Japanese Newspaper Portrayals of Refugees—A Frame Analysis from 1985 to 2017

Abstract

Abstract Several studies of western countries link negative media stereotyping of refugees to support for restrictive policies. However, less is known about Japan, an Asian country that has been widely criticized for its strict refugee policy. Our study addresses this gap by exploring, first, trends in Japanese news media coverage of different refugee populations and second, whether left-leaning news outlets cover refugees differently than right-leaning ones. Using quantitative deductive frame analysis of 3372 Japanese newspaper articles published between 1985 and 2017, we find that despite some consistency in the frequency with which certain frames appear, media coverage reflects contextual differences of specific refugee populations. The results also show that Japanese newspapers generally use sympathetic frames at higher frequencies than negative ones and left-leaning newspapers cover refugees more often and more sympathetically than right-leaning newspapers. Our findings suggest that there may be no direct linkage between negative media coverage and strict policies in host countries with small and less publicly visible refugee populations, such as Japan.