“It Could Have Been Us”: media frames and the coverage of Ukrainian, Afghan and Syrian refugee crises

Abstract

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes and seek refuge in other countries, resulting in one of Europe’s largest refugee crises in decades. Many countries were quick to mobilise and provide the needed assistance to Ukrainians refugees. In contrast to the usual responses to asylum seekers coming from outside Europe, EU countries as well as the UK were uncharacteristically welcoming. Similarly, news reports of the Ukraine refugee situation have been marked by affectionate headlines and an outpouring of support and sympathy arguably not seen previously in the context of other refugee crises outside of Europe. This prompted questions and discussions about the alleged double standards and disparities in the treatments and portrayals of refugees from different countries. Inspired by such discussions and through a media frame analysis approach, this article examines a sample of relevant online UK news articles from the BBC and The Sun and compares their coverage of the Ukrainian refugee crisis to that of the Syrian and Afghan ones. The overarching aim is to identify how these distinct refugee crises are framed within the sampled articles and whether there are, in fact, discursive differences in the representation and framing of these crises, as often claimed in existing debates on the subject.