Media Representations Of Refugees Research Articles

Media representations of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants: a meta-analysis of research

ABSTRACT Media representation of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants has emerged as an important area of research. This study offers a systematic overview of the objects and key characteristics of the field. We analyse 119 scholarly articles collected from the EBSCO database. Our results show that research activity has increased dramatically since 2010. However, this increase was not equally distributed; countries that have received the largest numbers of refugees were often among the least studied. Qualitative approaches outnumbered quantitative approaches, and print rather than TV or online outlets remained the preferred media type. Analysis shows an utter lack of research outside the European and North American contexts and highlights the need for more comparative and longitudinal studies.

‘It’s time we invested in stronger borders’: media representations of refugees crossing the English Channel by boat

ABSTRACT Refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats has become a common sight in the media, particularly since the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015. The number of boats crossing the English Channel between the French and UK coasts has been increasing as other migration routes have been closed down. This article reports the findings of a discourse analysis of 96 UK newspaper articles published in December 2018 when the daily crossings were referred to as a ‘major crisis’. Adopting a broadly critical discursive psychology perspective, we identify the use of three main interpretative repertoires used within the media reporting. Firstly, a ‘secure the borders’ repertoire which positions the UK’s borders as porous and easily breached, secondly, a ‘smuggling is immoral’ repertoire which works to position smugglers as to blame for the current ‘crisis’ and removes responsibility for the crisis from the Government, and finally, a ‘desperate people’ repertoire which worked to position the refugees themselves as vulnerable and in need of protection, but also as people who will engage in risky behaviours. We suggest that the use of these repertoires ultimately functions to obscure the need for safe and legal migration routes to the UK.

Representations of Syrian Refugees in UNICEF’s Media Projects: New Vulnerabilities in Digital Humanitarian Communication

As one of the worst crises of the century continues in Syria, media representations of refugees by humanitarian organizations shape how audiences perceive the crisis. This article focuses on representations of Syrian refugees in UNICEF’s media projects. Drawing on case studies of Unfairy Tales and the #ChildrenofSyria blog, the following interrelated questions are addressed: How are Syrian refugees represented? Who has the authority and the voice to produce media about Syrian refugees? How does whiteness shape representations of Syrian refugees in digital media spaces? How do user engagement, spammers, and bots produce vulnerabilities in digital humanitarian communication? The goal of this study is to highlight how the good intention of raising awareness of the refugee crisis challenges the authority and the voice of participants. This examination relies on critical discourse analysis and theories of representation, critical race, authorship, and documentary studies. The study identifies how the platform design, user engagement, and racial codification of refugees contribute to a power (a)symmetry between depicted Syrian refugees, media makers, and audiences. This article is part of the special issue “Media, Migration, and Nationalism” of the journal Global Perspectives, Media and Communication, guest-edited by Koen Leurs and Tomohisa Hirata.

Trivial pursuits? Serious (video) games and the media representation of refugees

This article critically analyses the representational practices of serious (video) games that focus on refugees. It argues that the technological form of serious games can simulate the historical, political and socio-economic factors that shape why refugees leave their home country and their experiences when travelling to host countries. They are able to mobilise intellectual agendas which challenge the de-contextualised representations of refugees typical in traditional media. As such, they challenge players to critically reflect on the complexities of refugee experiences and politics, thereby presenting a potential to move away from grand emotional discourses of pity and compassion.

Islamophobia and Media Representation of Refugees in Serbia

This article seeks to respond to the following questions: How do the print media in Serbia report on refugees, asylum-seekers and refugee affairs; what effect is achieved through this type of media representation; and is there “Islamophobia pushing” through media. In the course of the media analysis this study examined various national dailies as well as the leading websites during the year of 2015 by focusing on specific articles that are able to contribute to the overall aim of the study. A total of eight Serbian newspapers were sampled: Alo, Informer, Kurir, Pravda, Telegraf, Danas, Politika and Blic as well as various leading websites. Although the wars in the former Yugoslavia ended twenty years ago, consequences of these wars are still visible in the Western Balkans and as will be demonstrated on the case study of Serbia in particular. In the past Islamophobic incidents in Serbia, a post-conflict society, were not rare. Islamophobic incidents to some extent are still present in Serbia, especially in the areas of paramount importance such as the media and therefore this phenomenon will also be analyzed in the context of media representation.

Empathy or entitlement? Humanizing and Othering discourses in Go Back To Where You Came From

Abstract Debate over asylum seekers and refugees has continued over several decades in Australia. Terms such as ‘boat people’, ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘queue jumpers’ have peppered more recent discussions, as well as political party rhetoric such as ‘stopping the boats’ and a network of ‘people smuggling’. In 2011 SBS (Australia) broadcast the first series of a reality TV-type programme entitled Go Back To Where You Came From in which a group of ‘ordinary Australians’ followed a refugee journey in reverse. This ‘alternative’ format for exploring a controversial Australian issue suggests the potential for a more humanitarian perspective and a different kind of engagement with audiences as opposed to news or documentary. This article however examines discourses of the ‘Other’ still present within the programme, including the representation of ‘ordinary Australians’ as potential opportunities for empathy, but also as possible perpetuation of the dominant negative portrayals of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. Utilizing Said and Bhabha’s theories of Orientalism and the Other, this article combines research on media representation of refugees with Hage’s argument about the construction of ‘paranoid nationalism’ through care and worry, to examine the tensions in Go Back To Where You Came From between humanitarian inclusion and exclusion, and between legitimacy and deviance.

“AIDS Assassins”: Australian Media's Portrayal of HIV-Positive Refugees Who Deliberately Infect Others

The media representations of refugees who are HIV-positive often revolve around criminal transmission cases. This study examines the approach the Australian mass media have taken toward the case of two men from refugee backgrounds and how this stigmatizing language is unhelpful in discussions of HIV. An extensive search of the Factiva database was undertaken for all newspaper articles in the major dailies that mentioned “HIV,” “AIDS,” and “refugee” between 2002 and 2008. Analysis was guided by several approaches to media analysis in an attempt to understand the representations of HIV-positive refugees. When analyzing the media articles of criminal cases relating to HIV we found that refugees who are HIV-positive were portrayed in a negative fashion, with the concept of “otherness” prominent throughout most newspaper media reports. Considering this is the main source of information for most people concerning HIV, this representation carries the potential to lead to further stigma and discrimination to both people living with HIV and refugees.

I’s Wide Shut: Examining the Depiction of Female Refugees’ Eyes and Hands in Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things

In 2002, Stephen Frears directed Dirty Pretty Things – one of the few mainstream fictional films to highlight the effects of exile, the complexities of refugee status, and the trials of migrant labour in the “Western” world. Thus far, the minimal number of “refugee” films produced is mirrored by the minimal discussion about those films (or their absence). This essay examines Frears’s film with a critical lens that incorporates both theoretical evaluations and aesthetic choices. For instance: how do media representations of refugees and migrants relegate the signification of refugee-ism to visceral, silent, repetitiv,e and subordinated signifiers? Additionally, this essay narrows its interest upon Senay, the female lead of Dirty Pretty Things, to open up a dialogue about fragmented body: missing hands / hyperbolized eyes. Drawing on knowledge of the theoretical implications of those choices, this paper addresses refugees and illegal migrants in film with the hope of initiating conversation about an otherwise relatively silent and untouched cinematic subgenre.