Empathy, geography and immigration: Political framing of sea migrant arrivals in European media
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165231180758 |
| Author | Federica Genovese |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Empathy, geography and
immigration: Political
framing of sea migrant
arrivals in European media
Federica Genovese
Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
Abstract
How is European media framing sensitive to events such as refugee border crossing and
irregular migrants’arrivals? While news outlets adjust the tone around immigration fol-
lowing ideology, do the contextual characteristics of these incidents matter? This article
explores two factors that could explain the varying framing of these highly political
events in European mainstream media. One explanation focuses on the role of migrants’
conditions, such as migrants’way of transit and subsequent human sufferance (or lack
thereof). Another emphasizes the role of geography, in particular the location of
migrants’territorial identification relative to the receiving communities. Focusing on
the case of sea migration and small boat arrivals in Southern Europe, I argue that the
emotional triggers determined by migrants’transit and their geographical point of detec-
tion systematically moderate each other, and jointly affect how the media describe these
cross-border immigration events. Empirically, the article presents original newspaper
data from Greece, Italy and Spain that collates geospatial information on immigrants’
sea transit and the related number of injuries and deaths during transit. Statistical results
indicate that media framing is more sympathetic to events involving suffering migrants,
but that this positive framing diminishes if migrants are located only at the border of
the national territory and disappears if the migrants are identified in more distant, for-
eign waters. The results suggest nuanced conditions in which migration can be presented
by the media aside from their ideological lenses.
Keywords
Immigration, refugees, emotions, geography, European media
Corresponding author:
Federica Genovese, Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4
3SQ, UK.
Email: fgenov@essex.ac.uk
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(4) 771–784
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/14651165231180758
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