Framing Of Immigration Research Articles

Does the Framing of Immigration Induce Welfare Chauvinism? The Effects of Negativity Bias and Motivated Reasoning

AbstractShould immigrants have the same access to welfare as the native population? Fuelled by the populist radical right, the notion of restricting access to benefits to native citizens – welfare chauvinism – has been increasingly prominent in political debates. But can welfare chauvinistic attitudes be induced (or attenuated) by the negative (or positive) information individuals receive about immigrants? Combining insights from research on negativity bias and motivated reasoning, we argue that negative frames which emphasize fiscal costs of immigration are more consequential than positive frames that emphasize fiscal benefits, but this effect is primarily visible among those whose ideological priors are congruent with the negative information. Since more extreme attitudes are associated with increased selective judgement, those who occupy a more extreme ideological position should be particularly affected. A survey experiment in Germany supports this argument and shows that while a negative frame is stronger than a positive frame, this effect is moderated by one’s ideology and is most evident among more extreme ideologues who hold frame-congruent attitudes. We also show that ideology, rather than economic circumstances, is a more important moderator of framing effects.

Do News Frames Really Have Some Influence in the Real World? A Computational Analysis of Cumulative Framing Effects on Emotions and Opinions About Immigration

This study examines how the news framing of immigration influences the public’s feelings toward immigrants and their preference for immigration policy in the United States. Unlike prior experimental research that documents the respondents’ immediate reactions to several hand-crafted news frames, this study provides strong empirical evidence for the association between the respondents’ real-world news exposure and their opinion change over time. Combining a computational media content analysis and a two-wave panel survey, the research demonstrates that while exposure to certain frames in the mainstream media would directly lead to public support for a stricter immigration policy, partisan media tend to affect public opinion indirectly by influencing their feelings toward immigrants in opposite directions.

Media framing of immigrants in Central Europe in the period surrounding the refugee crisis: Security, negativity, and political sources

Abstract This article investigates how all the main quality and tabloid newspapers and the television newscasts of the main broadcasters in Czechia and Slovakia framed immigrants, what the tone of the employed frames was, and who the main framing actors were before and during the EU refugee crisis (2013–2016). Using quantitative content analysis (N = 7,910), we show that security and cultural frames are most commonly employed while the victimization frame is much less common. Whereas tabloids use the security and cultural frames more often, the victimization, economic and administrative frames are more often invoked in quality media. We also show that the framing of immigrants is predominantly negative, and that the security and cultural are the most negatively valenced frames. Finally, we document a dominance of political actors and the practical invisibility of immigrants and refugees in the media coverage.

Framing of policy responses to migrant horticultural labour shortages during Covid-19 in the Italian print media

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a global food crisis. Like previous food crises how the debate is framed by food policy actors can have a bearing on policy outcomes. This study researches how the policy responses to migrant horticultural labour shortages, due to the pandemic, were framed in the Italian print media and how this relates to longer-term food policy making. Data were gathered from the six highest-circulation Italian daily newspapers. The coverage was dominated by left-leaning outlets and peaked in relation to Covid-19 recovery policies and political processes. Farmer industry bodies were the most quoted group, and the legalisation of undocumented migrant workers was the most frequently discussed policy response. A frames analysis was conducted and identified three principal frames: food security, worker exploitation and immigration. The worker exploitation and immigration frames were most frequently used by left-leaning newspapers, while centre-right papers used the food security frame the most often. The results suggest that media framing could contribute to both policy change, helping to open policy windows, as well as policy lock-ins, side-lining certain debates, actors and policy solutions. The research aims to contribute to growing empirical work which seeks to understand the impact of Covid-19 on migrant agricultural workers and food policy.

Computational analysis of 140 years of US political speeches reveals more positive but increasingly polarized framing of immigration

We classify and analyze 200,000 US congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications related to immigration from 1880 to the present. Despite the salience of antiimmigration rhetoric today, we find that political speech about immigration is now much more positive on average than in the past, with the shift largely taking place between World War II and the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965. However, since the late 1970s, political parties have become increasingly polarized in their expressed attitudes toward immigration, such that Republican speeches today are as negative as the average congressional speech was in the 1920s, an era of strict immigration quotas. Using an approach based on contextual embeddings of text, we find that modern Republicans are significantly more likely to use language that is suggestive of metaphors long associated with immigration, such as "animals" and "cargo," and make greater use of frames like "crime" and "legality." The tone of speeches also differs strongly based on which nationalities are mentioned, with a striking similarity between how Mexican immigrants are framed today and how Chinese immigrants were framed during the era of Chinese exclusion in the late 19th century. Overall, despite more favorable attitudes toward immigrants and the formal elimination of race-based restrictions, nationality is still a major factor in how immigrants are spoken of in Congress.

More than just an immigrant: The semantic patterns of (im)migrant/predicate-pairings in news stories about Mexican and Central American (im)migrants to the USA. A corpus-assisted discourse study

In this paper we explore how some of the largest US-newspapers linguistically frame immigrants to the USA in articles about Mexican and Central American immigrants. Specifically, it is a corpus-assisted discourse study which examines the frequency of different semantic predicate-types with (im)migrant subjects and (im)migrant by-agents in the quest for underlying positive or negative biases. We wish to ascertain what activities (im)migrants are presented as taking part in, principally as agents. The analysis shows that more than half of the (im)migrant/predicate-pairings reflect the dictionary definitions of (im)migrant. However, immigrants are described as illegal 66% of the times that their location is mentioned with an immigrant/predicate-pairing. The non-definition-confirming pairings also show evidence of a negative framing of immigrants, but not of migrants. Furthermore, immigrants are more often than migrants cast as agents of activities that do not simply reiterate their status as (im)migrants. Finally, we found evidence of the Negation Bias in the immigrant/predicate-pairings.

Framing Different Groups of Immigrants in Central Europe Before and During the 2015–2017 EU Refugee Crisis

This article examines the media framing of immigrants around the 2015–2017 EU refugee crisis in two Central European countries, Czechia and Slovakia. Unlike most similar studies I investigate how framing varies regarding different migrant groups. Using quantitative content analysis, I show that security and cultural frames are most commonly employed while the opposite holds for the victimisation frame. Particular frames are, however, more frequently used to depict certain immigrants. Those with a Muslim background and/or from the Middle East or North Africa (MENA) are more often framed in security and cultural terms. The victimisation frame is employed more often regarding immigrants from MENA and the economic frame regarding Eastern Europeans.

Coverage and Framing of Immigration Policy in US Newspapers.

Immigration policymaking at federal, state, and local levels in the United States has proliferated in the past decade. While evidence demonstrates that immigration policy is a determinant of health, there has been limited examination of the mechanisms by which policy influences proximal health processes. News coverage has served as a central platform for debates over restrictive and inclusive immigration policies and may constitute an important health mechanism by shaping public agendas, influencing support for immigrant exclusion or inclusion, and framing policy issues, thereby influencing immigrants' social climates. This study sought to examine the extent of news coverage of exclusionary and inclusive immigration policy at federal and state levels and variations in messages about immigrants during two periods of extensive policymaking. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of newspapers' coverage of immigration policy between 2010 and 2013 and between 2017 and 2019. We conducted a systematic NewsBank search of articles covering legislation, lawsuits, and other policies related to immigration (n = 931). Articles were coded for policy type and level, positive or negative framing of immigrants, and other characteristics. Our analysis then compared the patterns of the two periods. In both periods, the majority of coverage focused on exclusionary policies at the federal level, despite a significant increase in integration policies between 2017 and 2019. We found significant shifts in both the negative and positive framing of immigrants, from the dominant negative messages of immigrants as an economic drain to immigrants as criminals and the dominant positive messages of immigrants' economic contributions to immigrants as families. Since 2010, coverage of exclusionary federal policy has consistently dominated the news, as messages have increasingly described immigrants as either criminals or part of families. We discuss the health implications and future research directions of news coverages' role in influencing the immigration policy and social contexts that have been linked to health outcomes.

A populist turn?: News editorials and the recent discursive shift on immigration in Sweden

Abstract This article undertakes a critical discourse analysis of Swedish quality newspaper editorials and their evolving framing of immigration since the 2015 peak of the recent European “refugee crisis”. Positioned within the ongoing discursive shifts in the Swedish public sphere and the growth of discursive uncivility in its mainstream areas, the analysis highlights how xenophobic and racist discourses once propagated by the far and radical right gradually penetrate into the studied broadsheet newspapers. We argue that the examined editorials carry the tendency to normalise once radical perceptions of immigration. This takes place by incorporating various discursive strategies embedded in wider argumentative frames – or topoi – of demographic consequences, Islam and Islamisation, threat, and integration. All of these enable constructing claims against immigration now apparently prevalent in the examined strands of the Swedish “quality” press.

Which Political Actors Frame the Immigration Problem? Documenting the Incidence of Source Type and Party Lines in Immigration Stories during U.S. Election Coverage (2006-2014)

ABSTRACT This study investigates the framing of immigration by political actors in US election news from 2006 to 2014 and how they present the issue as a problem (for society, for immigrants, no problem frames). Through a content analysis of national newspapers coverage of midterm and presidential elections, we explore the relationship between the people sourced in the stories and the framing of immigration as a problem. Results show that despite an increasingly competitive framing field (with more non-governmental, non-elite sources salient in news coverage), government officials and candidates are still often mentioned in stories on immigration. Seen along party lines, framing of immigration as a problem for society is more associated with Republican government officials and candidates for office than with Democrats. Special interest groups and Law enforcement sources are also attached to immigration framing. Implications for the understanding of how the immigration issue is framed during electoral periods are discussed.

An Analysis of British Media’s Framing of Immigration During Brexit Campaign’s Final Days

An Analysis of British Media’s Framing of Immigration During Brexit Campaign’s Final Days

The Framing of Immigration and Integration in Sweden and Norway: <i>A Comparative Study of Official Government Reports</i>

This paper presents an overview of the landscape of immigration and integration policies in Sweden and Norway. The study sheds light over differences and similarities between these countries, based on an analysis of official government documents in the period 2010–2018. Empirically, a variety of topics concerned with immigration and integration policies are analyzed, how immigration influences the welfare state, integration issues, policy plans, and different integration measures. Furthermore, the study explores how problems are defined, the source of the problem, who is responsible, and what are the kinds of solutions that are suggested. The findings show that although there are many similarities, some distinct differences are observed in the framing of immigration and integration policies. Not only do the countries focus on different topics but they also have different evaluations of problems and solutions. As the analysis shows, these differences were quite consistent during the eight-year period.

Digital Texts and Moral Questions About Immigration: Papers, Please and the Capacity for a Video Game to Stimulate Sociopolitical Discussion

Scholars and critics have praised the video game, Papers, Please ( PP), for raising critical awareness of sociopolitical issues, including immigration. To begin to determine whether PP stimulated public discussions of pertinent social issues, I adopt insights and techniques from cultural sociology to study how posters in an online forum engage with PP. I use computational topic modeling to reveal the topics forum members discuss and qualitative content analysis to gain a deeper sense of how posters explore these issues. I find the forum does discuss social issues, including immigration. Sociopolitical topics, however, are far from the forum’s primary focus. Moreover, posts primarily rely on the same limited set of immigration frames that major U.S. media outlets use. These findings demonstrate how a game’s social meanings will be shaped not only by the game’s design but also by social factors internal to the public under analysis and broader social dynamics.

Negativity Bias: The Impact of Framing of Immigration on Welfare State Support in Germany, Sweden and the UK

AbstractHow does the framing of immigration influence support for the welfare state? Drawing on research from psychology, specifically the notion of negativity bias and the sequencing of negative and positive information, this article argues that negative immigration frames undermine welfare support, while positive frames have little or no effect. Individuals take less notice of positive frames, and the effect of such frames is further undermined by the previous exposure to negative frames, which tend to stick longer in people's minds. The findings, based on survey experiments on over 9,000 individuals in Germany, Sweden and the UK, show that negative framing of immigration has a strong and pervasive effect on support for welfare. The article also finds some evidence that this effect is further amplified for people who hold anti-immigrant and anti-welfare attitudes or feel economically insecure. The effect of positive framing is considerably weaker and does not strengthen welfare support in any of the three countries.

News Media Trends in the Framing of Immigration and Crime, 1990–2013

AbstractFew social problems engender as much public and political debate as the alleged link between immigration and crime. Contrary to the findings of much empirical literature, the majority of the public believe that immigration increases crime and that the foreign born are especially prone to offending. Among many factors, the way prominent news media describe the immigration-crime link may help explain the disconnectedness of scholarship and public opinion over the past several decades. Using a unique database of over 2,200 news stories drawn from among the highest circulation national papers for 1990 through 2013, the current study employs time-series trend analyses to examine the prevalence of different media frames used to explain the immigration-crime link and whether those frames have changed systematically over time. Our results reveal that most immigration-crime news stories describe immigrants as especially crime-prone or as increasing aggregate crime rates. Moreover, this framing has increased in prevalence over time, as have narratives inaccurately describing undocumented immigration as a crime itself, while framing immigrants as victims of crime has declined significantly over the 1990–2013 period. These changes occurred systematically in only some newspapers. We discuss implications for research, policy, and the public engagement of scientific evidence.

Immigration, race and local media: Smethwick and the 1964 general election

ABSTRACTIn 1964, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Birmingham gained a reputation worldwide as Britain’s most racist town. The Conservative Party’s candidate, Peter Griffiths, bucked national trends in the General Election by winning a seat in Smethwick with a large majority, following a fiercely anti-immigrant campaign. Smethwick’s immigrant population was no larger than that of neighbouring towns, posing the question why such intense anti-immigrant feeling emerged at a local level? This article addresses the impact of local and regional media on public perceptions of immigrants in Smethwick during and immediately after the 1964 General Election, arguing that the local newspaper, the Smethwick Telephone, and ATV Today, ITV’s regional news programme for the Midlands, fuelled hostility and helped legitimise Griffiths’ campaign. By investigating the media’s influence at a local level, we can gain a greater understanding of the development of racial prejudice in British communities and the complex history of twentieth century media. This article further develops the work of Wendy Webster, Sarita Malik and Gavin Schaffer, who examine the framing of immigration by a range of national media forms but overlook the vital role of local and regional reporting in this process.

The politicization of immigration in Italy. Who frames the issue, when and how

AbstractItaly is one of the most representative ‘new immigration countries.’ Between the 1980s and the 1990s, it became a major country of destination for immigrants coming from Asia, Middle East, and North Africa. As a result, since the mid-90s, immigration has gained salience within the Italian political debate. Building on the existing literature on agenda-setting and framing studies, this article studies the evolution of the immigration issue in Italy over the last two decades. It focuses on the framing and, more specifically, the position political actors tend to adopt when debating on immigration. In particular, the main research questions are: to what extent is the framing of immigration associated with the traditional left vs. right spectrum? Do incumbent political parties tend to adopt a different position toward immigration than opposition parties? This article analyses party competition dynamics over the immigration issue in Italy from 1995 to 2011. The author carried out a political-claim analysis of articles from two Italian national daily newspapers. Findings show that immigration is more a positional issue than a valence one. Political actors’ positions towards migration appear to be anchored to the old left vs. right dimension of the political conflict. This demonstrates that parties’ engagement within the political conflict goes beyond electoral campaigns. Finally, being in government seems to play a crucial role in ‘softening’ the way party actors frame immigration, in terms of both the arguments used and the pro- or anti-immigration positions adopted.

Who drove the discourse? News coverage and policy framing of immigrants and refugees in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

Abstract Migration was one of the most important issues in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. While Hillary Clinton promised an immigration reform that would create a path to citizenship, Donald Trump said he would deport illegal aliens, build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and suspend immigration from countries with a history of terrorism, capitalizing on some of the public’s fears through his rhetoric. We examine the ways mainstream national and regional press covered this issue from the Republican National Convention through Election Day. This content analysis of 12 news outlets finds that political themes drove the coverage more than anything else, with Donald Trump or a member of his team most often serving as theme sponsor. Though about half of the stories were neutral or balanced in tone, negative stories were sponsored either by the Trump team or other actors.

Between Globalization and Nationalism: The Politics of Immigration in South Korea

Why, in recent years, has the South Korean government introduced various changes in its immigration policy, diverging from a long history of relative closure toward foreign workers in the East Asian region? While existing studies on labor migration utilize pluralistic models of interest aggregation and competition, examining the preferences of different domestic groups such as firms, native labor, and foreign-born immigrants, immigration has long remained underpoliticized in South Korea. Indeed, until the 2000s, the central government maintained strict policies banning the import of foreign labor, overruling other important economic or environmental factors such as sector-specific needs or a shrinking domestic workforce due to an aging population. In this article, I argue that a new political framing of immigration, made possible through a shifting domestic political context in which global human rights norms became more salient, led to important policy changes in the past decade. The South Korean case suggests that globalization has led to greater acceptance of foreign workers, less as a result of economic pressures but rather the pull of global standards, based on the Korean yearning for segyehwa (to become global) and becoming an “advanced” nation.

It's the frame that matters: Immigrant integration and media framing effects in the Netherlands

In the past years the Netherlands have witnessed turbulent debates on immigration and integration, characterized by high levels of negativity and containing a variety of different viewpoints, i.e., frames, of the issue. We use a 4×2 between subjects experiment to investigate, which responses four salient immigration frames elicit among Dutch citizens. The results show that, whereas the willingness to support collective action is affected by the valence of the story, attitudes towards immigrants and intercultural behavioural intentions are affected by the frame of the story: the multicultural frame exerts positive, and the victimization frame exerts negative effects, regardless of the valence of the story.