Asylum Seekers in the News: Frames of Illegality and Control

Authors

  • Karina Horsti CEREN, University of Helsinki

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15847/obsOBS11200745

Keywords:

Asylum seekers, journalism, immigration, frame analysis

Abstract

Since the early 1990s migration policies in Europe have thematically shifted from human-rights issues to control policies. Distinguishing political refugees from economic migrants has become more difficult. Analyses of this shift cannot overlook the role of journalism. By setting the agenda news journalism defines what is discussed and by framing the issues it selects how these issues are discussed. This article uses frame analysis for foreign and domestic news of asylum seeking in the National Finnish News Agency (STT). The data consists of news published in 2002, total of 237 news items. Two frames are the most dominant. Firstly, the news are more often linked with trans-national crime and clandestine travel than with humanitarian issues. The illegality frame links foreign news with domestic news. Small incidents of ‘illegal immigration’ in Finland are covered since ‘illegality’ is on the agenda through news flows from other countries. Asylum seeking is presented as a common European problem. Additionally, the news construct a frame of controlled immigration in Finland. Often insignificant details are reported which produce a panoptic eye on asylum seekers: they are being watched, moved and removed. The news construct a panopticon over asylum seekers. Os Refugiados nas Notícias: Frames de Ilegalidade e Controlo Desde o início dos anos 90s, as políticas de migração na Europa têm vindo a mudar tematicamente das questões dos direitos humanos para as políticas de controlo. Tornou-se assim mais difícil distinguir entre refugiados políticos e migrantes económicos. O jornalismo define através da sua agenda mediática (agenda setting) o que é noticiável e, através dos processos de tematização e framing o modo como estes assuntos são abordados e discutidos. O presente artigo utiliza uma frame analysis das notícias domésticas e internacionais sobre refugiados, produzidas pela agência noticiosa Finlandesa (STT). Os dados analisados englobam todas as notícias publicadas durante o ano de 2002, as quais perfazem um total de 212 notícias. Desta análise sobressaem dois temas dominantes. Primeiro, as notícias estão mais frequentemente relacionadas com crime transnacional e viagens clandestinas do que com questões humanitárias. O frame da ilegalidade relaciona as notícias internacionais com as notícias domésticas. A cobertura noticiosa dos pequenos incidentes da ‘imigração ilegal’ na Finlândia ocorre desde que a ‘ilegalidade’ foi incorporada nos fluxos noticiosos provenientes de outros países europeus. Os refugiados que solicitam pedido de asilo na Europa são apresentados como uma questão europeia, um tema comum à Europa. Simultaneamente, as notícias constroem um frame da imigração controlada na Finlândia, no qual são frequentes os relatos de detalhes insignificantes que produzem um olhar panóptico (a ‘panotic eye’) sobre os indivíduos que interpuseram pedidos de asilo: sujeitos que estão permanentemente a ser observados, transformados e eliminados.

Author Biography

Karina Horsti, CEREN, University of Helsinki

Karina Horsti, post-doc researcher at the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN), University of Helsinki, Finland. Karina Horsti received her doctoral degree in 2005 at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication Studies, University of Tampere, Finland. Her dissertation “Borders of Strangeness: Asylum seekers and multiculturalism in journalism” focused on the Finnish news coverage of asylum seekers and on multicultural media initiatives in the mainstream journalism. The study discussed cultural order and national order of things (re)produced through media texts. The study used qualitative textual analysis inspired by the methods of frame and discourse analysis. Her post doctoral research includes analysis of Europeanization of migration news in the Nordic countries and analysis of anti-racist discourses in European multicultural broadcasting co-operation. The first research is affiliated with the Euro-Mediterranean migration and development programme of the European University Institute, Florence and the latter research is part of an international research and book project on anti-racism led by University of Georgia, USA. Her research interests include media, journalism, multiculturalism, anti-racism and ethnicity.

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Published

2007-05-07

How to Cite

Horsti, K. (2007). Asylum Seekers in the News: Frames of Illegality and Control. Observatorio (OBS*), 1(1). https://doi.org/10.15847/obsOBS11200745

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2007)

Section

Articles

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