Migrant Racialization on Twitter during a border and a pandemic crisis

Abstract

This work examines how the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the migration debate on Twitter. Through co-hashtag network analysis, time-frequency and content analysis, it shows that the pandemic was related with positive (humanitarian) and negative (threat) stances about migration. The positive side focused on the need to protect refugees stranded at camps in Greece from COVID-19. The negative focused on the Greek-Turkish land-border crisis (Evros crisis), using COVID-19 to reinforce migrants as racialized others. These findings fit the problematization of positive and negative migrant representations in the Global north as Eurocentric. In the case of camps, refugees fit well within the victim/helpless frame, justifying humanitarianism, this time on health grounds. Regarding the border crisis, refugees also fit the Eurocentric frame of violent/male/inferior other who could spread a deadly virus. Overall, COVID-19 intertwined with migration in Twitter debates, reinforcing the racialized, Eurocentric representational field on migrants from the Global south.

Migrants as ‘pawns’: Antimigrant debates on Twitter and their affinity to European border politics and discourses

“…This study sought to answer who was othered and why in a Twitter debate around #IStandWithGreece, triggered by border incidents between Greece and Turkey in early 2020. The tweets studied belonged to the top influencers of what we have already identified as a ‘network of intolerance’ promoting ideologies from within the far-right, cutting across national contexts of the Global north (Avraamidou et al, 2021). Focusing on the network’s English and Greek tweets, we inevitably located othering processes at the intersections of transnational far-right perspectives, which share rhetoric and ideologies (Levi and Rothberg, 2018), and of Greek nationalism, therefore bringing new insights on migrant othering in social media.…”

“…Our focus is on an evaluative, yet ambiguous hashtag, #IstandwithGreece, used in the midst of the Evros events and which became the most popular hashtag on Twitter around which a social network was organized, promoting antimigrant views (Avraamidou et al, 2021). The tweets shared by #IStandWithGreece's top influencers form our research focus.…”

“…An example is migration, which has drawn the attention of a transnational audience from the far-right (Froio and Ganesh, 2019) which often bond around negative evaluative hashtags in English such as #refugeesnotwelcome, used during the so-called Refugee crisis (Kreis, 2017) or #Islamexit, used after the Brexit referendum (Evolvi, 2019). Occasionally, elite and non-elite far-right voices may coordinate to spread antimigrant positions in social media using more covert hashtags too (Avraamidou et al, 2021). Simultaneously, on Twitter, nationalism is reproduced from below when twitterers of a particular country debate refugee issues (Bozdag, 2020).…”

“…Using social network analysis (Markham and Lindgren, 2014), we identified the network's top 10 influencers and the sub-network communities in which they belonged. As explained (Avraamidou et al, 2021), ethno-nationalists, white supremacists, and other antimigrant voices almost exclusively dominated the debate under #IStandWithGreece. For example, far-right British social media persona, Katie Hopkins, and members of the French Identarian movement, were among the top 10 influencers all eventually banned from Twitter (Avraamidou et al, 2021;BBC News, 2020).…”

“…In so doing, we reflect on the extent to which the othering processes we track in these tweets, by far-right elite and non-elite voices, offer a more overtly racist expression of official EU discourses about migration to the extent that they may be mutually constituted. Hashtag IstandwithGreece , created in the midst of the events studied, began trending on Twitter and around it a ‘network of intolerance’ was organized to strategically promote ideologies ranging from white supremacism to Greek nationalism, glued together by antimigrant positions (Avraamidou et al, 2021). Focus on these events, and on Twitter, allowed for an in-depth analysis of transnational boundary making, its relationship to Greek nationalism, and European border politics and discourses.…”