Media practices related to migration and intra-EU mobility in the EU-15 Member States

Media practices related to migration and intra-EU mobility in the EU-15 Member States

May 8, 2018

Working Paper

Work package 11 presents the findings from a survey of journalists as well as a selection of their sources in government and civil society in Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The paper aims to develop a clearer understanding of the commercial, institutional, practical, and technical factors that affect news production and shape media narratives and frames around EU mobility and Third-Country Nationals (TCN) in different EU countries.

Across the board, journalists look at migration through the prism of ‘otherness’ or even ‘problem’, typically framed by their country’s most immediate current concerns or public agendas, such as the admission of refugees and other TCNs in Germany and Sweden, migration across the Mediterranean in Italy and Spain, and intra-EU worker mobility in the UK. Hence, skilled workers receive hardly any journalistic attention at all, while perceived ‘poverty migration’ and refugees dominate journalists’ perception of news value and relevance.