Selling displaced people? A multi‐method study of the public communication strategies of international refugee organisations

Abstract

The world has seen a major increase in forced displacement since 2011. As a growing number of states implement restrictive refugee policies, public communication has become essential for refugee organisations. This study analysed, therefore, three international refugee organisations’ discursive strategies towards the recent Syrian crisis, as well as their production and the social context. A critical discourse analysis of international press releases (N=122) and six semi‐structured interviews with press and regional officers revealed that the observed actors largely dehumanise displaced people and subordinate them to the ‘Western self’ and state interests; displaced people hardly ever acquire their own voice. The study found that the medium characteristics of press releases and the importance of media attention result in a depersonalising humanitarian discourse. In addition, there were indications of a post‐humanitarian discourse that reproduced the humanitarian sector's ‘marketisation’. Finally, the examined organisations use the political realist cross‐issue persuasion strategy, displaying displaced people as resettlement objects.

Beyond the humanitarian savior logics? UNHCR's public communication strategies for the Syrian and Central African crises

“…Forcibly displaced people's humanitarian images have generally changed from heroic, politicized individuals in the Cold War period to, mirroring media and political discourses (supra), anonymous, voiceless, depoliticized, dehistoricized, decontextualized, universalized, racialized, and/or victimized masses from the "Global South," mostly involving (innocent and vulnerable-looking) women and children as "ideal victims" (Höijer, 2004;Johnson, 2011b). Recognizing important genre differences (Ongenaert and Joye, in review), mainly refugee organizations, celebrities, and other humanitarian actors obtain voices about forcibly displaced people, largely neglecting and dehumanizing forcibly displaced people themselves (Chouliaraki, 2012;Ongenaert and Joye, 2019). These discursive transformations interact with the aforementioned policy shifts and serve to mobilize public support and manage forcibly displaced people's perceived threats (Johnson, 2011b).…”

“…Meetings with forcibly displaced people are usually represented as contributions to self-development (Chouliaraki, 2012). While this celebrity humanitarianism can reach broader audiences (Ongenaert and Joye, 2019), citizens tend to engage and identify more with the media spectacle and celebrities than with forcibly displaced people (Chouliaraki, 2012;Kyriakidou, 2019).…”

“…Acknowledging these trends, refugee organizations frequently try to persuade states to voluntarily engage in protection by connecting their contributions to larger interests in related regimes (e.g. human rights, humanitarianism, economics, migration, and security) (Betts, 2009;Ongenaert and Joye, 2019). This pragmatic, political realist communication strategy, known as "cross-issue persuasion," is enabled by IRC, builds on issue linkage (see McGinnis, 1986), and presupposes two crucial factors.…”

“…However, to our knowledge, only some have thoroughly examined refugee organizations' second-level agenda-building strategies, that is, discursive strategies that shape how or what news media, citizens and other stakeholders should think about certain topics (ibid.). Nevertheless, refugee organizations' public communication can influence forcibly displaced people's and crises' public perceptions and thus have broader policy and societal consequences, both at macro and micro levels (Chouliaraki, 2012;Ongenaert, 2019, Ongenaert andJoye, 2019). More specifically, most studies have identified that refugee organizations mostly use humanitarian and posthumanitarian representation and argumentation strategies (ibid.).…”

The politics and poetics of migrant narratives

“…Humanitarian organizations are major actors in the public communication on migration, and they have significant agenda setting possibilities. Based on their analysis of press releases and communication strategies of major international refugee organizations, David Ongenaert and Stijn Joye (2019), however, conclude that through their ‘marketisation’, they often de-humanize displaced people, subordinating them to the ‘Western self’ and state interests (p. 478). As elaborated by Bimbisar Irom (2018), virtual reality (VR) has gained traction in humanitarian communication, spurred by its promises of co-presence, experiential immediacy and transcendence.…”