Asylum Seekers, Refugees and the Media By Jackie Beavan

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Asylum Seekers, Refugees and the MediaBy Jackie
Beavan

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Media strategies

• Use of emotive and stereotyping language
• Negative representation
• Suppression of asylum seeker voice
• Repetition of media myths

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Emotive and stereotyping language

• Flood
• Tide
• Swamp
• Invasion
• Bogus
• Illegal

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Floods etc.

• 2 billion bill for flood of asylum seekers
• (Telegraph 1.3.03)
• The human flood we cant control
• (Telegraph 3.9.01)
• A wave of asylum seekers could be settling in the
  Bridgend area
• (Glamorgan Gazette 21.9.00)

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Negative representation

• Criminal
• Diseased
• Greedy
• Unworthy

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Criminal

• Asylum seekers steal the Queens birds for
  barbecues
• (Sun 4.7.03)
• Police swooped on a group of East Europeans and
  caught them red-handed about to cook a pair of
  royal swans in a park in Beckton, East London .
  Hundreds of the graceful creatures have been
  killed

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Criminal

• Daily Star
• 21.8.03

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Criminal and greedy!

• "Many of the bogus asylum seekers flooding into
  Britain are cheats and criminals. . .Look at the
  Nistor family. These Romanian gypsies have been
  given a four-bedroom detached house free, plus
  230 a month. . .The decent English family next
  door are moving because the Nistors are too noisy
  and filthy to endure any longer."The Sunday
  People, March 5, 2000

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Diseased

• We live in fear of foreigners bringing death to
  our land... But... it is not by allowing in
  terrorists that the Government's policy of mass
  immigration, especially from the Third World,
  will claim most lives. It is through letting in
  too many germs.'
• Mail on Sunday 26.1.03
• Asylum seekers spreading AIDS across Britain
• Daily Express 6.8.04

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Suppression of asylum seeker voice

• Opposing views given centre stage
• Little exploration of asylum seekers stories
• Of all articles on refugee/asylum seekers issues
  in a Welsh study , only 2 had a quote from a
  refugee/AS
• (Welcome or over-reaction Refugees and asylum
  seekers in the Welsh media 2001)

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Repetition of media myths

• Britain number 1 magnet
• Asylum seekers as terrorists
• Asylum seekers get more than UK residents

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So whats new?

• "'The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring
  in from every port of this country is becoming an
  outrage . . .' In these words, Mr Herbert
  Metcalfe, the Old Street magistrate, yesterday
  referred to the number of aliens entering the
  country through the 'back door' - a problem to
  which the Daily Mail has repeatedly
  pointed."Daily Mail, August 20, 1938

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So whats new?

• The fact has to be recognised that Christians
  generally do not take kindly to the Jewish race
  . . . Not a few Englishmen regard Jews with a
  vague unfriendly toleration not far removed from
  dislike. . .and share. . .the wonder expressed in
  the lines 'How Odd of God to Choose The
  Jews'."East Anglian Daily Times, March 2, 1934