Nationalizing the “refugee crisis”: A comparative analysis exploring how elite newspapers in four countries framed forced migration during World Refugee Day

Abstract

This comparative study examines framing of migration-related stories (focused on media coverage of World Refugee Day [WRD]) between four countries, and framing developments over 18 years, specifically if (and how) the 2015 peak “refugee crisis” altered news coverage of refugee issues. Elite newspapers, the New York Times (USA), the Times of India, Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany) and Haaretz (Israel) were content analyzed. Newspapers gave only sparse attention to WRD itself, but WRD was a “temporal opportunity” to discuss migration that increased coverage. But the 2015 peak refugee crisis had little effect on coverage over the long run.

Keywords

global journalism migration framing World Refugee Day content analysis international comparison

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