In 2022, New Media Advocacy Project (NMAP) carried out a media landscape and narrative analysis examining the perceptions of refugees and other displaced individuals in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion and war in Ukraine.
While the response to and reception of Ukrainians has overwhelmingly dominated the news cycle in 2022, Ukrainians are not the only group of individuals in need of protection in Europe. The region has been experiencing immigration and refugee inflows for many years, including the so-called “refugee crisis,” which has sparked debates on immigration policy across the EU.
NMAP tracked the evolving use of narratives surrounding refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers in the European media in the first half of 2022. Our objectives for this research were to:
- Examine the prevalent media characterizations of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, as well as themes and concerns around these groups of displaced individuals.
- Explore the opportunities for narrative change work to use value-based storytelling to advance international solidarity with refugees.
To this end we examined a sizeable media sample published between late February and July of 2022 in the major written media outlets in the three largest European host countries of refugees from Ukraine: Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany.
Author
Olesya Dovgalyuk
Publisher
New Media Advocacy Project
Publication Date
January 26, 2023
Publication Type
Analysis
NMAP-RefugeesMLA-Report-Web-reduced