The figures present how immigration and immigrant integration were both politicized and depoliticized in national newspapers in seven Western European countries between 1995 and 2018.
Politicization was measured on the basis of claims and counter-claims, that is to say specific instances when an actor said something about immigration and integration. The data covers different aspects of a (counter-)claim to provide a rich picture of politicization:
– Location of the claim (when and where was the claim made?)
– Actor: person or organization making a claim (who made the claim?)
– Form of the claim (how was the claim made in the public sphere?)
– Addressee of the claim (who was the claim directed to?)
– Substantive topic of the claim (what aspect of immigration and integration was the claim about?)
– Object actor of the claim (who would be affected by the claim: for/against whom was the claim made?)
– Justification of the claim (why should the solution proposed be undertaken?)
Politicization entails three aspects:
– Polarization: measuring to what extent actors disagree about immigration and/or immigrant integration
– Position: measuring whether actors are in favor or against immigration and/or immigrant integration
– Frame: measuring how actors frame their claims on immigrant and/or immigration integration
Contrary to popular belief, the debate in the European daily press on immigration and immigrant integration is not highly polarized, and there has not been a clear trend to more polarization in the past two decades.
Regarding the position of actors, overall, the media debate on immigration and integration in Western Europe was dominated by claims that would have a slightly positive impact on immigrants and their descendants (shown in blue shades in the visualization). This overall depiction of immigration and integration hides important differences in the portrayal of immigrants by different actors and in different contexts.
As for framing, instrumental justifications were more common than moral principles, but instrumental justifications by governmental actors and political parties tended to be associated with a negative position, while moral principles tended to be associated with a positive position.
Is the media coverage in Europe for or against Migration?
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Sources: The core data from 1995 to 2009 are from the FP7 project Support and Opposition to Migration (SOM). They are available from the Harvard Dataverse. The extensions 2010 to 2018 (preview) are hosted on Zenodo.
Data collection and coding for the 2010 to 2018 extension: Leslie Ader, Marco Bitschnau, Marilyn Ducommun, Cheryl Kwok, Julie Mancini, Oriana Polero Cardoso, Margaux Quadroni, Manon Reith, Didier Ruedin, Lora Zanasco.
Note on the methodology: Refer to Koopmans and Statham (1999), Koopmans et al. (2005), and Van der Brug et al. (2015) for a description of the claims-making methodology.
Terms of use: The Migration-Mobility Indicators are made available free of charge for non-commercial use. We ask the users to acknowledge the source.
Suggested citation: nccr – on the move, Migration-Mobility Indicators. Neuchâtel: nccr – on the move, 2023.
Data visualization: Andreas Perret
Last update: 14 February 2023