Bad News for Refugees

Pauline Donald, Emma Briant, Greg Philo

Description

Bad News for Refugees analyses the political, economic and environmental contexts of migration and looks specifically at how refugees and asylum seekers have been stigmatised in political rhetoric and in media coverage.



Through forensic research, conducted through interviews and analysis of media accounts, a history of contemporary migration and asylum is written. The authors examine the various catalysts for migration, in doing so reveal how economic migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are often conflated by the media. They explain negative reactions to new arrivals, describing the benefit cheat, criminals and job stealing narratives that dominate anti-migrant discourse. Case studies reveal how hysterical and inaccurate media accounts act to legitimise political action can have terrible consequences both on the lives of refugees and also on established migrant communities.



Based on new research by the renowned Glasgow Media Group, this book is essential reading for those concerned with the negative effects of media on public understanding and for the safety of vulnerable groups and communities in our society.
Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Brief History of Contemporary Migration and Asylum

2. Methods and Main Explanations and Perspectives on Asylum

3. Media Content: Press and TV Samples

4. Case Studies of Media Content - 2011

5. Impacts of Media Coverage on Migrant Communities in the UK

Conclusion

Appendix 1: Guide to the Asylum Process

Appendix 2: Interviewees

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Communication médiatique
• Media
• Royaume-Uni
• Discrimination
• Migration
• Communications
• Africa
• Business
• Great Britain
• Economics
• Nationality
• Romania
• United Kingdom
• MigrationWatch UK
• Illegal immigration
• Reino Unido
• Marketing et communication
• Industries

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 12 août 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849649582
• Langue: English

Extrait

BAD NEWS FOR REFUGEES

First published 2013 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Greg Philo, Emma Briant and Pauline Donald 2013
The right of Greg Philo, Emma Briant and Pauline Donald to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3433 2 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3432 5 Paperback ISBN 978 1 8496 4957 5 PDF eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4959 9 Kindle eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4958 2 EPUB eBook
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset from disk by Curran Publishing Services, Norwich Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 A Brief History of Contemporary Migration and Asylum
The Political, Economic and Environmental Contexts of Migration
The Global Economy
Asylum and Immigration in the United Kingdom
2 Methods, Explanations and Perspectives on Asylum
Methods
Main Explanations and Perspectives on Asylum in the United Kingdom
‘Abuse’ of the Asylum System by ‘Illegal Immigrants’
Alternative Perspectives
‘Soft Touch’ Britain Takes Too Many
Alternative Perspectives
A Burden on Welfare and the Job Market
Alternative Perspectives
Increased Insecurity: Threat, Criminality and Terrorism
Alternative Perspectives
Increasing Deportations
Alternative Perspectives
The Benefits of Immigration
Alternative Perspectives
Problems Faced by Asylum Seekers
The Role of the West in Refugee Movements and Economic Forces in Migration
3 Media Content: Press and TV Samples, 2006
Case Studies of Media Content, 2006
Introduction to TV News Content
Headlines Written by Focus Group Members
Introduction to Newspaper Content
Who Speaks
Themes in the Coverage
Conflation of Forced and Economic Migration
Threatening Numbers
A Burden on Welfare and the Job Market
Criminality, Threat, Deportation and Human Rights
Need for ‘Immigration Control’
The Benefits of Immigration
Problems Facing Asylum Seekers
The Role of the West in Refugee Movements and Economic Forces in Migration
4 Case Studies of Media Content, 2011
Introduction to TV News Content
Introduction to Newspaper Content
Who Speaks
Conflation of Forced and Economic Migration
Threatening Numbers
Burden on Welfare and the Job Market
Criminality, Threat, Deportation and Human Rights
Need for ‘Immigration Control’
The Benefits of Immigration
Problems Facing Asylum Seekers
The Role of the West in Refugee Movements and Economic Forces in Migration
5 Impacts of Media Coverage on Migrant Communities in the United Kingdom
Media Images and Impacts on Public Understanding
Impacts of Media Coverage on Established Migrant Groups and Descendants
Impacts of Media Coverage on Asylum-Seeking Communities
Discussions of Media Coverage
Conflation of Asylum Issues with ‘Illegal Immigration’
‘Immigration Control’ and Numbers
The ‘Burden’, Crime and Fear
The Asylum Process and Life in the United Kingdom
Community Impacts
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Guide to the Asylum Process
Appendix 2: Interviewees
References
Index
Acknowledgements
Firstly we would like to thank all the asylum seekers and refugees, and their representatives and support workers, who kindly agreed to be interviewed for this book. Thanks also to the research team who helped in the gathering of data, Daniela Latina, Colin MacPherson, Catherine Happer and Mike Berry. We would also like to thank John Eldridge and David Miller of the Glasgow Media Group who helped us and gave us advice and encouragement. Thanks especially to Adrian Thomas, Anita Dullard, Katie Goodwin and the British Red Cross for their help and support, and to Dr Scott Blinder at the Oxford Migration Observatory. We would like to thank others in the Department of Sociology at Glasgow University: Giuliana Tiripelli, Chen Li and Yue Li. Thank you to Yajun Deng, Yasmin, Asad Muhammed and Rimshah Kausar, and Elisa Luo for helping us to set up the focus groups. John Mark Philo helped in this and also along with Anne Beach did a wonderful job with the editing, and may soon be working on the Latin translation.
Thank you also to all the journalists who spoke with us or offered us advice, and to Robert Webb and other members of the editorial and production team at Pluto Press. Pauline would like also to thank Dr Vassiliki Kolocotroni and Professor Richard Majors for their support. She would especially like to thank her family and friends who consistently encouraged and inspired her, Margaret Donald, Thomas Donald Senior, June Donald, Catherine Donald, Thomas Donald Junior, William Donald, Lynda-Anne Donald, David Donald, John Oguchukwu, Tony Vaughn and Carrie Jo Robinson. She offers love and thanks to her teacher El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Finally thanks again to all those people who invested time, energy and enthusiasm in the research and production of the book.

Greg Philo, Emma Briant and Pauline Donald
Introduction
This book examines the media coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, and the impact this has on public understanding and on the everyday lives of different communities in Britain. Much of this coverage presents the issues of refuge and asylum as critical problems for the United Kingdom. Here we look at what the public is told and consider what is left out of the media narratives. We show how the TV and press coverage corresponds with key political events, and how politicians respond to public fears and anxieties which are themselves featured in and also generated by the popular press and other media.
We begin by introducing a short overview of the range of existing research in this area. This includes a brief history of how asylum and refuge have come to be major political issues of debate since the late 1990s. Our own research on the content of the British media follows. In this we analyse two key periods of media coverage in 2006 and 2011. The last section of this work includes a series of interviews with a range of people who have expert knowledge of the creation of media accounts. We also interviewed individuals who had direct experience of the impact media output has on people who are actually seeking asylum. These individuals included both refugees and those who work with them. Finally, we interviewed UK citizens from established migrant communities, who commented on the nature of media coverage and the impact that it had on their own lives.
Other Research
Most sociological studies have focused on ‘race’ or migration rather than asylum. This research has indicated that media representation of ‘race’, migration, refugees and asylum seekers largely presents these negatively as a source of ‘moral panic’, ‘conflict’, ‘crisis’ and ‘threat’. The long-term trend in media coverage is to ‘scapegoat’, ‘stereotype’ and ‘criminalise’ migrant groups (Buchanan, Grillo and Threadgold, 2003; Castles and Kossack, 1973; Cohen, 2011; Finney, 2003; Hall et al., 1978; Hartman and Husband, 1974; Kendall and Wolf, 1949; Philo and Beattie, 1999; Philo et al., 1998; Said, 1978; Van Diijk, 1991; Welch and Schuster, 2005).
A key phenomenon raised by media analysis in this area is the language used to describe contested issues. Since 2002, for example, attention has turned to the use of terms like ‘illegal immigrant’ in relation to those seeking asylum. Underpinning this terminology is the assumption that most asylum seekers are not in fact ‘genuine’ and that their motives are economic, something Alia and Bull refer to as the ‘ineligibility myth’ (2005: 27). The phrase ‘illegal immigrant’, imbued with the wholly negative connotations of ‘illegality’, conflates issues of refuge and asylum with economic immigration. In fact, most immigration and asylum laws are civil laws and not criminal laws; ‘illegal’, however, implies criminality. Asylum seekers have done nothing wrong. In 2003 the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) issued guidelines stating that:




NO-ONE is an ‘illegal asylum-seeker’. This term is always incorrect. It cannot be illegal to seek asylum since everyone has the fundamental human right to request asylum under international law.
(NUJ, 2005)
Guidance for journalists produced by Oxfam, the National Union of Journalists, Amnesty International Scotland and the Scottish Refugee Council states that the phrase ‘illegal immigrant’:




although commonly used, is not defined anywhere within UK law. The phrase ‘illegal immigrant’ was found in January 2002 by the Advertising Standards Authority to be racist, offensive and misleading.
(NUJ, 2005: 14)
The term ‘illegal immigrant’ inhibits an informed debate over the issues at stake, as it does not distinguish between categories of migrant. There is also a tendency for asylum seekers whose applications have failed to be considered illegal immigrants by default, whereas the validity of their claim is often confirmed at a later date. According to the Press Complaints Commission:




An asylum seeker can only become an ‘illegal immigrant’ if he or she remains in the UK after having failed to respond to a removal notice.
(PCC Guidance note on asylum seekers and refugees, October 2003, quoted in Finney, 2005)
Many are granted refugee status on appeal. The United Nations and