Shifting the Refugee Narrative? An Automated Frame Analysis of Europe’s 2015 Refugee Crisis

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Ethnicity and Race in Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

In 2015, Europe faced an influx of over 1.25 million refugees. The public mainly learned about this issue through domestic media. Through the use of innovative computer assisted content analysis, this study identifies the most dominant frames employed in the coverage of refugee and asylum issues between January 2015 and January 2016 in six Austrian newspapers (N=10,606), revealing that established narratives of security threat and economization are most prominent. Humanitarianism frames and background information on the refugees’ situation are provided to a lesser extent. During the most intense phases of the crisis, the framing patterns of tabloid and quality media become highly similar. Media coverage broadens to multiple prominent frames as issue salience sharply increases, and then ‘crystallises’ to a narrow set of them. In sum, the results confirm a predominance of stereotyped interpretations of refugee and asylum issues, even in times of a major political and humanitarian crisis.

Authors

• Esther Greussing

• Hajo G. Boomgaarden, U of Vienna