, and offer constructive alternatives for shaping more inclusive narratives. This book is a vital resource for academics, researchers, policymakers, and media professionals seeking to understand and address the challenges of media representation in the context of migration. It will serve as a reference for those in Social Sciences, Humanities, Media, Communications, Educational, Government, and Law sciences, providing insights and strategies for countering stereotypes, promoting empathy, and fostering a more informed and inclusive public discourse on migration.

Media have played an important role in framing the public debate on the “refugee crisis” that peaked in autumn of 2015. This report examines the narratives developed by print media in eight European countries and how they contributed to the public perception of the “crisis”, shifting from careful tolerance over the summer, to an outpouring of solidarity and humanitarianism in September 2015, and to a securitisation of the debate and a narrative of fear in November 2015. Overall, there has been limited opportunity in mainstream media coverage for refugees and migrants to give their views on events, and little attention paid to the individuals’ plight or the global and historical context of their displacement. Refugees and migrants are often portrayed as an undistinguishable group of anonymous and unskilled outsiders who are either vulnerable or dangerous. The dissemination of biased or ill-founded information contributes to perpetuating stereotypes and creating an unfavourable environment not only for the reception of refugees but also for the longer-term perspectives of societal integration.

Using examples from a range of countries, this book illustrates how the media intervenes to affect the reception migrants receive, and how it stimulates prospective migrants to move.

Perception and representation of newcomers and immigrants The topic of migration has become particularly contentious in national and international debates. Media have a discernable impact on overall societal attitudes towards this phenomenon. Polls show time and again that immigration is one of the most important issues occupying people’s minds. This book examines the dynamic interplay between media representations of migrants and refugees on the one hand and the governmental and societal (re)actions to these on the other. Largely focusing on Belgium and Sweden, this collection of interdisciplinary research essays attempts to unravel the determinants of people’s preferences regarding migration policy, expectations towards newcomers, and economic, humanitarian and cultural concerns about immigration’s effect on the majority population’s life. Whilst migrants and refugees remain voiceless and highly underrepresented in the legacy media, this volume allows their voices to be heard. Contributors: Leen d’Haenens (KU Leuven), Willem Joris (KU Leuven), Paul Puschmann (KU Leuven/Radboud University Nijmegen), Ebba Sundin (Halmstad University), David De Coninck (KU Leuven), Rozane De Cock (KU Leuven), Valériane Mistiaen (Université libre de Bruxelles), Lutgard Lams (KU Leuven), Stefan Mertens (KU Leuven), Olivier Standaert (UC Louvain), Hanne Vandenberghe (KU Leuven), Koen Matthijs (KU Leuven), Kevin Smets (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Jacinthe Mazzocchetti (UC Louvain), Lorraine Gerstmans (UC Louvain), Lien Mostmans (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), and François Heinderyckx (Université libre de Bruxelles) Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content). With thanks to the funding provided by Belspo (Belgian Science Policy Office), as part of the framework programme BRAIN-be (Belgian Research Action Through Interdisciplinary Networks), contract nr BR/165/A4/IM2MEDIATE.

The media inform the public, help political and social actors communicate with each other, influence perceptions of pressing issues, depict topics and people in particular ways, and may shape political views and participation. Given these critical functions that the media play in society, this book asks how the media represent migrants and minorities. What information do the media communicate about them? What are the implications of media coverage for participation in the public sphere? In the past, researchers studying migrants and minorities have rarely engaged in systematic media analysis. This volume advances analytical strategies focused on information, representation, and participation to examine the media, migrants, and minorities, and it offers a set of compelling original analyses of multiple minority groups from countries in Europe, North America, and East Asia, considering both traditional newspapers and new social media. The contributors analyze the framing and type of information that the media provide about particular groups or about issues related to migration and diversity; they examine how the media convey or construct particular depictions of minorities and immigrants, including negative portrayals; and they interrogate whether and how the media provide space for minorities’ participation in a public sphere where they can advance their interests and identities. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

This project is the study of the differences and similarities between news reporting, using specific media frames, in the US and France in regard to the representation of refugees in newspapers. I gathered a total of 213 articles written during the period of January 1, 2017 until September 30, 2018. Those articles were taken from two major newspapers in the US, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and two major newspapers in France, Le Monde and Le Figaro. For this research, I used content analysis in order to analyze the news articles reporting on the subject of refugees and to discover if important underlying messages were present. I chose major newspapers in the US and France with different political views, conservative and liberal in order to find out if the political tendency would somewhat be reflected in the choice of frames and the choice of certain words. The analysis revealed that political ideology did not influence the framing of refugees in terms of economic and security threats. While the human-interest frame should have been an important frame if not the most important frame related to refugees, this was not the case and was instead overshadowed by the managerialist frame. Even though labels such as liberal and conservative are subjective, newspapers choose how to report events and where they position the articles. This allows them to point to the readers the importance of the article in question. Nevertheless, the study did not reveal that refugees could be portrayed differently because a newspaper was considered liberal or conservative. In regard to the most used-frames when covering refugees in the news, the newspapers were rather similar in the frequency of using certain frames. They tended to report stories that were consistent with the policies of their host countries and of other countries as well. Both French and US newspapers reported on the refugee crisis both at home and abroad. In contrast, they differed in the use of certain terms, referred to as variables. Those terms were Islam/Muslim, integration/assimilation, and also using the term migrant/immigrant instead of refugee. The frequency of using certain terms were more predominant in the US newspapers and therefore set them apart.

Migration reporting and the discursive construction of crisis. Lilie Chouliaraki: Between pity and irony: paradigms of refugee representation in humanitarian discourse -- Harald Bauder: immigration dialectic in the media and crisis as transformative moment -- Bernhard Gross: controlled conditions-an analysis of the positioning of migration during the prime ministerial debates for the 2010 UK general election -- Kerry Moore: "Asylum crisis", national security and the re-articulation of human rights -- Crisis reporting and the representation of migration. Otto Santa Ana: US crisis reporting on mass protests and the depiction of immigrants in the 40 years after the Kerner Commission Report -- Carol Farbotko: Skilful seafarers, oceanic drifters or climate refugees? Pacific people, news value and the climate refugee crisis -- Yan Wu, Xiangqin Zeng, Xiaoying Liu: Chinese irregular migration into Europe: economic challenges and opportunities in media representation -- Jelena Bjelica: Human trafficking and national security in Serbia -- Xinyi Jiang: Fujianese migration and the British press coverage of Dover incident -- The management of migration in journalistic practice. Bolette Blaagaard: The (multi)cultural obligation of journalism -- Julia Bayer: Beyond culture-awareness training for journalists and their potential for the promotion of media diversity -- Janet Harris: reporting migration-a journalist's reflection on personal experience and academic critique -- Introduction to migrations and the media -- Kerry Moore: What's in a crisis?

How can migrants represent themselves in public debate? Lost in Media argues for new terms of participation This volume gathers critical responses to the representations of migrants in the media in Europe through nine essays by prominent writers, artists and journalists. The starting point is the assertion that migrants may have entered European countries, but they have not yet entered the public sphere. When they do, it is as characters in other people's stories: they are spoken about but rarely spoken to, pointed at but rarely heard. If migrants and refugees are to become fully recognized citizens of Europe, they need to be participants in public debate. Lost in Media features essays by Tania Bruguera, Moha Gerehou, Aleksandar Hemon, Lubaina Himid, Dawid Krawczyk, Antonija Letinic, Nesrine Malik, Nadifa Mohamed, Ece Temelkuran, Daniel Trilling, Menno Weijs and Andr Wilkens; and visual contributions by Roda Abdalle, Tania Bruguera, Jillian Edelstein, Moha Gerehou, Lubaina Himid, Jade Jackman, Jacob Lawrence and Antonija Letinic.

The global narrative surrounding migrants, refugees, and people on the move is often fraught with biases, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations. While crucial for informing public opinion, media coverage can inadvertently perpetuate stereotypes, fuel discrimination, and distort realities. This leads to a climate where migrants and refugees are often misunderstood, marginalized, and even targeted with hate speech. Such narratives hinder efforts for inclusive societies and contribute to the polarization of public debates on migration. Media Representation of Migrants and Refugees offers a comprehensive solution by bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives to examine and challenge prevailing media narratives critically. By inviting scholars and practitioners from diverse fields such as Social Sciences, Humanities, Media, Communications, and Government, the book aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between media representations and the lived experiences of migrants. This book is a vital resource for academics, researchers, policymakers, and media professionals seeking to understand and address the challenges of media representation in the context of migration.