Abstract
The article analyses the discursive appeal to solidarity in the mass media during the unfolding of Europe’s migration crisis. Solidarity was claimed by numerous actors in the public discourse to legitimise political decisions and mobilise public opinion. While it seems that the call for solidarity was shared by many actors, media studies show the ‘partisan journalism’ of media outlets. Thus, the political orientation of media outlets influences their coverage of public debates. Hence, to what extent do different quality newspapers cover the same solidarity claims in times of crisis? In order to answer this question, the crisis coverage of two German and two Irish newspapers with centre-left and centre-right political orientations is examined via the discourse network methodology. Germany is selected due to high political parallelism and a strong affectedness by the crisis, while Ireland is selected because of low political parallelism and a weak affectedness by the migration crisis. The findings demonstrate that partisan journalism persists during Europe’s migration crisis. Especially German party actors are present in both countries, underpinning the central position of Germany. Regarding the appeal to solidarity, political solidarity claims prevail in all four newspapers, indicating the political-institutional asymmetry in the Common European Asylum System. The study contributes to the strategic framing of concepts in public debates and demonstrates that the left-right distinction of media outlets is hardly affected by the migration crisis.
Highlights
Solidarity was a buzzword in Europe’s migration crisis in 2015
Broadening the scope of the analysis shows that other actors appear in the newspapers that are ideologically close to the political orientation of the media outlet (Allern & Blach-Ørsten, 2011; Kaiser & Kleinen-von Königslöw, 2019)
Studies on Europe’s migration crisis have mainly exhibited two aspects: Firstly, scholars demonstrated the incompleteness of the European migration policy, and secondly, they highlighted the public debate on a security and solidarity framing of the migration crisis
Summary
Solidarity was a buzzword in Europe’s migration crisis in 2015. Numerous actors claimed solidarity with refugees and called for solidarity among member states of the European Union (EU). Germany is sorted into the Northern European democratic corporatist media model that assumes a close relationship between party organisations and press outlets. Ireland is included in the North Atlantic liberal model which assumes the press and party organisations to be rather distant (Hallin & Mancini, 2004) Both countries have been affected differently by the migration crisis in 2015 and follow different versions of political parallelism. I analyse the framing in the media outlets by applying the discourse network methodology. This method combines discourse analysis and social network analysis by examining the interdependent process of actor presence and concept formation in public discourses (Leifeld, 2016). We present the results of the discourse network analysis, followed by a discussion of the findings and implications of the study
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