Negatively shaping the asylum agenda? The representational strategy and impact of a tabloid news campaign

Abstract

This article examines coverage presented in a news campaign (on asylum and immigration) by the UK tabloid newspaper, the Sun, from January to March 2003. The analysis reveals how tabloid news conventions rather than government definitions or viewpoints frame the character and contours of campaign representations, an observation that throws into sharp relief existing explanations of elite influence or authority skew. This campaign includes portrayals of the asylum seeker as ‘the other’ or ‘folk devil’, a moral framework explaining their deviant intentions and actions, as well as expressions of irreverence at elite decision-making and government UK asylum policy. Yet it is striking how accompanying tabloid representations of public opinion, featuring consistently through the coverage, offer additional hostility to asylum policy and government officials. The article outlines how such representations and appeals garner the attention of the political elite and elite media on this occasion and develop new concerns over the newspaper’s role in negatively shaping the asylum agenda.