The Politics of Selectivity: A Cultural Sociological Analysis of Newspaper Coverage on Refugees Entering the U.S. and Canada
| Autoři | |
|---|---|
| Rok publikování | 2016 |
| Druh | Konferenční abstrakty |
| Fakulta / Pracoviště MU | |
| Citace | |
| Popis | The latest so-called “refugee/migrant crisis” has been dominating headlines worldwide, with some of the most vocal debates occurring in places that don’t accept such high numbers of people seeking refuge. My research centers on newspaper coverage of refugees entering (or potentially entering) two such countries – the U.S. and Canada, during the period six weeks prior and six weeks following the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015. To capture the emergence of the various discourses on refugees around this critical event, I call upon the premises of the Strong Program in cultural sociology. The core of the analysis entails a deep, interpretive reading of 382 news articles, seeking to provide a reconstruction of the pure cultural text and to make visible the various layers and strands of meaning. Preliminary results from this comparative study reveal both predicted and counterintuitive findings. Unsurprisingly, in all four newspapers in the sample – The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail – there is conflict framing concerning refugees (potentially) coming into the country. However, the presence of anti-refugee discourse is less than I anticipated, even in the U.S. One of the primary themes to emerge is what I call the “politics of selectivity,” or the ways in which refugees and asylum seekers are portrayed as deserving or undeserving to enter the country. The significance of this study lies in exploring how U.S. and Canadian news outlets frame an important global issue for their audiences, from publics to political elites. In these two countries, which could be doing much more in terms of hosting their “fair share” of refugees, the agenda-setting role of mass media is more important than ever. |
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