Closed due to ‘flooding’? UK media representations of refugees and migrants in 2015–2016 – creating a crisis of borders

Abstract

This article reports on a discourse analysis of high circulation news media sources in the United Kingdom, around six key events relating to migration in 2015–2016. This article argues that the dominant discourse in UK media constructed the increase in movements of people and applications for asylum as a ‘crisis of borders’. In this context, Europe’s borders were deemed problematically porous in enabling large numbers of people to enter. This porosity was painted as leading to an ongoing crisis for people in Europe, with the assumption being that allowing more people to enter would threaten European borders, security forces, people, and identity. These discursive constructions serve to marginalise considerations of insecurity and dangers that asylum seekers and refugees face in conflicts, and instead paint them not as experiencing violence, but rather as perpetrators of crisis themselves.

Who’s to Fear? Implicit Sexual Threat Pre and Post the “Refugee Crisis”

“…Media reports often linked "Arabs" or "North Africans" to incidents and assaults that occurred in the aftermath of the refugee crisis (Czymara and Schmidt-Catran 2017;Pruitt 2019). It might be that such news stories link sexual assaults to Arabic or North African individuals without explicitly referring to ethnicities.…”

“…News media, as a main information source, are often accused of begin skewed to the negative side when it comes to reporting about the conducts and traits of ethnic "others". News coverage about immigrants seems to be replete with distressing images of illegality, crime, terrorism and the allegation of unfair labor market competition (Bennett et al 2013;Greussing and Boomgaarden 2017;Pruitt 2019). Herewith a disturbing portrayal is constructed of refugees and immigrants as a threat to the economic, physical, and cultural well-being of host-countries.…”

Existential Threats of Immigration and Terrorism Predict Voting for Brexit and Trump

“…The potential for psychological impact from such exposure is demonstrated in various studies evidencing the relationship between news coverage of terrorist attacks and anxiety (Ben-Zue, Gil, & Shamshins, 2012;Shoshani & Slone, 2008;Slone, 2000), distress (Silver, Holman, McIntosh, Poulin, & Gil-Rivas, 2002), threat perception (Rubaltelli & Pittarello, 2018), reduced trust (Giordano & Lindström, 2016), support for military intervention (Soroka, Loewen, Fournier, & Rubenson, 2016;Gadarian, 2010), increased respect for authority (Tamborini et al, 2017), and outgroup prejudice (Das, Bushman, Bezemer, Kerkhof, Vermeulen, 2009). Furthermore, news coverage of the ensuing European "refugee/immigration crisis" channelled the same fears, contextualising the crisis in terms of socio-economic impact, cultural dilution, loss of border control and chaos (Balch & Balabanova, 2016, Lawlor, 2015, Pruitt, 2019. Images of over-crowded boats crossing the Mediterranean prompted analogies of water-related disquieting wording such as "flood", "wave", "tide", "stream" and "deluge" (Pruitt, 2019).…”

“…Furthermore, news coverage of the ensuing European "refugee/immigration crisis" channelled the same fears, contextualising the crisis in terms of socio-economic impact, cultural dilution, loss of border control and chaos (Balch & Balabanova, 2016, Lawlor, 2015, Pruitt, 2019. Images of over-crowded boats crossing the Mediterranean prompted analogies of water-related disquieting wording such as "flood", "wave", "tide", "stream" and "deluge" (Pruitt, 2019). Insect infestation and disease related metaphors (e.g., "swarms" (Esses, Medianu, & Lawson, 2013;Torkington & Riberiro, 2019)) also contributed to adversarial commentary, such as the "Breaking Point" poster of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) (Pruitt, 2019).…”

Migration, racism, and memory

“…As a result, EU’s failure is complete (Anderson, 2017). An extremely wealthy political and economic union comprising 510 million people and steeped in human rights rhetoric proved unable and unwilling to craft a new home to a small number of 2.6 million newcomers (Pruitt, 2019). Nobody in his right mind can attribute the failure to lack of resources (Khiabany, 2016).…”