Consenting to Orientalism when Covering Migration: How the British Media Dehumanises Migrants in the Context of the Syrian Civil War

  • Nina Arif

Abstract

The British vote to leave Europe rests largely upon fear of migrants. British media can be shown to have contributed to this by dehumanising migrants through news coverage. Discourse analysis of stories during the ‘European migrant crisis’ (2015) will show how dehumanisation occurs via Orientalist discourses (Said, 1979), presenting migrants as a threat to security, Western values and economically burdensome. Theories regarding news production and elite agency will be applied to understand the media’s role in manufacturing consent (Chomsky, 1994) thus legitimising policies. This paper focusses upon online news coverage surrounding an attack at Westminster, which became amalgamated with migration. Since media discourses must be analysed to understand the devices used, philosophical and journalistic insights will be applied to answer the questions: what methods are used to dehumanise migrants? What mechanisms operate behind this? What is the result? Suggestions for supporting university students in counteracting media influence will be made.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Ahmad, A., 1992. In theory: Classes, nations, literatures. London: Verso.

Amnesty International. 2017. Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights. [Online]. UK: Amnesty International Ltd. [Accessed 17 July 2018]. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL1048002017ENGLISH.PDF

Amnesty International. 2018. Tackling Hate Crime in the UK: A Background Briefing Paper from Amnesty International UK. [Online]. UK: Amnesty International Ltd. [Accessed 22 July 2018]. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/Against-Hate-Briefing-AIUK.pdf

Barsamian, D., 2004. Louder than Bombs: Interviews from the Progressive Magazine. Cambridge: South End Press.

Benson, P., 2011. Marshall McLuhan on the Mobile Phone. Philosophy Now, 87: 26-29.

Bulman, M., 2017. Brexit: People voted to leave EU because they feared immigration, major survey finds. [Online]. [Accessed 18 July 2018]. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-latest-news-leave-eu-immigration-main-reason-european-union-survey-a7811651.html

Dean, M., 2013. Democracy under Attack. Bristol: The Policy Press.

Dijk, T. A. V., 1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park, Calif.; London: Sage Publications.

Emmerson, B., 2016. Refugees and terrorism: ‘No evidence of risk’ – New report by UN expert on counter-terrorism. [Online]. New York: United Nations. [Accessed 15 July 2018]. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20734

Europol, 2016: European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report. [Online]. [Accessed 18 July 2018]. https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/main-reports/european-union-terrorism-situation-and-trend-report-te-sat-2016

Harvey, D., 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hatton, T.J. 2012. Asylum Policy in the EU: The Case for Deeper Integration. [Online], 2012–2016. [Accessed 10 July 2018]. http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_16_12.pdf

Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N., 1994. Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. London: Vintage.

International Monetary Fund, 2016. Impact of Migration on Income Levels in Advanced Economies. [Online]. [Accessed 18 July 2018]. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Spillover-Notes/Issues/2016/12/31/Impact-of-Migration-on-Income-Levels-in-Advanced-Economies-44343

Ipsos MORI's. 2017. Theresa May’s leadership satisfaction ratings fall further after the General Election. [Online]. [Accessed: 19 June 2018].https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/theresa-mays-leadership-satisfaction-ratings-fall-further-after-general-election

Marcuse, H., 1991. One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

Marcuse, H., 2004. The New Left and the 1960s: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse. (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.

Mbembe, A. (2003). ‘Necropolitics’. Public Culture 15(1): 11–40.

Media Reform Coalition. 2015. Who Owns the Media?. [Online]. [Accessed 19 July 2018]. http://www.mediareform.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2015/10/Who_owns_the_UK_media-report_plus_appendix1.pdf

McLuhan, M., 2001. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge.

Moore, K., 2013. ‘Asylum shopping’ in the neoliberal social imaginary. Media, Culture & Society, 35(3): 348–365.

Moore, M. & Ramsay, G., 2017. UK Media Coverage of the 2016 EU Referendum Campaign. [Online]. UK: The Policy Institute, King’s College London. [Accessed: 10 July 2018]. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/CMCP/UK-media-coverage-of-the-2016-EU-Referendum-campaign.pdf

Pew Research Center, 2016. European opinions of the refugee crisis in 5 charts. [Online]. [Accessed 16 July 2018]. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/16/european-opinions-of-the-refugee-crisis-in-5-charts/

Redress, 2014. Allegations of abuses by Private Security Contractors (‘PSCs’) providing Immigration services in the UK. [Online]. [Accessed 10 June 2018]. https://redress.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/annexpscs-allegations-and-findings-of-human-rights-abuses.pdf

Rogers, E. M., 1983. Elements of Diffusion. 3rd Ed. Diffusion of innovations. London: The Free Press.

Said, E. W., 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

Said, E. W., 1997. Covering Islam: How the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world (Rev. ed.). London: Vintage.

Scott-Baumann, A. 2017. Ideology, utopia and Islam on campus: How to free speech a little from its own terrors. Education, citizenship and social justice, 12(2): 1–18.

Spencer, D., 2016. Blame austerity – not immigration – for taking Britain to ‘breaking point’. [Online]. [Accessed: 14 July 2018].https://theconversation.com/blame-austerity-not-immigration-for-taking-britain-to-breaking-point-61133

Suffee, Z., 2016. How Journalism Plays Follow-my-leader with Rhetoric of Negativity. [Online]. [Accessed 18 July 2018].https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/resources/publications/moving-stories/united-kingdom

The Guardian, 2017. Anti-immigration politicians link London attack to migrant policy. [Online]. [Accessed 5 June 2018].https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/23/anti-immigrant-politicians-link-london-attack-migrant-policy

The Guardian, 2017. Britain is one of worst places in western Europe for asylum seekers. [Online]. [Accessed: 10 July 2018].https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/01/britain-one-of-worst-places-western-europe-asylum-seekers

The Guardian, 2018. Terror attacks by Muslims receive 357% more press attention, study finds. [Online]. [Accessed 22 July 2018].https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/20/muslim-terror-attacks-press-coverage-study

The Independent, 2017. Nigel Farage blames multiculturalism for London terror attack. [Online]. [Accessed 9 July 2018].https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nigel-farage-london-terror-attack-multiculturalism-blame-immigration-lbc-radio-ukip-mep-leader-a7645586.html

The Leveson Inquiry, 2012. An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press. [Online]. [Accessed 20 July 2018].https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/270941/0780_ii.pdf

Toynbee, A. J., 1974. The Present Point in History. Council on Foreign Relations [Online], 26(1): 187–195. [Accessed: 18 July 2018].http://www.jstor.org/stable/20030097

UNHCR, 2015. Press Coverage of the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in the EU: A Content Analysis of Five European Countries. [Online]. Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies: UNHCR. [Accessed 10 July 2018]. http://www.unhcr.org/56bb369c9.html

UNHCR, 2018. Forced displacement at record 68.5 million. [Online]. [Accessed: 8 May 2018].http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/stories/2018/6/5b222c494/forced-displacement-record-685-million.html

World Vision [no date]. Syrian refugee crisis: Facts, FAQs, and how to help. [Online]. [Accessed: 9 May 2018].https://www.worldvision.org/refugees-news-stories/syrian-refugee-crisis-facts

YouGov, 2016. British press ‘most right-wing’ in Europe. [Online]. [Accessed 20 July 2018].https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/07/british-press-most-right-wing-europe/

Published
2018-08-10
How to Cite
Arif, N. (2018). Consenting to Orientalism when Covering Migration: How the British Media Dehumanises Migrants in the Context of the Syrian Civil War. Critical Hermeneutics, 2(1), 27-54. https://doi.org/10.13125/CH/3437