scholarly journals Echoes of Empire: racism and historical amnesia in the British media coverage of migration

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Połońska-Kimunguyi
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Times ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
The Guardian

AbstractThis paper looks at how the British media addressed the issue of migration in Europe between 2015 and 2018, four years when the topic was high on news and political agendas, due to the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ and the UK’s debate on Britain’s relationship with the European Union and free movement of people. Based on a sample of 400 articles from two national newspapers, The Guardian and The Times, the paper compares the content and discourse between the left-wing and right-wing press. The paper argues that media representations turn refugees into ‘migrants’ and portray them as either a threat to the national economy and security or as passive victims of distant circumstances. The study historicizes these media narratives and reveals that the discourse they employ advances the racialised mix of knowledge and historical amnesia and reproduces the age-old hierarchies of the colonial system which divided humans into superior and inferior species. Migrant voice is largely missing from the coverage. History, that could explain the causes of ‘migration’, the distant conflicts and Britain’s role in them, is also nowhere to be found. The paper considers the exclusion of history and migrant voices from stories told to the British audience and reflects on their domestic and international implications.

scholarly journals The Failure of the European Union to Respond to the Refugee Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-311
Author(s):  
Abdullah Omar Yassen, Et. al.
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Refugee Issues

Purpose: Recent UNHCR figures show that a record 70.8 million refugees are forcibly displaced. Millions of refugees are trapped in protracted refugee situations, and have been so on average for 25 years; this compares with 17 years in 2003, and nine in 1991. The research addresses whether the existing international refugee law regime is capable of addressing this crisis, or whether the issue is that member states do not comply with the refugee regime Results: This research highlights the failure of European Union to respond to the refugee problems. The figures show that there are more refugees trapped in protracted situations than before and also that their plight takes longer to be resolved. Therefore, from the perspective of persons born in danger zones, one is more likely to be a refugee in 2019 than in 2014, yet less likely to find a durable solution. Methodology: The study adopted a doctrinal methodology by exploring legislation and directives to identify whether these laws can address refugee issues. Novelty/originality of this study: Forced migration has received negative media coverage and politicians, especially right-wing parties, have used migrants as a scapegoat. This paper identifies some of the myths of migration to demonstrate that, if given the opportunity, migrants can contribute positively to economic growth and integrate with local communities

scholarly journals Populism and exclusionary narratives: The ‘other’ in Podemos’ 2014 European Union election campaign

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 552-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Sanders ◽  
María Jesús Molina Hurtado ◽  
Jessica Zoragastua
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The People ◽  
Discursive Positioning ◽  
Dramatistic Pentad

Populist political parties have become a key feature of the European political landscape. In addition to claiming to be identified with the people, many of these parties are characterized by exclusionary narratives which centre on groups such as immigrants and religious minorities, a feature considered by many analysts as specific to right-wing populism. Left-wing populism is frequently defined as sharing right-wing populism’s identification with the people and its anti-elitism but not its attachment to exclusionary narratives. This study joins other recent work in challenging that assumption, providing evidence for the contention that anti-elitism is also a form of excluding populist communication. Using Van Dijk’s methodological approach to the analysis of the discursive positioning of ‘Us/Them’ and elements of Burke’s dramatistic pentad, this article examines the party and electoral communication of Podemos, the self-described, left-wing populist Spanish political party, from its foundation in January 2014 up until the close of the European Union parliamentary election campaign in May 2014. The study shows that an exclusionary narrative was integral to Podemos’ campaign communication in that a group of people identified as the caste ( la casta) constituted the stigmatized out-group in contraposition to the in-group of the ‘people’ which included immigrants and the leaders of Podemos. This suggests that populist parties or politicians of all ideological stripes may be characterized by exclusionary and stigmatizing narratives.

scholarly journals Immigration within the European Union Increases Support for Eurosceptic Parties

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimiter Toshkov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Impact

What are the political consequences of immigration? Theoretically, the mechanisms of intergroup contact and outgroup threat can lead to contradictory effects, and it remains uncertain which one would prevail in different contexts. In this article I study the impact of immigration from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) on support for Eurosceptic parties between 2004 and 2019 in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Portugal. I find that higher levels of immigration from CEE are systematically related to higher voting shares cast for right-wing Eurosceptic parties at the local level in all of these countries, net of the influence of non-Western immigration. In most countries, the effects are also robust to including a rich set of local-level socio-economic controls. These effects can be found in elections for the European Parliament as well as in national elections. The effects have not diminished over the past 15 years and are most visible in mid-sized localities. The effect on left-wing Euroscepticism is positive in the Netherlands, but negative in Denmark, Sweden and Italy. These results highlight the tension between free movement and political support for European integration. Even in the European Union, immigration from other member states can trigger hostile political reactions.

scholarly journals Framing the Refugee Crisis in Online Media: A Romanian Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Corbu ◽  
Raluca Buturoiu ◽  
Flavia Durach
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Media ◽  
Tone Of Voice ◽  
The Individual

The European Union (EU) is under severe pressure, due to the multiple crises it has to manage. Among them, the refugee crisis is remarkable, since it is shaking both the individual member states and the EU as a whole. The media coverage of the refugee crisis is important because the media still are the main source of information concerning distant issues (the refugee crisis included), and as such it facilitates people’s access to social reality. Using the perspective of agenda-setting and the conceptual background of framing theory, we aim to (1) identify the most prominent frames online media employ with reference to the refugee crisis, and (2) reveal the tone of voice online media use when portraying issues related to this crisis. To achieve these two goals, we content analyzed 1493 online news articles, published between April 15, 2015 and February 29, 2016. Main findings show that online media outlets mainly refer to the refugee crisis in terms of responsibility and conflict, in this order of prominence. At the same time, online media portals prefer using a reasonably balanced viewpoint when portraying the refugees, and a slightly negative one in terms of attitudes towards the European Union.

Much ado about nothing? The (non-) politicisation of the European Union in social media debates on migration

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Ademmer ◽  
Anna Leupold ◽  
Tobias Stöhr
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
European Union ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Area ◽  
Much Ado About Nothing ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Widespread View

The widespread view that the refugee crisis has sparked unprecedented levels of European Union politicisation has rarely been backed by systematic empirical evidence. We investigate this claim using a novel dataset of several thousand user comments posted below articles of German regional media outlets on Facebook. Despite considerable European Union authority in the policy area, extensive media coverage of the crisis and the rise of a populist party in Germany, our results suggest that the politicisation of Europe remains low among social media users, especially when compared to national and subnational levels of governance. When talking about Europe, users hardly refer to European Union institutions or policies. Instead, other member states and notions of the geographic or cultural space dominate the debate.

Brexit and the Crisis of European Integration

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-125
Author(s):  
Kent Jones
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Regulatory Issues ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Council Of Ministers ◽  
The Eu

This chapter discusses the role Europe’s long history of conflict over geography, religion, and national identity, as well as its aristocratic traditions, on modern European populism. The Brexit referendum gave direct electoral voice to the accumulated resentments of populist forces in the United Kingdom against EU rules administered by what its supporters regarded as an elite bureaucracy in Brussels. Their concerns, mainly over budgetary and regulatory issues, overrode the prospect of losing trade benefits from the EU single market. Elsewhere in the European Union populist parties continue to be active, and many of them are Euroskeptic, based largely on immigration and monetary issues. Many right-wing and left-wing populist parties in particular tend to favor protectionism, but will not be in a position to challenge centralized EU trade policy until they gain power in large EU countries. The UK exit from the European Union will weaken a prominent pro-trade voice in the EU Council of Ministers.

scholarly journals Is there a demand for autocracies in Europe? Comparing the attitudes of Hungarian and Italian university students toward liberal democratic values inspired by János Kornai

Public Choice ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 187 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 217-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miklós Rosta ◽  
László Tóth
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Survey Methodology ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Protected Values

AbstractIn the European Union right-wing and left-wing populist parties are increasingly becoming stronger. Meanwhile in Central and Eastern Europe autocracies are emerging and becoming stabilized. Italy and Hungary are two notable examples of these processes. Italy is the only country in Western Europe where a coalition of purely populist parties won an election, while Hungary has the most mature autocracy in the European Union. By using survey methodology, we examined the preferences of Hungarian and Italian students regarding the values of liberal democracy. We seek answers to the questions whether there are any significant differences between the proportion of Hungarian students and Italian students who identify themselves with the values of liberal democracy and which of these values of liberal democracy they consider to be protected values. Based on our results, we claim that students from both countries are more likely to support liberal democratic values than to support either right-wing or left-wing populist values, even if the distributions of the two groups differ significantly. We found that Italian students adhere more strongly to liberal democratic values, while Hungarians are more open to left-wing and right-wing populism. Our results confirm that in Hungary, because of the values that many people hold, conditions are conducive for establishing a sustainable autocracy, while in Italy, the demand for such a system is much weaker.

scholarly journals Islam's increased visibility in the European public sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 68-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didem Doganyilmaz Duman
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
European Public Sphere ◽  
European Public

It is believed that the massive flow of refugees and dramatically increased asylum applications from Muslim societies to member countries of the European Union will cause significant change in the demographic characteristics of those countries. Although the presence of Muslims is not a recent phenomenon in Europe, their increased visibility has become once again a dominant political discourse for right-wing political parties. The important question is whether the Muslim presence has become a component of the post-truth politics of the political leaders of these parties, or whether it constitutes a real threat to European society. Does the European Union, then, face a real crisis? If so, what is the nature of the crisis – is it a refugee crisis, an identity crisis, or even worse, is it a crisis of tolerance? This paper analyses the political atmosphere and its effects on society in terms of an increased visibility of Muslims and Islamic symbols in the European public sphere in order to answer those questions.

scholarly journals “Morrer por dentro”? Os desafios do populismo e as eleições europeias de 2019

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Paulo Vila Maior
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The Eu

The results of the 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections cast an unprecedented challenge for the European Union (EU). Growing popularity of right-wing and left-wing, populist and radical political parties and the rising number of members of the parliament materialise the challenge. The article explores the seismic effects of the reconfiguration of the political landscape for European integration. The rising number of populist and radical political parties’ members of the parliament might weaken the political centre of gravity in the EP. Since the EP plays an important role on the legislative process of the EU, populist and radical parties’ Euroscepticism (if not their standpoint against the EU) might pervade the EP and threaten the EU with the prospect of setback, or at least stagnation.

„Lexit” – pozalaburzystowska, antyunijna lewica brytyjska w referendum 2016 roku

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
Filip Ilkowski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Milieu ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

The article presents the analysis of activities and ideological motivations of politicians and political formations connected to those parts of non-Labour British left, that appealed during the 2016 referendum to vote for leaving the European Union by the United Kingdom. It points to key ideological pillars of this heterogenic political milieu with its common and divergent elements. The thesis is put forward in the text that, as in the case of Labour politicians, also among the left-wing outside the Labour Party, we can point to two ideological and political poles that decide to opt for leaving the EU by the UK: socialist universalism and national-identity particularism. Their key determinant was the views on immigration control, also affecting their attitude to cooperation with the anti-EU right-wing political milieu.

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