Migrants, Refugees, and the Media: The New Reality of Open Societies 2018003463, 9780815377177, 9781351234665

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figures
Tables
Contributors
Introduction
1 Migration maps and the performance of Europeanness
2 What if I were a refugee? How game structures in interactive media frame refugee stories
3 The refugee crisis in Europe: A frame analysis of European newspapers
4 The Balkans route: Media and refugee crisis in Europe
5 The strategic framing of the 2015 migrant crisis in Serbia
6 A Spanish view of the European refugee crisis: TV news coverage
7 The humanitarian duty to communicate: An analysis of rumour
8 Eastern Europeans in British press from 2004 to 2014
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

Migrants, Refugees, and the Media

The large-scale movements of refugees and economic migrants from c­ onflict zones to more stable societies have resulted in challenges, both for new ­entrants and their hosts. This fascinating volume brings together a c­ ollection of media analyses focused on immigration issues to examine how migration has been represented to the public. Case studies exploring media coverage of migrants and refugees in E ­ urope enable the reader to better understand the complexity of the process through a range of unique and unexplored dimensions of immigration a­ nalysis, ­including strategic framing theory, game structure analysis, migration maps and routes, television narratives, rumour-based communication, and s­ tate-bred campaigns. The insights into the perspective of migrants, the general public and ­policy makers provide innovative methodological and theoretical analysis on population movements which will be of interest to scholars, students, and policy makers working in the fields of migration studies, international relations, peace and security studies, and social and public policy. Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel is Director of the Global Cooperation Initiative, an academic, diplomatic, and policy forum. She has served as Director of the ­Interdisciplinary Global Studies Research Initiative at Auburn ­University Montgomery. She was President and Program Chair of the Comparative ­Interdisciplinary Studies Section of the International Studies Association from 1988 to 2015. In recognition of her long service she was awarded the title of President Emeritus. She was honoured with the Millennium Distinguished ­Service and Scholar Award in 2007. She has been a Fulbright Faculty Fellow, was inducted into the Lychnos Society, and was elected a Life Fellow of the Royal  Geographic Society for her contributions to the study of colonial urbanization. She is widely published in the fields of urbanization and globalization. She is editor of the Global Interdisciplinary Series for Routledge and has edited several volumes, including The New Millennium: Challenges and Strategies for a Globalizing World, Global Cooperation, The New Security Frontiers, Power and Security in the Information Age, and Religion, Education, and Governance in the Middle East, among others. She has taught at the Universities of Delhi and Virginia. She has actively promoted interdisciplinary discourse and scholarship through the Millennium Series of Conferences and several other outreach initiatives.

Global Interdisciplinary Studies Series Series Editor: Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel

The Global Interdisciplinary Studies Series reflects a recognition that globalization is leading to fundamental changes in the world order, creating new imperatives and requiring new ways of understanding the international system. It is increasingly clear that the next century will be characterized by issues that transcend national and cultural boundaries, shaped by competitive forces and features of economic globalization yet to be fully evaluated and understood. Comparative and comprehensive in concept, this series explores the relationship between transnational and regional issues through the lens of widely applicable interdisciplinary methodologies and analytic models. The series consists of innovative monographs and collections of essays representing the best of contemporary research, designed to transcend disciplinary boundaries in seeking to better understand a globalizing world. For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Global-Interdisciplinary-Studies-Series/book-series/ASHSER-1184 Debating European Security and Defense Policy Understanding the Complexity Maxime H. A. Larivé Shifting Priorities in Russia’s Foreign and Security Policy Edited by Rémi Piet and Roger E. Kanet Religion, Education, and Governance in the Middle East Between Tradition and Modernity Edited by Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel New Security Frontiers Critical Energy and the Resource Challenge Edited by Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel Authoritarian and Populist Influences in the New Media Edited by Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel Migrants, Refugees, and the Media The New Reality of Open Societies Edited by Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel

Migrants, Refugees, and the Media The New Reality of Open Societies

Edited by Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Krishna-Hensel, Sai Felicia, editor. Title: Migrants, refugees, and the media: the new reality of open societies / edited by Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Series: Global interdisciplinary studies series; Ashser-1184 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018003463 | ISBN 9780815377177 (hbk) | ISBN 9781351234665 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Mass media and immigrants—Europe. | Refugees— Press coverage—Europe | Immigrants—Press coverage—Europe. | Europe—Emigration and immigration—Press coverage. Classification: LCC P94.5.I482 E865 2018 | DDC 305.9/0691—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018003463 ISBN: 978-0-815-37717-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-23466-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

Figures Tables Contributors

vii ix x

Introduction

1

1 Migration maps and the performance of Europeanness

13

Paul C . A dams

2 What if I were a refugee? How game structures in interactive media frame refugee stories

42

N icole Braida

3 The refugee crisis in Europe: A frame analysis of European newspapers

59

W illem Joris , L een d’ H aenens , Baldwin  Van  G orp, and S tefan M ertens

4 The Balkans route: Media and refugee crisis in Europe

81

Ž eljka L ekić - Suba šić

5 The strategic framing of the 2015 migrant crisis in Serbia

121

A leksandar M itić

6 A Spanish view of the European refugee crisis: TV news coverage

151

L aura San F elipe F r í as and L iisa I rene H ä nninen

7 The humanitarian duty to communicate: An analysis of rumour V ictoria Jack

173

vi Contents 8 Eastern Europeans in British press from 2004 to 2014

195

Fathi B ourmeche

Conclusion

216

Index

221

Figures

1.1 A typical Frontex map showing irregular immigration flows into Europe, described as: “Detections of illegal border-crossing in 2014 with percentage change on 2013, by route.” 20 1.2 Map of World War II military advances 22 1.3 “Main nationalities of illegal border-crossers July–September 2015.” 24 1.4 “FLYKTINGKATASTROFEN” (Refugee Catastrophe) 25 1.5 The Lucify interactive migration map, embedded in a page from Dagbladet 27 1.6 Human costs of border control: death at the borders of Southern Europe. Interactive map by Dutch Data Design and the Human Costs of Border Control (HCBC) Online file at: www.borderdeaths.org, accessed May 17, 2016. Reproduced with permission of HCBC, University of Amsterdam 31 1.7 “Des morts par milliers aux portes de l’Europe” (Deaths by the thousands at the doors of Europe) with breakdown by cause: drowning, suicide, asphyxiation, starvation, lack of care, hypothermia, fire, homicide, poisoning, land mines, accidents, and other 32 1.8 “Les Opérations de surveillance de l’agence” (Surveillance Operations of the Agency) 33 1.9 World new map, Rafat Alkhateeb. Twitter. September 2015. Used with permission of the artist (https://www. cartoonmovement.com/p/12505) 35 3.1 Presence of frames in the coverage of the refugee crisis (in percent) 67 3.2 Evolution of the frames ‘increased insecurity’ and ‘role of the West’ throughout the examined period (in percent) 75 4.1 The number of news articles about the refugee crisis in two Bosnian online media outlets, Klix.ba and Avaz.ba 92

viii Figures 4.2 Number of news articles on Avaz.ba news site using the term ‘refugee(s)’ vs. ‘migrant(s)’, ‘refugee(s) and migrant(s)’, and ‘refugee(s), migrant(s), and asylum seekers’ 93 4.3 Number of news articles on Klix.ba news site using the term ‘refugee(s)’ vs. ‘migrant(s)’, ‘refugee(s) and migrant(s)’, and ‘refugee(s), migrant(s), and asylum seekers’ 94 4.4 Representation of themes in two Bosnian online media outlets, Klix.ba and Avaz.ba 96 4.5 Representation of news sources in two Bosnian online media outlets, Klix.ba and Avaz.ba 96 4.6 The number of news articles about the refugee crisis in Croatian online media outlet 24sata.hr 99 4.7 Number of news articles on Croatian 24sata.hr news site using the term ‘refugee(s)’ vs. ‘migrant(s)’, ‘refugee(s) and migrant(s)’, and ‘refugee(s), migrant(s), and asylum seekers’ 100 4.8 Representation of themes on Croatian 24sata.hr news site 100 4.9 Representation of news sources on Croatian 24sata.hr news site 103 4.10 The number of news articles about the refugee crisis in Serbian online media outlet b92.net 104 4.11 Number of news articles on Serbian b92.net news site using the term ‘refugee(s)’ vs. ‘migrant(s)’, ‘refugee(s) and migrant(s)’, and ‘refugee(s), migrant(s), and asylum seekers’ 105 4.12 Representation of themes on Serbian b92.net news site 106 4.13 Representation of news sources on Serbian b92.net news site 107 4.14 Comparison of the number and distribution of articles on the refugee crisis of Bosnia, Croatian, and Serbian online media 109 5.1 Media 137 5.2 Key frames 138 5.3 Frame packages – official vs nonofficial policy 139 5.4 Sources in news items 140 5.5 Sources – official vs possible critical line 141 5.6 Negative vs positive reader comments 141 6.1 Number of reports on refugees chart (Apr–June/2016) (119 Rept.) 158 6.2 Number of reports on refugees (Apr–June/2016) (119 Rept.) 159 6.3 Remarks on point of view of political parties (119 Rept.) 160 6.4 Leading roles of diverse social groups featured in the reports (119 Rept.) 160 6.5 News section 161 6.6 Prevailing approach on the refugee reports (119 Rept.) 161 6.7 Character of the prevailing events reported (119 Rept.) 162 6.8 Type of prevailing images broadcast 162

Tables

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 6.1

Appendix Point 4: Author – Coding 77 Appendix Point 7: Origin of the asylum seekers 78 Appendix Point 8: 15 Frames – Coding 79 Appendix Point 8: 15 Frames – Sponsors 79 Record of dates, significant events and total of reports on refugees per day 155 6.2 Selection criteria and news for further review 156

Contributors

Paul Adams  Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas, Austin, USA. Fathi Bourmeche Lecturer, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, University of Sfax, Tunisia. Nicole Braida Research Assistant, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. Leen d’Haenens Professor of Communication Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium. Liisa Irene Hänninen Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Communication Science, University of Madrid, Spain. Victoria Jack Adjunct Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Australia. Willem Joris  Post Doctoral Researcher, Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel Director, Global Cooperation Initiative, USA. Željka Lekić-Subašić Head, ERNO Coordination Office, Sarajevo, BosniaHerzegovina. Stefan Mertens Post Doctoral Researcher, Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. Aleksandar Mitić  President, Center for Strategic Alternatives, Belgrade, Serbia. Laura San Felipe Frías  Faculty of Communication Science, University of Madrid, Spain. Baldwin Van Gorp  Professor of Communication Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium.

Introduction

The media’s influence on attitudes toward migration has greatly expanded in the contemporary coverage of the issue, driven in part by the changes in medium that have impacted the timeline of reporting and the expansion of sharing information on social networks. Media coverage of migrants and refugees is crucial to understanding the host’s response to the arrival of migrants, and it plays a significant role in the shaping of politics and public perception (Entman 2003, 2004; Orgad 2012; Baker et al. 2008). Most of the migrant movement that invites analysis is in the Western hemisphere, with little if casual attention paid to the displacement in other parts of the world, such as Rohingya communities in Burma, Bangladeshi migrants in India, and Tibetans in the Himalayan region, among others. The media remains one of the principal channels of information and commentary, and it contributes substantially to the eventual interactions between migrants and the host societies. The media reflects as well as influences both the public and the policy makers, and occasionally reveals its own struggles with the rules of engagement. The sources of information that can be investigated are varied, ranging from traditional print media to multimedia, social networking sites, T ­ witter, and other new technologies of communication. Cartographic information and rumors may also serve as resources for discerning the evolution of public perceptions. The framing of the crisis through television images, newspaper reports, social media sites, performance, and conversation provides a broad range of information outlets that are relevant to explaining the contradictions in reactions to migrants. The broader impact of new technologies on public perceptions and policy cannot be understated. In a sense, the new media represents a sociopolitical infrastructure that operates both within and exclusive of the existing political configuration in terms of its ability to reach and influence public attitudes. What it has introduced to the traditional news environment is an ability to channel news to and from the public, bypassing the known political organizations. The broader and more inclusive nature of new media has added considerably to the inherent power of reporting and fashioning the discourse. The ability of the new technologies used in media poses the risk of

2 Introduction manipulating user response in ways that may not be immediately apparent. Social media in particular exploits the psychological susceptibility of users by creating a dependency on the medium. Consequently, the news provided on these interfaces can reinforce attitudes by involving a larger community of like-minded users. This can only contribute to the wide acceptance of the migrant narrative that is being promoted, whether it is positive in content or negative as the case may be. It has been suggested that some technologies engage in privileging what is sensational over what is nuanced, appealing to e­ motion, anger and outrage. The news media is increasingly working in service to tech companies, … and must play by the rules of the attention economy to “sensationalise, bait and entertain in order to survive”. (Lewis 2017) While migration has been occurring throughout history and impelled by numerous forces, including economic opportunity, environmental displacement, and genocide, contemporary migration is additionally, in part, a consequence of multiple conflicts across the world. The massive population influx that is being experienced by Europe exposes a complexity unique to the 21st-century international scene. The inability to effectively distinguish genuine asylum seekers from infiltrators has been a very significant challenge for host nations. The migration flows have been vulnerable to exploitation by infiltrators, thereby undermining the cause of refugees worldwide. In Europe, especially, this has resulted in the disruption of existing open border agreements, such as the Schengen protocol, and has led to several border closings. This has interrupted the ongoing attempts to create a united Europe in which territorial identities are subservient to a cooperative construct of a supranational economic entity that is beneficial to all. It has also resulted in the emergence of a wave of ethno-nationalism in several countries, which can only be understood in reference to the migrant crisis that seems to have provoked this reaction. The grand European concept of a borderless region sharing peace and prosperity across a multiethnic environment and moving past the historical divisions of nation-states has always had challenges. ­Nevertheless, it is in response to the unchecked mass migration that the existing fault lines gained prominence as individual societies resisted the imposition of migrant populations on them by central edict. On the other hand, migration has benefited from the encouragement it has received through the primacy of global sensitivities toward humanitarian issues. The fundamental difference between contemporary migration and historical migration has been the prevalence of a postwar humanitarian ethic globally. The factor distinctive to the present migrant scene is the liberal reception extended by several nations eager to establish their altruistic credentials as open and enlightened societies. Nations seek to establish their

Introduction  3 global credentials by asserting their generosity and openness toward human suffering. Thus, leaders have initially opened their societies to unrestrained charity. Subsequently, some of the early responsiveness has been revisited when it has been discovered that the practicality of absorbing masses of individuals confronts many obstacles both logistically and from the perspective of public opinion. Unplanned assimilation has belatedly led to an examination of the basic premises of migrant reception and, in many instances, the evaluation is ongoing. Migrants to Europe come in many configurations, as we have noted previously: some come for economic opportunity, others are refugees from conflict zones, a few are terrorist infiltrators, many are from regions that surround the Mediterranean, but others come from as far away as South Asia. The objective of all this movement is to reach Europe and hospitable places where relocation is possible. Some locations are more sought after than others, based on migrant perceptions that local populations are willing to accommodate and support them in their aspirations. Often, these perceptions are based on rumor and hearsay, and the reality encountered may be very different. When migrants are clearly refugees or discerned to be worthy of sympathy, there is a greater likelihood of acceptance. When the impression is more aligned with negative indicators, the migrant is seen as contributing to crime, as a disruption of the social order, and as a competitor for scarce resources. It is important to conceptually distinguish between migrants in general and refugees since public perception varies according to the imperatives underlying the movement of displaced persons. Migrants are seen more as competitors for resources and opportunities, although this is tempered by considerations of labor shortages in some instances. Refugees, on the other hand, receive a more sympathetic reaction as their situation appeals to the innate generosity and Samaritan impulses of local populations. Media coverage that is sensitive to these differences reinforces the attitudes that are already prevalent among the population. According to the 1967 protocol of the Convention Relating to the Status of refugees, a refugee is defined as a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country […] or who […] is unable or […] unwilling to return to it. (UNHCR 1951, Article 1 A (2)) This establishes that persons who leave their home countries due to fear of persecution, crossing international borders, legally or illegally, are accorded the recognition of refugees. Most migrants prefer to designate themselves

4 Introduction as refugees for obvious reasons and are often surprised by the difficulties of proving this self-identification. Understandably, there is a process in place to evaluate migrant status prior to acceptance into the host nation, and it is one that fails when the numbers are too overwhelming for the resources allocated toward its implementation. Framing the narrative a number of different ways can influence the reaction from the public. In many instances, the reporting sculpts the narrative of hostility or welcome, hopes and disillusionment, and, finally, the perception of personal threats and national security concerns. Many situations result from unrealistic expectations on the part of host countries and the incoming arrivals. A large proportion of the response toward migrants is based on underlying cultural and political backgrounds resulting in miscommunication and difficulties of integration. Language barriers play a significant role, but unspoken fears and expectations contribute equally to the scenarios that characterize the failure of the migrant experience all around. Most ­European fears regarding the unhindered flow of refugees into the country may be associated with threats from without that encompass a broad range of external dangers, including, but not limited to, climate change, fresh wars, global crises, and unpredictable governance. Negative attitudes toward migrants are not only driven by the domestic cost of humanitarian aid, often perceived as depriving local populations of finite resources, but also revolve around the perception of the ‘other’. This is largely based on cultural rather than economic considerations and sets up a dynamic between emotional responses and rational attitudes. Less emphasis is given to the successes of the migrant experience since they are less newsworthy than the failures, or so it appears. The studies presented in this volume concentrate on exploring the instruments through which public attitudes and perceptions of migrants are formed. The analyses singularly focus on and concentrate their findings on the diverse means and subsequent connotations of information presentation. Individual authors have approached their task with various sensitive time frames that yielded the most significant results for their objectives. A  flurry of developments occurring within a definable period and arising from migrant arrivals would provide clues for understanding the evolution of attitudes toward the influx. Data collection during a limited time frame was more likely to be event specific and thus more measurable. The analyses take into consideration a number of tools that explain the differing impact of reporting on public attitudes and on policies toward the migrants. ­Adopting interdisciplinary and innovative approaches toward the structuring of the migrant issues, the authors bring a creative lens to their analytic interpretations. These include framing analysis, performance theory, gaming, and rumor, among others. The print media, social media, television, and maps are some of the landscapes explored by the various authors. Several of these studies broadly attempt to identify the process through which mindsets regarding the migrant issue are formed and find that an exploration of

Introduction  5 self-identity is central to the understanding of the encounter with the new population influx. The cultural context within which the newcomers will have to exist has a bearing on their future. This cultural context is, however, rather complex and has its origins in the historical forces underpinning the European identity. As a result, some authors have suggested a friction between the motivations of acceptance and rejection. The ultimate outcome is an ambivalence that characterizes the contemporary migrant narrative. This is further related to the issue of bias in media framing that underlies evaluation of communication (Entman 2007). Social media particularly exhibits the limitations of nuanced commentary due to the brevity of the entries, but it simultaneously exhibits its potency to influence public attitudes by appealing to the emotional rather than the thoughtful. Users are drawn into a circle of opinion that provides them with a sense of participating in a wider community response. As a result, the responsibility of the new technologies in presenting a narrative becomes even more crucial in the coverage of issues dealing with migrants and refugees. Paul Adams’s chapter brings an interdisciplinary and highly original perspective of multivariant performance to the interpretation of migration maps. This narrative views migration maps as more than charts and diagrams. The data is inherent in the medium which can be logically construed as performances. Categorizing maps into three groups based on whether they can be interpreted as sources of information or sources that exclude or discount significant aspects of the narrative, the author sees in this approach a way to identify the contradictions at the heart of the European self-concept. Maps provide a window to explore the “cartographies of power, territoriality, and spatial order” in an attempt to discern the boundaries of European identity and social awareness through an elucidation of these ‘performances’. A theme that emerges from this exploration is that of an underlying tension between the historical boundaries and conflicts of ­Europe that underlie many of the contemporary attitudes of national identity and the aspiration for cultural unity and generosity toward the ‘other’ that exemplifies Europe’s entrance into a wider global order. This fundamental ambivalence is central to understanding the conflicting attitudes toward migrants and refugees already reflected in media reports and reinforced by the performance inherent in interpretation of the maps. Much can be gleaned about individual and cultural self-realization through a performance angle. The performance angle involves a wide-ranging and inclusive data trove that includes images, their creators, the consumers, and others interpreted in the context in which they appear. The sample comprises maps tracing the movements of peoples from the South Asian subcontinent, Northern ­A frica, and the Middle East toward Europe. The extensive sample of maps is extracted from a variety of sources that range across non-governmental organization (NGO)-generated products; government-issued charts; ­international organizations; and publicly available news sources and social media, including media sites. Central to the interpretation of the graphic sources is

6 Introduction the context in which they have been issued, which, in the estimation of the author, is a significant indicator of performance. Many important observations on the process through which perceptions toward migrants evolve, public attitudes come into being, and policy is impacted can be inferred through this evaluation. This perspective establishes and positions the various actors both inside and outside the boundaries of nations and analysis, further reinforcing the dichotomy between embrace and exclusion. Public attitudes toward migrants are constructed by how self-identity is defined and how the European persona is construed, and explains the pressures inherent in opposing values between generosity and European concord. The author suggests that “Immigration maps constitute a resource for managing dissonance around immigrants and immigration”. Through maps, one may discern in abstract the boundaries of a European identity derived from traditional ethical and moral principles that underpin this framework. The correlation between cross-border migration and identity formation has been explored by previous studies (Madsen and van Naerssen 2003). That there is a two-way process impacting the identity of local populations and that of migrants in the context of the development of transnational encounters is obvious. It is against this scenario that characterization of the ‘other’ should be discussed. Several factors determine the exclusionary ideology: mostly cultural and economic, although the political cannot be excluded. Language, values, access to economic opportunity, and desire to integrate or not remain high in the equation. Much of the resistance toward refugees and migrants can be explained as a response toward unfamiliar ‘others’. Previous studies have noted the prevalence of a narrative based on perceptions of inclusion and exclusion enabled through discourse (Wodak 2008). In perceiving asylum seekers and migrants as threats to the integrity of societies and as competing for limited resources with local populations, public opinion easily slides into a negative narrative mode. Fathi Bourmeche’s study of British press coverage of migration over a decade (2004–2014) contends that the inflow of Eastern Europeans into Great Britain was consistently portrayed as a narrative of ‘others’. Thus, migrants were seen as a massive incursion into British society, resulting in an unmanageable influx overwhelming the existing public services and impacting available housing, schooling, and transportation, among other things. There was also a narrative associating the increase in crime with the influx of migrants. An unexpected corollary was, interestingly enough, a strengthening of the sense of nationality. If the migrants were seen as peripheral to the existing social arrangements, then the obvious sequel was the delineation of the parameters that resulted in exclusion. It can be inferred that public attitudes toward migrants simultaneously clarify elements that characterize the host societies. Unfamiliarity with rules and regulations, laws, customs, and moral and ethical attitudes of the established social structure and institutions partially explains the prevalence of criminal and antisocial behavior attributed to the migrants. This highlights

Introduction  7 the whole discourse regarding expectations of the migrants contrasted to the expectations of their hosts. The media sample selected for this analysis included both the mainstream press as well as the tabloids, examined from a framing perspective. Media coverage and its impact on public perceptions relied substantively on the model (McCombs 2004) of agenda setting and frame analysis. In Aleksandar Mitić’s chapter, the migrant crisis in Serbia is examined as a case study of the framing of the issue of migration by Serbian politicians. The analysis centers on a review of the sociopolitical situation preceding the migrant crisis as a means to framing the media discourse. How this influences the media coverage of the crisis is a central focus of this analysis. Also pertinent in assessing the media’s impact on this matter is whether the Serbian public’s perception of the subject is rooted in their own experience as recipients of an inflow of refugees, whether as displaced individuals or transiting populations. Mitić suggests that the mutually reinforcing policies of the German and Serbian leadership were driven by Serbia’s calculation that the two countries would share wider goals on the issue of European integration. How much this calculation figured in the prime minister’s framing of the issue and his substantial influence on the media’s reporting are closely assessed in this study. The unspoken presence of Serbian experience as background for understanding the present attitudes raises intriguing possibilities of how significant it is to consider the incursion of personal vision into the formulation of public policy. Nicole Braida applies gaming as the diagnostic to framing the media coverage of refugees. Utilizing a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective, the author analyses a series of case studies drawn from film and documentaries, game theory, software, media, and migration studies. The news games developed to engage and familiarize the public with migrant perceptions are designed to increase ethical awareness of the issues involved. This chapter suggests that the influence of game-based attitude development on media reporting points to a symbiotic relationship among media frames. Symptomatic of this line of media influence is the Franco-German news game that combines fictional images with audiovisuals to encourage players to place themselves in the position of an investigative reporter seeking to accurately depict the migrant story. Similar games involving the strategic plans and decisions of migrants are representative of an entirely interactive way of presenting the complexity inherent in the refugee universe. The multimedia products emphasize the active and complex process of valuation that underlies the decision-making exploratory journey that individuals, be they reporters or migrants, undergo as they examine the choices presented to them. The visual content underscores that the process is nonlinear. The author emphasizes the significant role of the linguistic clues in building the choices that can lead to success or failure. This innovative way of confronting the migrant narrative serves to provide additional instruments for ­analysis and helps to clarify many fundamental questions regarding definitions of

8 Introduction migrants, refugees, opportunists, and the appropriate responses toward these categories. As an artifact of an internet and social media universe, this line of enquiry has much potential for enhancing the understanding of information derived from the media. Willem Joris et al.’s, analysis focuses extensively on news framing theory as a useful tool for identifying the mechanisms that shape public attitudes toward refugees. This chapter partially anticipates a wider comparative and longitudinal study of media reporting, and the concomitant effect on public attitudes toward migrants. The chapter focuses on the framing of refugees in media coverage over a six-month period starting in June 2015. The authors selected this limited time frame based on the exponential growth of the refugee crisis during this period. Building on the proposition (Van Gorp 2005) that the media establishes both negative and positive narrative frames in its coverage of the narrative, the authors endeavor to connect and examine the influence of framing on public attitudes and on the formulation of public policy. Frames provide interpretations of reality and promote specific definitions that influence perception of issues (Entman 1993, 52). The chapter discusses the efficacy of several frames of analysis. The authors of the study identify the eight frames of refugees and asylum seekers suggested in the UK coverage by Philo, ­Briant and Donald (2013). The majority of the frames were seen to be negative in tone inferring that asylum seekers were illegal or economic migrants; further implying that they were too numerous and straining the resources of the host societies, that they represented an increase in crime and threatened national security, and finally recommending deportation or failing that more restrictive controls to admittance. The three positive frames presented the situation as mostly beneficial and focused on value to society, problems of integration, and refugee policies of Western societies. These frames serve to clarify the various perceptions held by the public. Sympathetic attitudes toward refugees can be interpreted in terms of the victim frame that allows for invoking international humanitarian responses. The conflict frame is far less supportive of the refugee influx, depicting the arrivals as criminals, terrorists, or competitors for economic opportunities. While frames are useful in sorting out public attitudes, they also serve to highlight the factors that motivate policy formulation. The utilitarian frame is useful in explaining how countries are pressured to display the moral high ground and exhibit their compassionate credentials to the global community. More sympathetic is the victim frame (Van Gorp 2005), which emphasizes the hardships encountered by migrants in their countries of origin and in their passage to more hospitable countries. This perspective heavily relies on a good Samaritan approach that emphasizes the helplessness of migrants and the obligation to assist them in their objectives. In a previous study (d’Haenens and De Lange 2001) by some of the authors, this frame was described as a way of bringing the human element to bear on the narrative being presented and singling out refugees from economic migrants. The utilitarian frame (Helbling 2014) argues for the reputational incentives on

Introduction  9 the part of countries that are seen as enthusiastic and welcoming toward refugee populations. In contrast, the conflict frame concentrates on negative aspects of integration, including, among other things, criminal behavior and competition for resources (Haynes, Breen and Devereux 2005). A content analysis of news coverage in a restricted sample of five ­European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and the UK) was undertaken. The countries were selected based partially on the European Union Commissions distribution plan, distinctive migration policies, their geographical siting, and their position on migration and refugees, based on their different geographical location, migration policies, and diverging perceptions toward refugees and migrants. Methodology relied on quantitative, deductive frame analysis, measuring the comparative incidence of each of these eight frames in each country. Concluding that each news story could exhibit more than one news frame and each frame could reveal the frame sponsor or the actor politician, organization, etc. who initiated the frame, the authors coded the source accordingly. In addition, the country of origin of the refugees and asylum seekers was recorded. Željka Lekić’s chapter concentrates on the events in Eastern and Southeastern Europe during a particularly important timeline in autumn of 2015. The importance of the Balkan route of migration was underscored by the extraordinarily large numbers of refugees who opted for this channel of ­European entry. The countries along this route, Serbia and ­Croatia, in addition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, shared a common experience of their own refugee history during the three-year Yugoslavian conflict of 1992–1995. This study of the refugee crossings in this region compares the media coverage of refugees, migrants, and migration in Bosnia, ­Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia over a 10-day period during September 2015. This period saw a number of significant developments that occurred in response to the refugee crisis in the region. These developments included the erection of a border fence between Hungary and Serbia, the deployment of brutal force in the form of teargas and water cannons to stem the refugee influx, and border closings to prevent movement of refugees between various states of the region. This analysis focuses on thematic content, contextual framing, and the conflicting positions exposed via online media, concentrating on evaluating the most visited online news sources in these countries. Online sites constituted the most popular sources of information, especially by younger readers who had been exposed to digital technologies as the primary media channels, which confirmed the information from these channels as having a significant impact on public attitudes. The enquiry centers on how the narrative is framed by incorporating questions about frequency of reporting, the sources of information involved, and the emphasis given to certain stories. Lekic’s analysis suggests that the media’s impact is best measured by identifying the agenda setting through the length and space given to coverage of a particular story. In conjunction with framing techniques, it is possible to assess the level of influence on particular issues.

10 Introduction Victoria Jack’s case study of rumors in refugee populations based on fieldwork among refugees in the Thai–Burma border camps presents an intriguing approach toward the influence of rumors on public perception. In the absence of access to formal sources of information, such as media, the refugees made assumptions based on statements provided by humanitarian organizations and other officials. The study identifies the need for improvement in communication and information-sharing mechanisms to avoid the proliferation of false information and the concomitant uncertainty that it engenders among the migrants. Recognizing the responsibility for providing a reliable and meaningful channel of information is the first step in achieving success toward the goals of humanitarian relief. Jack suggests that information was possibly withheld or limited so as to enable the organizations to continue with their planned objective of relocating the inhabitants, but the result was that a sense of fear and insecurity came to characterize the camp environment. The prevalence of a rumor-based informational environment was the logical outcome of policies that emphasized limited communication and access to media sources, and rumor became the primary channel of transmission of information in the camps. This placed it on par with the standard means of communication available to societies. In so far as it was the primary channel, it was also the source of false assumptions. Laura San Felipe Frías and Liisa Irene Hänninen evaluate Spanish television reporting of the migrant crisis during the critical period in the spring/ summer (April–June 2016), when discussions between Turkey and Europe on the disposition of migrant inflow were in progress. The central question that is explored is whether the media coverage was purely informational or whether it was in effect selective in its reporting of what was considered significant and thus worthy of the public’s attention. The authors structure their analysis around framing theory (Entman 2007, 163–173) toward understanding the role of the media in this instance. The preponderance of negative stories and on-screen images served to create a perception of a foreign intrusion disruptive of normalcy. The negativity was not just in reference to the unfamiliar lifestyle and contribution to disorder but was also reinforced by images that would customarily elicit sympathy, such as the disorderly appearance of beach arrivals, hostile receptions, improvised camps, displaced families, etc., creating a universe of confusion and chaos. The emotional impact of such ­reporting was to disengage the predicament of the migrants from the conventional organization of society and essentially reinforce the concept of the ‘other’. Under such circumstances, it would be difficult to expect an upsurge of empathy for migrants. Nevertheless, the minority reporting that focused on the plight of children, etc., did have an effect, albeit small in scale, on fund-raising and support services. This was primarily confined to private initiatives and did not impact official policy in any measurable way. The question of migration did not figure prominently in

Introduction  11 the political statements either before or after the elections. The analysis suggests that political acknowledgment of the migrant influx was relevant only briefly during the run-up to the elections but soon shared the attention with a number of other issues that overshadowed this narrative. In the final assessment, through framing and agenda setting, the media does contribute to the public perception of an important and complex issue, and this can result in either trivializing or emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. In the absence of a comprehensive and contextual narrative, the public may not be in a position to effectively evaluate the reports presented in the media. In undertaking to examine the evolution of public attitudes toward migration by analyzing the instruments that frame much of the media communications, the contributors have added to our understanding of this ongoing phenomenon. The analyses presented in this volume raise several important questions on the effectiveness and extent of media influence on public attitudes and the impact of mass migration on societies. They also highlight the evolution of innovative and interdisciplinary methodology toward data interpretation that promotes a deeper understanding of complex issues. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many individuals and organizations that have been helpful in making this volume possible. It would not have been possible without the enthusiastic cooperation of the contributors. The author would also like to acknowledge Keynote/Media Point for inspiring and sponsoring the discourse on migration and refugees. Robert Sorsby and Claire Maloney at Routledge, and Martin Spata at Keynote provided invaluable support and encouragement during the entire process.

References Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., Khosravinik, M., Kryzanowski, M., Mcenery, T., &  Wodak, R. (2008). A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical ­discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and a­ sylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse & Society, 19(3), 273–306. Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. (1967). UNHCR. ­Retrieved October 7, 2017, from www.unhcr.org/en-us/protection/basic/3b66c2 aa10/convention-protocol-relating-status-refugees.html d’Haenens, L., & De Lange, M. (2001). Framing of asylum seekers in Dutch regional newspapers. Media, Culture & Society, 23(6), 847–860. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. ­Journal of Communication, 43, 51–58. Entman, R. M. (2003). Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11. Political Communication, 20(4), 415–432. Entman, R. M. (2004). Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Entman, R. M. (2007). Framing bias: Media in the distribution of power. Journal of Communication, 57(3), 163–173.

12 Introduction Haynes, A., Breen, M., & Devereux, E. (2005). Smuggling zebras for lunch: ­Media framing of asylum seekers in the Irish print media. Etudes Irlandaises, 30(1), 109–130. Helbling, M. (2014). Framing immigration in Western Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(1), 21–41. Lewis, P. (2017). ‘Our minds can be hijacked’: The tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia. The Guardian, On-line October 5. Retrieved O ­ ctober 7, 2017, from www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-siliconvalley-dystopia?CMP=share_btn_link Madsen, K. D., & van Naerssen, T. (2003). Migration, identity, and belonging. ­Journal of Borderlands Studies, Spring, 18(1), 61–75. McCombs, M. (2004). Setting the Agenda Mass Media and Public Opinion. ­Cambridge: Polity Press. McCombs, M. E., & Shaw D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176–187. Orgad, S. (2012). Media Representation and the Global Imagination. Cambridge: ­Polity Press. Philo, G., Briant, E., & Donald, P. (2013). Bad News for Refugees. London: PlutoPress. Van Gorp, B. (2005). Where is the frame? Victims and intruders in the Belgian press coverage of the asylum issue. European Journal of Communication, 20(4), 485–508. Wodak, R., & Krzyzanowski, M. (2008). Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

1 Migration maps and the performance of Europeanness Paul C. Adams

Introduction This analysis examines maps as multivalent performances. The maps under scrutiny focus on the influx of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia into Europe. The purpose of this exploration goes beyond questions of cartographic representation to examine how these migration maps perform notions of identity, community belonging, cultural affiliation, and protective surveillance. I argue that cartographic images, their textual ­explanations, their interpretation, and their reposting all act as ­aspects of cartographic performance by individuals, groups, and agencies. Examples of migration maps are drawn from the communications of state governments, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), nongovernmental ­organizations (NGOs), newspapers, news media, blogs, and social media. These maps are analyzed in relation to their contexts – the newspapers, magazines, or websites in which they appear – as well as the wider economic, political, and institutional contexts of map production and consumption. If migration maps are practices that simultaneously legitimate and reconfigure cartographies of power, territoriality, and spatial order, then ­m igration maps must be treated not merely as artifacts or texts but also as ­ urope outward indications of what being “European” means today, where E begins and ends, who the Europeans are, and how tensions surround ­Europe as a bundle of ideals and ethical principles. In one important move, the ­m igration map is a gesture of exclusion, not merely positioning certain places and bodies outside European territory but also placing certain social subjects beyond the domain of care and responsibility defined by “the public.” In a less obvious but no less important move, each map implicitly includes certain bodies as European, embracing them within the domain of mutual care and responsibility. The study highlights anxieties that go beyond questions of Europe’s “security” (whether that relates to security from bodily harm or economic instability) to the more subtle quest for ontological security regarding what it means to be European. Migration maps work to reconcile multiple uncertainties around Europe’s internal coherence and diversity, its troubled past,

14  Paul C. Adams and its geographical extent. These uncertainties are manifestations of cognitive dissonance that the maps attempt to resolve in various ways. It will be argued, therefore, that ambivalence and anxiety about Europeanness drive the impulse to create and use migration maps.

Migration maps and the performance of Europeanness This study examines mapping practices that attempt to capture the flow of immigrants into Europe from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. I use the word “capture” because, as I will indicate, the mapping of migration is often driven by anxiety regarding a process that is seen as inherently destabilizing. If bodies cannot be captured in fact, they can at least be captured symbolically, cartographically. Maps are employed, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, to bring order to an unruly situation, and each map performs a certain way of being European. There is of course the unruliness of irregular migration, with refugees and asylum seekers arriving without the proper entry papers, on foot, in inflatable boats, or stowed away with freight shipments, but beyond this, there is another source of unruliness. This is the fundamental tension between two different conceptions of European integrity – on the one hand, an integrity that depends on territorial exclusivity; on the other hand, an integrity that depends on ethical inclusivity. Europeanness is performed in contrasting ways depending on whether it is linked to notions of race, ethnicity, and nationality or to notions of human rights, social welfare, and universalism. These interpretations clash in public discourse and imagination, and the resulting anxiety is manifested in divergent cartographic performances (and in many other ways). Here, we use migration maps as a lens focused on the performance of Europeanness. The purpose of the exploration therefore goes beyond questions of cartographic representation to examine how migration maps relate to national identity, cultural affiliation, community, and risk. Cartographic images, their textual explanations, and their reposting all constitute cartographic performances, shedding light on the tensions and ambivalences of Europe’s external and internal borders. This chapter therefore traces what Matthew Sparke calls “cartographies of power and dominance,” as indicated by an assortment of individuals, groups, and agencies acting on behalf of various scales of local, national, regional, and supranational community to create the traces of identity we call maps. Cartographic practice in this case reflects ambivalence about European integrity: anxieties about what “European” means, who Europeans are, and how Europeans meet (or fail to meet) their own professed “Western” ideals and ethics. More specifically, Internet users who post, repost, or link to a particular cartographic visualization of Europe’s refugee/migrant “crisis” perform various modes of spatial perception, social hierarchies, and political and geographical engagements. A migration map posted online

Migration maps and Europeanness  15 by a newspaper, an NGO, an IGO, a blog, or an individual is a gesture of inclusion and exclusion. It notes the presence of certain bodies as they cross into Europe while marking them as existing in a questionable space with regard to the domains of care and responsibility upheld in and by European laws and ethics. The chapter begins with a consideration of theoretical foundations, including geographical studies of bordering practices, critical cartography, and cognitive dissonance. These theories have not been brought together in previous work, so the chapter attempts a new theoretical integration. ­Following this is an introduction to the agency Frontex, after which the body of the chapter examines a set of maps distinguished in part by their relationship to Frontex maps. The conclusion returns to the notion of cognitive dissonance and argues that the impetus to create and use migration maps indicates deep ambivalence about European identity and integrity and, as such, is a sign of cognitive dissonance. This dissonance resonates in a flow of anxiety – a response that is emotional and affective. The link between migration maps, cognitive dissonance, and anxious affect remains speculative; however, research paths toward confirmation will be suggested.

Theoretical foundations It has been argued that “borders are everywhere” (Balibar 1998; ­Rumford 2010), meaning that bordering practices saturate everyday life, whether one looks at organizational communications, public discourses, social power relations, or the formation of self-identity. This insight goes beyond noting the globalizing flows of commodities, capital, human beings, and ideas; it suggests that the practices of inclusion and exclusion that are most apparent along the lines between states are also present away from those lines, in places far from the borders on the map. This is not merely to say that practices far from the border relate to the border; rather, the border itself is a distributed process that only appears to “take place” along a particular line in space. That condensation in space is both an illusion of order and a source of power. As a bordering and ordering practice (Popescu 2011; Scott 2009; van Houtum & van Naerssen 2002), each migration map positions the viewer in relation to the border by symbolizing the act of border-­crossing in a particular way of interacting bodily with the border. To be more specific, each map favors viewing migration in terms of individual migrant lifepaths and experiences or in terms of aggregated flows of bodies; in doing so it is either more personal or more impersonal. As such, migration maps are deeply polarized, and the associated cartographic performances are torn in two ways. Exposure to migration maps works with this ambivalence because “being torn between two sides of an attitudinal issue or behavioral action is fundamentally different from, and in some ways even opposed to, not caring” (van Harreveld et al. 2009, 46). Ambivalence is not neutrality; it is a condition

16  Paul C. Adams of caring for opposing things, and in the case of migration, it arises because people care about a certain vision of community but are not sure who to include in community, whom they should care for. This indicates that the migration map is a performance related to ambivalence, but we cannot fully understand that performance without moving deeper into the notion of performance. That requires asking what kind of affect is circulated through the performances associated with migration mapping. Affect can be understood as “a quality of life that is beyond cognition and always interpersonal. It is, moreover, inexpressible: unable to be brought into representation” (Pile 2010, 8). This explains the slipperiness of affect, which is a crucial insight, but how can we get a grasp on it? We can follow Pile in noting that affect is the capacity to be affected, which exists both within and between bodies, and which is translated into emotion, but that ceases to be affect when it is pinned down. Perhaps most importantly, affect is a transpersonal flow, a kind of contagion that people experience sooner or later in the form of emotion but that cannot be reduced to emotion. Thus, in referring to “anxiety,” I am employing a shorthand that translates a kind of affect (that is unnameable) into a named emotion. Anxiety relates to the ambivalence manifested in contradictory cartographic practices – some more exclusive and others more inclusive – with a corresponding divide between more remote and impersonal renditions of “migration” versus more personal renditions of “the migrant.” A related cartographic distinction is between depictions of risks from immigration on the one hand and risks to immigrants on the other hand. Anxious affect is evident in the proliferation of maps of both types, and in the self-conscious adoption of mapping as a form of social intervention, a practice called “counter-mapping” (Peluso 1995). Stepping back, the chapter’s critical approach to mapping and map use depends on the insights of critical cartography. A departure from the pragmatic/naturalistic approach to cartography came in the last decades of the 20th century with the research of David Woodward, J.B. Harley, and John Pickles (Harley 1988; Pickles 1992; Woodward & Harley 1987) – work that questioned the motivations of mapmakers and the uses to which maps are put, the criteria for deciding what to leave out and what to include, how to symbolize spatial data, and what kind of perspectives are employed ­(including map orientation, scale, and projection). Critical cartography interrogated each map with regard to choices such as color, scale, orientation, features, icons, perspectives, and the ways in which such variables are given meaning. In light of the insights of critical cartography, “propaganda maps are not merely one more medium or form to be interpreted, but are in many ways an archetypical form of the age of technicity. They are exemplars of the manipulation of symbols and writing” (Pickles 1992, 228). What the study of propaganda maps suggested was the need to study the map in context, including

Migration maps and Europeanness  17 the map itself, the immediate context of the map (its caption, the chapter and the work of which it is a part), and the wider context of the map (the opus of the individual cartographer or school, the opus to which the text itself belongs, the socio-cultural context of the work). (Pickles 1992, 219) More recent contributions to critical cartography build on this sensibility, but as Jeremy Crampton suggests, we are “moving from a niche-based study of maps as objects to a more comprehensive (and potentially interdisciplinary) study of mapping as practice, the knowledges it deploys, and the ­political field of its operations” (2009a, 840; 2009b). Mapping, as a social activity, cannot be reduced to the three-way relationship between the subjective cartographic gaze, the objectified world, and the map, however complex these three elements may be. A fourth facet of cartography is gaining attention: social performance around map creation and appropriation, performance involving impulses that are artistic and expressive yet also contentious and politicized. This approach amounts to an interest in “social semiotics” – the processes whereby meaning is made by those who create visual representations as well as by those who view those representations (Rose 2016, 109). On top of hermeneutic circles (content–context relations), we must layer a sensitivity to questions about the nonrepresentational dimensions of mapping that enable new kinds of participatory shifts. For example, how do Internet users who repost or link to a particular map perform a particular relationship toward social hierarchies, political engagements, and geographical processes through their acts of appropriation? What about mapping practices that challenge established worldviews, including what Nancy Peluso (1995) calls counter-mapping? A map is, as Gunnar Olsson says (2007, 213), “a document which in the same gesture both shows and tells, a performance which is not merely about something but is that something itself.” In the case of a migration map, the performance in question relates to a certain social category, “the immigrant,” but at the same time, immigrants are not shown as such. People, treated as bodies, are aggregated into flows differentiated by the distinction “in place” versus “out of place” (Cresswell 1996). A map of migration does not merely record and register a type of population flow; it therefore also works to establish the people included in the flow as certain types of persons. A migration map therefore performs a dividing act, separating “us” and “them” by mapping the former as a territory and the latter as a flow. If we treat maps as stand-alone objects, this may seem relatively straightforward, but considering related maps as a discourse about a certain topic (e.g., ­m igration), we begin to see ambivalence ­p ermeating mapping practices. This chapter stops short of studying practices of map-interpretation but moves somewhat beyond a traditional cartographic analysis by reflecting on the motivations behind map creation and map use.

18  Paul C. Adams In addition to the insights of critical cartography and the new sensitivity to practice and performance, the study of migration mapping offers an opportunity to draw on psychological theory. In particular, it is helpful here to consider the concept of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a type of mental stress first explored by the work of psychologist Leon ­Festinger (1962). He noted that people often hold mutually contradictory beliefs, opinions, or attitudes, and they often find that their actions contradict their beliefs. As Festinger and others demonstrated, cognitive dissonance often leads to anxiety, and later research targeted attitudinal ambivalence as a major source of cognitive dissonance (Newby-Clark et al. 2002). ­A mbivalence can be measured by asking people to respond to an idea and the opposite idea, for example, testing people’s level of agreement with the following statements: “It is good when people in a society belong to a shared culture” and “Society benefits from cultural diversity.” People who respond positively to both statements would be demonstrating attitudinal ambivalence. This is not to say that such people would necessarily feel themselves to be internally divided on the issue of cultural homogeneity/heterogeneity. In fact, feelings of ambivalence are only weakly correlated with attitudinal ambivalence as measured in terms of conflicting responses (r = 0.4) (Newby-Clark et al. 2002, 158). It is necessary for this reason to distinguish between potential ambivalence, constituted by “evaluatively incongruent beliefs, about which the attitude holder is not necessarily aware,” and felt ambivalence, which entails awareness that one holds contradictory beliefs. The prevalence of potential ambivalence indicates that people often adopt the strategy of rationalizing potentially conflicting beliefs, values, opinions, and actions. The discomfort of ambivalence often goes unacknowledged, and one manages the resulting tension through several strategies: the modification of one’s values and attitudes, the confession of one’s failure to live according to one’s values and attitudes, an opposing strategy of self-­ affirmation, or the selective appropriation of information that ameliorates the internal tension (Maertz et al. 2009). The use of migration maps attests to the last of these techniques – the filtering of information – suggesting that such maps can be understood not merely as texts but also as performances related to the seeking of information in a situation plagued with ambivalence and cognitive dissonance. Migration maps therefore perform ­Europeanness in particular ways.

An archetype and alternatives The maps under scrutiny here attempt to show immigration from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia into the Schengen Area. I cast my net widely to capture the range of ways in which this human flow was mapped in 2016 on the Internet, using the search terms “refugees,” “immigration,” and “map,” and equivalent terms in Swedish, Norwegian, French, and English. My objective is to reveal a range of different kinds of cartographic performances

Migration maps and Europeanness  19 by different map users, groups, and agencies rather than, for example, to measure relative percentages of various types of migration maps. The focus is on relationships between maps, cartographic perspectives, social categories embedded in maps, and mapmakers/map users. The information incorporated into migration maps is collected by IGOs, NGOs, state and local government agencies, researchers, media organizations, and committed individuals. Among the information sources, the most important is arguably an IGO that functions as a kind of clearinghouse for information about immigration that is collected by state governments and other sources: Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of ­Operational Cooperation at the External Borders. In keeping with the heterogeneity of data in migration maps, Frontex also collects data from various governmental and nongovernmental sources to produce its maps. Frontex acts not only as a clearinghouse for data about immigration into Europe but also as a primary supplier of cartographic imagery. As such, the agency has a major influence over the cartographic “language” used by other mapmaking entities to show immigration into Europe. Frontex maps combine various graphic elements, but a typical Frontex map depends on weighted arrows to show flows of people and scaled circles to show numbers of people arriving and departing from particular points in space (Figure 1.1). ­Supplementary information may be conveyed by choropleth shading and embedded charts. Through its central role in the collection and distribution of cartographic products, Frontex establishes norms of representation when it comes to immigration. Maps created by news media, governmental bodies, and NGOs often deviate from these norms, but in doing so, their meaning is defined in part by precisely how they differ from the cartographic norms established by Frontex. Frontex’s maps are created primarily by the Risk Analysis Unit located in Warsaw. The data collated and mapped by this office come from organizations that share data with Frontex, including European state governments, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), United ­Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the United ­Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Organization for ­Migration (IOM), European Union Agency for Law Enforcement ­Cooperation (EUROPOL), and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). Most important of these are the member states of the European Union, which are obligated to report counts of immigrants and asylum seekers on a quarterly basis. Frontex uses this data to generate maps that are then used in news media and government publications as well as data that are used by other parties to generate maps and charts. So, the agency’s influence affects both the content and the style of immigration maps produced by other sources With its close ties to various levels of government, Frontex also serves the purpose of surveillance, if we understand this term within a ­Foucauldian framework involving biopolitics, biopower, and governmentality (Morton &

20  Paul C. Adams

Figure 1.1  A  typical Frontex map showing irregular immigration flows into Europe, described as: “Detections of illegal border-crossing in 2014 with percentage change on 2013, by route.” Source: Annual Risk Analysis 2015. European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union. Warsaw: Frontex Risk Analysis Unit. Frontex reference number: 4613/2015. DOI 10.2819/95629. p. 19.

Bygrave 2008). Biopower can be simply described as the control of a population through knowledge about, and power over, large numbers of bodies. What Mbembe (2008, 171) calls the “management of multitudes” requires that people be rendered visible, transformed into “the population.” Migration maps are tools for visualizing populations, specifically those who cross borders without the proper paperwork and those who are physically present ­ gamben within state borders but remain outside the population in what A (2005) calls a “state of exception.” Government policies regarding health care and medicine, sexuality and reproduction, nutrition, birth, and death all fall within this orbit, as do immigration and emigration. The state of exception marks the life of someone who is excluded from the political community and therefore from the biopolitical institutions that protect and control life itself. Ironically, such exclusion removes social protections from certain bodies while maintaining legal control over those bodies.

Migration maps and Europeanness  21 Migration maps, like other maps, can be drawn in many different ways. One family of maps follows the lead of Frontex and portrays migration in terms of arrows (or lines) and circles. The arrows may or may not be scaled to indicate the volume of immigration flow; likewise, the circles may or may not be scaled to show the volume of an immigrant population in source or destination countries. In this way, people are treated as bodies to be counted but not quite shown. In a time of increasing immigration, when immigration elicits fear, disgust, resentment, or outrage in parts of the “host” population,  the migration map provides a pared down, seemingly rational representation: X number of people arriving via route Y from country Z. The simplicity of circles and arrows belies their affective and emotive power. Such maps offer a collective representation of immigrants but strip them of names and faces, their personal histories, and geographical paths. The national borders forming the base map signify order with their familiar outlines. Linearity (borders and arrows) is granted primacy in the layered ontology of the map. Meanwhile, the arrows signify people out of place, a source of risk to the orderly space of familiar territorial boundaries. What disappears in the circle and arrow map is the opposite kind of risk, of course – risks faced by immigrants – which include bodily injury, illness, ­exploitation, physical and sexual assault, stress, and mental illness. That these risks are encountered not only en route but also prior to migration, as push factors, makes them all the more invisible. In short, the state of exception is quite often translated into a language of circles and arrows superimposed on a background of state borders – the archetypal migration map of which there are scores of examples. Frontex provides ready-to-use cartographic products, which are often incorporated directly into news stories and play the role of setting the stylistic conventions of migration maps. These replicate the circles and arrows in Frontex maps, viewing immigrants as numbers, masses and trajectories, excluding subjective experiences and local contexts in favor of the “big picture.” This strategy, in turn, constructs risk in terms of measures of territorial violation rather than individual risks, such as loss of life, exposure to elements, hunger, thirst, vulnerability to crime and violence, etc. There is an interesting similarity between such maps and military maps, which arises from related concerns with territory but also from related anxieties regarding bodies out of place (Figure 1.2). There are many alternatives to the circle and arrow map. A more personal map, showing immigration rather than immigrants, revealing something of the process and experience of immigration rather than reducing thousands of immigrant bodies to a single arrow, can be achieved in various ways. Individual paths through space can be depicted. Ways can be found to map those who have died or disappeared in the process of migration. Maps can show the places where people whose nationality is in an indefinite status (asylum seekers, refugees, etc.) and are held pending official decisions. Maps can show trajectories of expulsion or repatriation and involuntary return.

22  Paul C. Adams

500 Km

Narvik

Nov. 1939

NO RV ÈG E

0

FINLANDE Nov. 1939

SUÈDE IRLANDE

Mer Baltique

Mer du Nord

ROYAUME UNI Bataille d'Angleterre Août 1940

B

USSR (not Russia)

PB

Avril 1940 Sept. 1939

Mai 1940

OCÉAN ATLANTIQUE

POLOGNE

Déc. 1940

IT A

Sept. 1939

Juin 1940

ALLEMAGNE FRANCE

Juin 1940

BALTIC COUNTRIES

D

SLO. RIE NG HO ROUMANIE YU GO SL AV IA BULGARIE

Avril 1941

LI

B.

AL

E

Mer Noire

Mer Méditerranée Afrika Korps

Nazi Germany (August 1939)

GRÈCE

Annexed by the Soviets

Occupied regions (September 1939-May 1941)

Countries unconquered by Germany

German allies (in 1940)

Neutral countries

German offensives German air offensives Italian offensives Soviet offensives

Figure 1.2  Map of World War II military advances. Source: Historicair. 2007. WWII in Europe 1939–1941-fr.svg (own work). Wikimedia Commons.

This personal, or rather somewhat less impersonal, kind of migration map requires cartographers to dig for data and be willing to take extra time and integrate information from sources with radically different methodologies and claims to legitimacy – ranging from NGOs to local municipal authorities to news media. This, in turn, calls for a phase of reflection wherein the map is treated more as a puzzle than as a given, where data going “into” the map are sought out rather than merely borrowed from a single source, and a recognition that no map depending on a single established authority constitutes an authoritative map. In the context of migration, it is important to note that any personalized representation is fraught with difficulty. As personae non gratae, immigrants often want to avoid recognition by state authorities. Anonymity is an asset for an

Migration maps and Europeanness  23 immigrant until he or she has formal permission to remain. To depict or reveal “the immigrant” in a way that is not harmful to the immigrant’s ­interests often requires a difficult balancing act – to show and yet hide – and thereby achieve what Øyvind Vågnes at the U ­ niversity of ­Bergen ­describes as “a form of direct address within the inevitable p ­ arameters of ­anonymity” (2015, 161). One way of achieving this direct and personal yet protectively anonymous ­perspective is by constructing the immigrant as a fictionalized individual whose face is, in some sense, anyone’s face. The representation is personal but is not of a specific person. This anonymous personalization may also prompt the extension of sympathy, and this is precisely what has been achieved by the illustrator Joe Sacco. His journalistic cartoons lend a personal character to social situations that are otherwise too often peopled with faceless Others. Sacco’s illustrated story, The Unwanted, from 2010, reveals the experiences of migrants from ­Eritrea by focusing on an invented character whose mobility responds to specific risks, risks that would normally be hidden by distance and geographical power imbalances. What are the cartographic analogs to this type of vision? In other words, what does it look like when a map is designed to tell a personal story? How can personal elements be brought into the language of cartographic symbolism? And finally, what are the variables that appear conducive to mapping migration in this way? To answer these questions, I now examine a sample of migration maps with attention to cartographic communication and performance of Europeanness.

Cases A total of eight examples will be discussed here to illustrate a range of migration maps and provide points of departure for various observations on migration maps and the contexts of their creation and use. This is not a random sample but rather a selection designed to reveal important ­relationships  – functional, conceptual, and productive – that shape the practices and performances associated with migration maps. The selection ­permits discussion of the ambivalence and anxiety behind migration maps. Frontex Risk Analysis Unit maps The Frontex Risk Analysis Unit (FRAN) produces what it calls the “FRAN Quarterly” – a periodical update of the information collected by the organization. The third quarter 2015 report, for example (released in early 2016), contained a map of illegal border-crossings by source and route (FRAN 2016a, 9). The map (Figure 1.3) entitled “Main nationalities of illegal border-crossers July–September 2015” employed color and scale in ways that could potentially reinforce an anxious perception of immigration. Two huge arrows are converging on Europe from the east while a smaller one encroaches on the South. The scale of the arrows – as broad as Europe from

24  Paul C. Adams

Figure 1.3  “Main nationalities of illegal border-crossers July–September 2015.” Source: FRAN Quarterly, Quarter 3 (July–September 2015). European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union. Warsaw, Poland: Frontex Risk Analysis Unit. Frontex reference number: 20617/2015. p. 9.

the Mediterranean to the Baltic – portrays Europe as on the verge of being engulfed. The arrows are rendered in intense maroon and in bright red and purple, while Europe is blue and the rest of the world is yellowish and graygreen. The use of color suggests that immigration is a hazard or risk. The map is supplemented with bar charts that show two years of detected illegal border-crossings by region of entry. Here again a red and maroon color palette suggests threat associated with immigration. The 2015 Third Quarter report by Frontex contains other maps and graphics too numerous to describe in detail, but maps entitled ­“Surveillance” (p. 8), “Clandestine Entries” (p. 10), “Nationalities of Users” (of fraudulent documents) (p. 13), and a map of migration flows within Europe (p. 17) all use red and colors near to red on the color wheel for immigrant-related data, while “Refusals of Entry” (p. 10) are rendered in green and yellow and “Returns” (p. 15) are rendered in green. In addition, immigrants are consistently represented as volumes and trajectories, reducing the human phenomenon to masses and flows. Subsequent quarterly reports adopt the same color scheme and graphic style, reinforcing the interpretations that viewers may form on the basis of this cartographic language (FRAN 2016b, 2016c). ­Reflecting on mapping as a process, the Frontex cartographic gaze is distant and impersonal, subsuming individual stories within aggregate flows and

Migration maps and Europeanness  25 implying through color, scale, and other elements of cartographic language that incoming human flows are dangerous. We can situate Frontex among other IGOs as a key supplier not only of migration data but also of migration imagery. Other important IGOs involved in this network include the UNHCR and the Red Cross. FLYKTINGKATASTROFEN On October 12, 2013, the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet featured a frontpage article entitled “Malta: Medelhavet blir en kyrkogård” (Malta: Mediterranean becoming a cemetery) (Gustafsson 2013). The article was illustrated by a striking image – part map, part aerial perspective – ­looking northward toward Europe from a vantage point above the Sahara Desert ­(Figure 1.4). With the yellow desert looming in the foreground and the green European continent beckoning in the background, the image shows three large, red arrows converging on Europe labeled with bold, white numbers: 6,400,

Figure 1.4  “FLYKTINGKATASTROFEN” (Refugee Catastrophe). Source: Malta: Medelhavet blir en kyrkogård (Malta: the Mediterranean is becoming a graveyard), Aftonbladet (October 12, 2013). Online file at: www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/ article17645754.ab. Accessed September 30, 2016.

26  Paul C. Adams 10,380, and 4,770, for numbers of people arriving in 2012 via western, central, and eastern Mediterranean migration routes. Oddly, the only place labels on the image are Spain, Italy, and ­Lampedusa, while Malta, though featured in the story, is not indicated on the map. Ineffective as a means of conveying information about immigration to Malta, the map does draw on a preexisting way of seeing (Berger 1972) to give visual form to the ­“FLYKTINGKATASTROFEN” (refugee crisis) indicated in a label at the bottom. Vantage point, color, fonts, and title all speak to fears of invasion and a putative threat to territorial integrity. The prominent arrows draw on a cartographic vocabulary established by Frontex, but the angle, indication of physical geographic features including the Sahara Desert, the earth’s atmosphere, and outer space all ­distinguish this approach as dramatic compared to the more clinical approach of Frontex. The accompanying text and the article’s title (as opposed to the image title) tell a different story. These relate to a boat accident in which 50 passengers lost their lives en route to Malta. The prime minister of Malta asks how many more people will have to die before something is done and requests a European intervention. The ambivalence between map and story is telling. If immigration is a “crisis,” it is uncertain whether that is because of the drowning of 50 would-be immigrants or because of the successful crossing of the Mediterranean by thousands of others. The visual and verbal components of the article encourage divergent readings (sympathetic versus u ­ nsympathetic) while the gap in implied meaning creates an open text, one that affords space for the reader to confirm his or her interpretation ­(Gamson et al. 1992). More generally, this map shows how a migration map may be used even if it is not a good match for the arguments and subject matter of an article. At the same time, the gap between text and image creates a semiotic openness and incoherence encouraging active engagement by readers/viewers. As audiences appropriate media content in various ways, the meaning of a map depends on practices surrounding media use, and ambivalence about Europeanness guides how these maps actually affect worldviews. The Lucify map On October 28, 2015, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet included an article with the headline “Nytt interaktivt kart viser det enorme omfanget av flyktningkrisa” (New interactive map shows the enormity of the refugee crisis) (Skjetne 2015). A short article followed, including a link to the website of a Finnish company called Lucify. Technically sophisticated and visually compelling, what Lucify had produced is a dynamic map of migration into Europe (http://www.lucify.com/the-flow-towards-europe/). The Lucify map shows Europe bounded by North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Russia (Figure 1.5). As soon as the image loads on the screen, small, white, comet-like symbols begin flowing into Europe from the corners of the map. One can scroll over the base map of state outlines and filter the “comets”

02.07.2012

Country by Country Dagbladet

Pengene skal komme fra. Det er flyktningkrisa i Norge i dag. Kartet viser imidlertid i hvilke europeiske land flest flyktninger søker asyl, og hvilke land de kommer fra. Antallet flyktninger Grafikken starter i 2012 og går fram til 30. september i år. Den viser hvordan antallet asylsøknader har okte dramatisk i mai og juni i år, basert på asylsøkertall fra FNs høykommissær for flyktninger (UNHCR). Hver prikk på kartet representerer 25 til 50 flyktninger, som beveger seg rett fra landet de bodde i til landet de søkte asyl i. Kartet viser altså ikke om en syrisk flyktning for eksempel valgte ruta via Libyå og ltalia for å komme seg til Europa, eller ruta via Tyrkia og de greske øyene. Det viser bare hvor mange syriske flyktninger som har dratt fra Syria til Norge, for eksempel. Men kartet er selsvagt bare en del av totalbildet avfly ktningkrisa. Det europeiske bildet I dag annonserte Schengen-landet østerrike at de vil bygge et gjerde mot Slovenia for å flyktningstrømmen. Ungarn har allerede bygd gjerder langs sine grenser til Serbia og Kroatia. -Vi tror ikke at den pågaende migrantkrisen Europa står

Figure 1.5  The Lucify interactive migration map, embedded in a page from Dagbladet. Source: O.L. Skjetne. 2015. “Se hvordan flyktningstrømmen har endret seg siden 2012” (See how the refugee influx has changed since 2012). Dagbladet (October 28, 2015). www.dagbladet. no/2015/10/28/nyheter/utenriks/flyktningkrisa/41715204/. Online file accessed October 1, 2016.

28  Paul C. Adams by country of origin or destination. As one watches, the volume of flow increases up to a high on October 2015 then declines again. Progress through time is indicated by a line graph of immigration volume rising and falling at the top of the map, while following the map are more graphics, including a diagram (a Sankey diagram to use the technical name) with connecting lines showing the relative number of non-European immigrants moving to every European country for any selected month from January 2012 to July 2016 (as of September 2016). Following this is a comparison between the number of refugees who have reached Europe versus the number of refugees still in the Middle East, achieved by contrasting the areas of 16 soccer fields ­(Europe) and 68 soccer fields (the Middle East). Lucify’s dynamic map was linked to quite extensively by a wide range of groups, individuals, and media organizations. In large part, this borrowing can be attributed to the dynamism that Lucify brought to the visualization of immigration, while Frontex maps and similar contributions are static images. Aside from representing flows as flows, and enabling user interaction, this imagery also differs from Frontex maps through its use of a black background, which heightens the sense of drama. Although based on data from UNHCR, and therefore presumably undebatable, Lucify’s representation of migration was nonetheless caught up in controversies around immigration. This was evident in the process of its appropriation and in direct online critique. Sites linking to the Lucify map could be identified by using the web service (Moz) and by means of a Google image search, which allows one to identify when the same map appears on multiple websites. Using Moz, the Lucify map was found to be linked to and reposted by various sources, listed here in order of their general degree of interest in the map: (1) middle of the road news sites, (2) left-wing news and opinion sites, (3) right-wing news and opinion sites, (4) sites for practitioners in graphic arts and mapmaking, (5) technology news sites, (6) NGOs, (7) religious organizations. A somewhat different story is told by a Google image search. Here the criterion of importance is not merely whether a site links to the Lucify map, but also whether that site is, itself, the destination of a large number of links (Pariser 2011, 31). In other words, Google selectively foregrounded the most visited sites that linked to the Lucify map. Out of the 25 sites identified via the Google image search as linking to the Lucify site, eight were right-wing news and opinion sites, six offered left wing or centrist news, three were associated with business and investment, three were associated with social media (YouTube, ­P interest, and Twitter), two were about maps and cartography, one was for computer programmers, and one was associated with a science museum in Dublin.1 There was a remaining site, but it was unfinished and oddly contained only a link to the Lucify map. Considering the links identified by Moz, Lucify attracted about 80 percent more interest from left-leaning than right-leaning w ­ ebsites, but the Google

Migration maps and Europeanness  29 image search tells a different story, indicating that the sites attracting attention to themselves by “borrowing” the Lucify map were predominantly conservative sites. This difference can be explained in terms of audience ­appropriation strategies and ambivalence: where conflicting opinions increase audience interest in immigration, the dynamism of the image forms a striking image of movement into Europe, resonating with anxiety about invasion. However, the interactivity of the graphics, their technological sophistication, and the following supplementary graphics (the Sankey diagram and the soccer field diagram) leave plenty of room for interpretations more sympathetic to the immigrants. Here, the mix of users implies that the cartographic representation speaks to both sides of the debate. What is not known is whether such open-ended visual ­c ommunication exacerbates or helps resolve an ambivalent public response. The Lucify map, as indicated earlier, was subject to critique. The blog Neocarto by French cartographer Nicolas Lambert was entitled “Une carte à abattre” (a map to slay) on November 4, 2015 (http://neocarto. hypotheses.org/): Like all maps, this one tells a story. But the story is questionable in many ways … By selecting only a portion of the information (only the South to North flows), this map shows a partial view of reality that is not clearly explained. … Turkey is represented as a “sender” of migrants and not as a destination country. The map therefore lies, knowingly concealing an important part of the information. (Author’s translation) Lambert expands the critique from this focus on what information is included and what information is left out, turning next to the dynamic quality of the graphics and the simplification of routes between “sending” and “receiving” countries. Contrary to how it may seem at first, this map is not situated at the level of individual paths. It does not tell the stories of migrants. Worse, it dehumanizes them. On this map, each feature … follows a straight path like a missile launched towards Europe. A missile it would be impossible to stop, a missile that destroys what it strikes. In short, in many ways, this graphic semiotics stages a scenario of invasion, quasi military, with European countries attacked (and overrun) by foreigners. Disgusting! The title of the map explicitly references migration to Europe, so perhaps Lambert’s critique is a bit overextended, but his arguments helpfully recall the complexity of cartographic representation. While the Lucify map’s qualities are many, it is also true that graphic choices always in some sense align with political biases, whether deliberately or inadvertently. This is as true of

30  Paul C. Adams map users as mapmakers. So, the question of bias is a matter of how a map may be interpreted by users, rather than just what a map was supposed to mean. And in that light the preponderance of conservative sites that were turned up by the Google search merits consideration. There are many different ways to engage with the Lucify site since one can select a state-level subset of migration into Europe simply by moving one’s cursor, and since one can select a year or set of years to examine, and also since one can see various kinds of summary statistics visually represented by noting the bars that grow up out of each country or the line graph across the top of the map, or yet again by focusing on the Sankey and “soccer field” charts. Interactivity can affect the user’s understanding of the data contained in a map by allowing him or her to focus on certain things (say, ­Uzbek migration to Sweden) and ignore others. Interactivity can also increase receptivity to unexpected information and messages that contradict a user’s expectations (Adams and Gynnild 2013). A dynamic, interactive map therefore differs greatly from a static image, and the difference has multiple dimensions. Another issue is the provenance of the map. As a product of an independent graphics company linked to by a major newspaper, the Lucify map as it appeared in Dagbladet is one example of “outsourcing” in which a newspaper either contracts for a map with a graphics company (a common arrangement at many newspapers)2 or simply treats a cartographic visualization created by others as a news item thereby benefiting from cartographic work without having to do that work in-house. By embedding the map in their online story, however, Dagbladet in effect incorporated the ambivalence that is evident in the range of biases of others who reposted and linked to the map. NGOs and research networks as mapmakers NGOs are another important source of migration maps. News sources such as Le Monde (France) and Verdens Gang (Norway) draw on the work of these groups in conjunction with data collected by IGOs (e.g., Frontex) when constructing migration maps. One such NGO is Borderdeaths (www.­ borderdeaths.org), which has posted an online interactive map showing the numbers and locations of deaths among immigrants attempting to reach ­Europe from the south. Visitors to the Borderdeaths website can select a ­period between 1990 and 2013, and the map will show data filtered to the selected interval. Deaths are shown as circles on the map, scaled to reflect the number of casualties in each location (Figure 1.6). Interactivity is enhanced by an option allowing the user to show population classifications by clicking on “Who are They.” The 3,188 dots in the graphic rearrange themselves in different groups to show age and gender, place of origin, and cause of death. By moving individually to reorganize themselves according to the different selected demographic characteristics, the dots seem to have a kind of autonomy. While this is a far cry from giving names or faces to all of the deceased,

Migration maps and Europeanness  31

Figure 1.6  Human costs of border control: death at the borders of Southern Europe. ­Interactive map by Dutch Data Design and the Human Costs of Border Control (HCBC) Online file at: www.borderdeaths.org, accessed May 17, 2016. Reproduced with permission of HCBC, University of Amsterdam.

it shows how dynamic maps can increase user involvement and place the map user in a more active relation to the data compared to users of static maps like those produced by Frontex. This dynamism offers greater opportunity to discover facts that elicit sympathy in a particular map user, perhaps as he or she discovers the dozens of children who have died on the way to Europe or the hundreds of people who have died of suffocation, and this sympathy could, in turn, have a political impact among map users who have become numb through overfamiliarity with more conventional images of immigrants.3 The website borderdeaths.org was the public face of an academic research project funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and based at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. As such, it also offers an example of migration maps produced by an academic research team, yet the map’s origin story is more complicated because it was actually produced by Dutch Data Design, demonstrating that the “mapmaker” can be a hybrid entity combining researchers, an NGO, and graphic arts professionals. The information, funding, and financial support enabling the mapping project are assembled from these respective sources.

32  Paul C. Adams Other interesting networks are Migreurop and Frontexit. Migreurop is described on its website as “un réseau européen et africain de militants et chercheurs” (a European and African network of militants and researchers), while Frontexit describes itself as “a campaign led by associations, researchers and individuals from both North and South of the Mediterranean on the initiative of the Migreurop network.” These organizations have produced maps that are deliberately opposed to those of Frontex – and hence fall under the rubric of counter-mapping (Peluso 1995). Indeed, the name Frontexit indicates deliberate opposition to Frontex and its perceived impacts. “Des Morts par milliers aux portes de l’Europe” (Deaths by the thousands at the doors of Europe) directs attention in a way that is quite similar to the map produced by Borderdeaths, while employing color rather than interactivity to sort deaths by cause (Figure  1.7). “Les Des morts par milliers aux portes de l'Europe Number of Deaths (January 1993-March 2012) European Union

1000 500 200 20

Candidate countries Mayotte (Fr.)

Neighbouring countries

Cause of death

Dublin

Drowning

Amsterdam

1. 16,250 deaths in total during the period

Berlin Oder Nysa

London

Suicide Paris

Asphyxia

Vienna

Frankfurt

Death from hunger or cold Belgrade

Arson, homicide, lack of care Madrid

Poison, minefield, accident, other

Rome

TURQUIE

Cadiz

Lesbos Almeria

Straits of Gilbraltar Îles Canaries (Espagne)

Evros

Vlorë

Lampedusa Sfax

Melilla Rabat

Malte

Strait of Otranto Strait of Sicily

Ceuta

MAROC

Aegean Sea

Cyprus

TUNISIE

Lanzarote Fuerteventura El-Ayoun

ALGÉRIE LIBYE

MAURITANIE Sahara MALI

SÉNÉGAL 0

500

1 000 km

?

ER R NIGER

ÉGYPTE

Gulf of Aden

Source : UNITED for Intercultural Action, European network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of migrants and refugees. Documentation on 30-03-2012.

Figure 1.7  “Des morts par milliers aux portes de l’Europe” (Deaths by the thousands at the doors of Europe) with breakdown by cause: drowning, suicide, asphyxiation, starvation, lack of care, hypothermia, fire, homicide, poisoning, land mines, accidents, and other. Source: Atlas des Migrants en Europe by Réseau MIGREUROP, © 2012, Armand Colin, Paris, p. 144. ARMAND COLIN is a trademark of DUNOD Editeur—11, rue Paul Bert – 92240 MALAKOFF. Reproduced with permission of Dunod Editeur.

Migration maps and Europeanness  33 opérations de surveillance de l’agence” promotes institutional transparency by revealing various bilateral agreements and marine operations designed to curb immigration to Europe, all of which in effect extend the borders of Europe into adjacent water and land areas (Figure 1.8). Both maps are credited to Migreurop, but the latter is also available on the Frontexit website, indicating a blurring of organizational identities. Furthermore, the groups are associated with scholars at French academic institutions including Université de Poitiers, Université Paris Diderot, Institute Français du Proche-Orient, and le C ­ entre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). These migration maps express resistance to the dominant regime of border control, to Frontex, and to Frontex maps, by promoting an alternative view of migration. Their play on the name Frontex struggles to redefine the meaning of immigration. The audience is assumed to be ambivalent and therefore capable of being swayed to a more actively sympathetic position.

Figure 1.8  “Les Opérations de surveillance de l’agence” (Surveillance Operations of the Agency). Source: Atlas des Migrants en Europe by Réseau MIGREUROP, © 2012, Armand Colin, Paris, p. 144. ARMAND COLIN is a trademark of DUNOD Editeur—11, rue Paul Bert – 92240 MALAKOFF. Reproduced with permission of Dunod Editeur.

34  Paul C. Adams Individual contributions On September 7, 2015, a Swedish blog called “Every Kinda People” included a satirical map. The map showed an area ranging from Syria in the lower right corner to Germany in the upper left, crossed by a heavy black arrow running from Syria to Germany. Each country on the map was labeled “NO WAR” except for Syria, which was labeled “WAR,” and Germany, which was labeled “$$$.” The original source of the image is unclear, but the image had already been posted online at least once by this time by John de Nugent, a white supremacist living in the United States. The War/No War map ­exemplifies another type of practice resulting in the circulation of migration maps: the reposting of images. The language of this map is far from subtle, yet at the same time, it is evasive. Does the arrow mean to indicate that the majority of Syrian refugees go to Germany? If so, it is deceiving because Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan have each accepted more Syrian refugees than Germany, and together, they are hosting more than nine times as many Syrian refugees as Germany. Rather than make a claim that could be refuted, the map with its wry labels and bold arrow appears to resolve all of the complexity of migration into a simple image: Syrians are taking the route to riches. ­Syrians are exploiting Europe. The accompanying text argues that Arab states, aware that immigrants undermine political stability, refuse to take the refugees, while European countries foolishly court disaster by letting in “candidates for radicalization” (http://everykindapeople.blogspot.com/2015/09/ se-­europa-do.html). While the map is anything but ambivalent, it again is designed to speak to an ambivalent audience, playing on distrust and suspicion in the hope that these defensive and xenophobic attitudes will override the audience’s impulses of sympathy and hospitality. A “funny” map like this is not meant to produce amusement; rather, the element of humor is intended to lower resistance to its xenophobic message, working against sympathy by slyly suggesting that the Other is undeserving of our hospitality.4 This kind of cartography is another form of counter-mapping, contrary to that of ­Borderdeaths and Frontexit, and also to Frontex, treating the ailment of ambivalence with a dose of cynicism. Individual contributions to the cartographic discourse on migration can also take a pro-immigrant perspective. An example of an image designed to promote sympathy for immigrants and the risks they face is seen in ­Figure 1.9. This image, which first appeared on Twitter then circulated via social media, appropriates the cartographic gaze and disrupts that gaze in strategic ways. The familiar outlines of nation-states no longer structure the cartographic message. The base map is oddly jumbled. Across the map runs a fortified barrier, a wall topped with razor wire. The near side of the barrier is dominated by blue, suggesting ocean, but a body lies face down on the blue surface in a way that would not be possible on water.

Migration maps and Europeanness  35

Figure 1.9  W  orld new map, Rafat Alkhateeb. Twitter. September 2015. Used with permission of the artist (https://www.cartoonmovement.com/p/12505).

The body is an accurate rendition of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old boy from Syria who drowned in September 2015 when an overloaded boat capsized in the Aegean Sea. While the original photograph showed Kurdi facedown on a sandy beach, the Twitter illustration places him in a non-place, lying face down in a way that would not be possible in water, even as he is denied a place on earth. Ambivalence about immigration is embedded in the map itself through the reworking of geographical space and the impossible position of the body. The overall impression of this counter-map is reminiscent of Giorgio A ­ gamben’s “bare life,” showing a body placed outside the ­juridico-political community, excluded by the dominant forms of (bio) power.

Analysis As mentioned at the outset, migration maps must be treated not merely as artifacts or texts but also as performances. These performances simultaneously legitimate and reconfigure cartographies of power, territoriality, and spatial order, what being “European” means to various social actors, where Europe is felt to begin and end, and who the Europeans are. Through all of these performances, one can trace tensions around Europe’s territorial coherence and its bundle of ideals and ethical principles. Anxiety about ­European identity drives a mapping impulse, anxiety that arises for reasons that are even evident in the language, specifically in conflicting notions of integrity. The concept of integrity is oddly ambivalent in English and in some related languages such as French. On the one hand, the term indicates adherence

36  Paul C. Adams to moral principles; on the other hand, it means a state of coherence and cohesion. Both honesty and unity share the label of integrity, but what if a situation places these two concerns at odds with each other? One concern arising from immigration is a fear for the loss of territorial integrity. On this account, integrity folds together notions of solidity, cultural coherence, exclusion, and inclusion by means of territory. The integrity of the territory protects cultural identity, which is closely linked to assumptions of homogeneity: we are like this, not that. We are not like them because of this and that. Immigration therefore disrupts cultural/political/territorial integrity. A second and strongly contrasting concern that immigration raises is with ideological integrity. Here integrity is understood as an ethical achievement, linked to honesty and trustworthiness, as in the comment that someone is a person of integrity. To belong to a country (or union) with integrity would imply collective adherence to a moral code, and in the Western tradition this code has come to include the idea that all people are included within the orbit of certain universal human rights. In Europe, this implies social democratic principles as well, so people from distant places should be given, on this account, the same privileges and social goods as one’s local community. Immigration demands hospitality because anything else would violate the integrity of Western cultural values and ideals. Immigration therefore reveals the stark contrast between two forms of integrity. It can appear as a threat to territorial integrity or as something to welcome as a way of upholding ideological integrity. The fact that cultural unity and hospitality are both upheld as values, with particularity and universality upheld more generally, is a potential source of great cognitive dissonance. In the European context, this dissonance may be exacerbated by Europe’s troubled past: its two world wars and the fuzziness of its current geographical extent. World War II was, in part, a product of ethnic intolerance, and the lessons of this past event can be understood as including an imperative to embrace all people without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, or creed. But the more recent period of peace in Europe has been a product of European cooperation, and the idea of Europe can seem threatened by immigrants who do not fit the standard image of “Europeans.” Immigration maps constitute a resource for managing dissonance around immigrants and immigration. There can be anxiety as the two concepts of integrity come into conflict, forcing people to deal with ambivalence – the fact that they hold mutually contradictory opinions or beliefs. They want to maintain territorial integrity but also want their country (or region) to act with integrity in the international arena. The tension between the implications of these two objectives can lead to cognitive dissonance, and maps are sought as a way of strengthening one side or the other, which tips the scale in favor of stronger borders or greater hospitality. Recalling the variation in cartographic approaches explored earlier, we can now reconsider these alternative mappings as alternative ways of dealing with cognitive dissonance.

Migration maps and Europeanness  37 In this case, individual strategies of managing ambivalence become part of a public ambivalence-management process through the circulation of affect. Affect has already been associated with cognitive dissonance (van ­Harreveld et al. 2009). At the level of a community, cognitive dissonance could easily mutate into fear and hostility – driven by the same basic dynamics that research has previously associated with individual-level ­cognitive dissonance. In a similar way, an immigrant community would also experience shared cognitive dissonance because of the clash between values, attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral norms of that community premigration and the values, attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral norms of the new host society (Maertz et al. 2009). Confirmation of this link is provided by Matz and Wood, who argue that dissonance occurs when people evaluate their behavior and find it discrepant from some standard of judgment. This standard can be based on personal considerations and self-expectancies or on social factors such as the normative rules and prescriptions used by most people in a culture. (2005, 22) Some form of discrepancy between one’s learned attitudes and behaviors and the new societal prescriptions of the host society is a common experience when one is an immigrant. Likewise, discrepancy is also a common experience in a society that is absorbing immigrants. The preexisting population may feel annoyance when they encounter an immigrant while simultaneously holding the belief that they should be welcoming to immigrants. Officials at various levels may slow the wheels of bureaucracy making it harder for immigrants and their family members to become naturalized citizens, while at the same time expressing support for the abstract principle of hospitality toward immigrants (Carte 2013). People may express positive feelings about multiculturalism but dislike interacting with people who dress differently, act differently, or hold different beliefs than their own. In the simplest terms, “instead of merely disliking members of minority groups, people may simultaneously dislike and like them” (Maio et al. 1996, 514). These mixed feelings can be described as “cross-cultural cognitive dissonance” (Maertz et al. 2009, 75). Situations (such as rapid immigration) that force people in one group to recognize their own ambivalence about another group create anxieties based, in short, on the dynamics of cognitive dissonance.

Conclusion It has been argued that anxiety regarding immigration is closely tied to cognitive dissonance. Furthermore, it has been shown that maps incorporate tensions and anxieties arising from such dissonance. The practices associated with migration maps, including creation and appropriation of such maps, must be understood as part of the process of dealing with ambivalence.

38  Paul C. Adams ­ pecifically, we can interpret divergent migration maps – some of which adS here to the pragmatic, unitary notion of integrity and others of which adhere to the idealistic, inclusionary notion of integrity – as performances that speak in opposite ways to the same ambivalence about Europeanness. It has been found that what leads to anxiety is the combination of ambivalence and the perception that decisions must be made (van Harreveld et al. 2009). During the focal period of this study, there was a perceived need to respond to immigration, captured by the term “crisis.” Migration maps responded to the sense that something must be done regarding immigration. These responses took opposing forms: emphasizing the view that borders must be hardened or the perception that fellow humans were in need and must be cared for. In either case, migration maps served as means of “percept modification” (Maertz et al. 2009, 70) responding to cognitive dissonance by changing how observers perceived the root conditions of dissonance. It has been found that “ambivalent attitude holders are quite adaptive in their approach to reducing their discomfort” (van Harreveld et al. 2009, 45), and this adaptability includes both information-seeking behaviors and the media employed for purposes of obtaining information. On this account, then, a map suggesting Europe is being overrun by immigrants resolves ­immigration-related dissonance in one way, while a map highlighting the difficulties and risks faced by immigrants resolves the dissonance in the other way. While this study is preliminary and does not include direct analysis of map users’ interpretations, it provides a point of departure for audience-­oriented research, tracing the links between cartographic representations, map-­ making activities, and differentiated stances regarding the phenomenon of ­m igration. It has considered cartographic variations in light of ambivalent views of the phenomenon that is mapped, as responses to the anxiety of cognitive dissonance. Migration maps enter into an already fraught dynamic where ambivalence shapes the interpretation of many kinds of media reports. It has been shown elsewhere that “ambivalence moderates the impact of persuasive messages about immigrant groups” (Maio et al. 1996, 533), meaning that messages about immigrants have a different impact depending not only on an audience member’s bias toward or against immigration and immigrants but also on that person’s level of ambivalence regarding immigrants – the tension created by holding contradictory perspectives. To give one example of how this works, a study showed that people who started with ambivalent ­feelings toward a particular group felt more negative about the group after receiving a positive message concerning that group, if that message was weak and poorly supported. This was not the case with the subjects who started out either positively or negatively inclined relative to that group. In other words, ambivalence can shape interpretation of media messages, leading to an unexpected reading strategy (Maio et al. 1996, 529). In situations where ambivalence is widespread, as in public responses to the recent wave of immigration into Europe, extra energy will be put into trying to create and

Migration maps and Europeanness  39 share representations (including maps), and more attention needs to be focused on interpreting how such representations work in and through public discourses. In short, the migration maps examined here were generated in a moment of profound ambivalence when European ideals of universal human rights, open borders, charity, and hospitality – cherished values of social ­democracy – were placed at odds with territorial notions of order emerging out of Europe’s troubled history of nationalism. The resulting “crisis” was a crisis of representation and performance, projected onto a demographic flow. Any given migration map may appear to be a simple means of conveying information, but collectively these maps reveal a function that reaches far beyond the conveyance of information. They stake out fraught positions regarding what it means to be European.

Acknowledgments My thanks to Chris Lukinbeal and Anton Escher for inviting me to p ­ articipate in the conference “Media’s Mapping Impulse” at Johannes G ­ utenberg ­University in Mainz, Germany, on June 17–18, 2016, where I first presented my research on migration maps. This research has benefited from the Anne-Marie and Gustaf Ander Foundation for Media Research, which supported a yearlong research visit to Sweden, and I am also indebted to Karlstad University and the Department of Geography, Media and Communication for hosting me in Sweden. The Norwegian Research Council also helped fund my research under the auspices of the “Responsible adoption of visual surveillance technologies by the news media (ViSmedia)” r­ esearch project, coordinated by the University of Bergen under the direction of Astrid Gynnild. Finally, I am indebted to the College of Liberal Arts at the ­University of Texas for providing a Supplemental College Research Fellowship, which helped fund this research, and to my home department, G ­ eography and the Environment, for granting me a leave of absence in the 2016–2017 academic year.

Notes 1 The Google search algorithm also custom-tailors each search to the user, so those who are not (like the author of the chapter) Left-leaning academics, may see even fewer Left and Center sites. 2 My thanks to Henrik Örnebring at Karlstad University for bringing this arrangement to my attention. 3 A wonderful investigation of the ethically numbing effect of horrific images, when they are caught up by the media, is found in On Photography by Susan Sontag (1978). 4 A similar kind of strategy was employed by the Japanese manga cartoonist, ­Toshiko, who redrew a photo of a Syrian refugee girl to make the girl look cunning and deceitful, then added the caption: “I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life … all at the expense of someone else. I have an idea. I’ll become a refugee” (Wendling 2015).

40  Paul C. Adams

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2 What if I were a refugee? How game structures in interactive media frame refugee stories Nicole Braida Refugees, the displaced, asylum seekers, migrants, the sans papiers, they are the waste of globalization. (Bauman, 2004: 58)

Introduction In 2006 the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) released Against All Odds, a web-based serious game that aimed to teach teenagers what it meant to be a refugee through gameplay. The English version was the translation of a prior Swedish release published just the year before, and the game is now available in 12 different languages. For teachers the website provided some additional material to be used in class for further discussions. The story at the centre of this Adobe Flash-developed computer game was that of a refugee: users could learn in three steps how people are forced to leave their own country, how difficult it is to escape illegally and how challenging it is to start a life in a new country. By putting the user in the position of a refugee, in the modality of a single-player game, the player faces loss of freedom under a dictatorial regime and must either accept new repressive rules or be arrested and tortured. She must escape at night, be very quick and leave everything behind, paying a smuggler to reach a safe country. The story in Against All Odds positions us in the simulated world of what we would call an “asylum seeker”. Other media objects that similarly entail gaming features have been produced in the last years of what newspapers often baptised “the refugee crisis”: for instance the newsgame Refugees, which was distributed online in 2014 by the French-German broadcast ARTE. This newsgame, which makes use of audiovisual content mixed with graphic elements (icons), puts the user into the role of a reporter whose aim is to investigate a refugee camp. The user has five days (in the game) to complete her mission and finally create a reportage. If the user remains just a witness to the exile experience here, the interactive text-adventures, British Broadcasting Corporation’s The Syrian Journey and The Guardian’s The Refugee Challenge, position the user again in the role of a (Syrian) refugee that wants to reach Europe by crossing its borders either by land or by sea, using a simple hyper-textual structure.

What if I were a refugee?  43 All these media objects try to explain how difficult and risky the journey might be by trying to raise awareness on the issue of illegal immigration or try to let us listen to the stories that refugees themselves tell, as in the case of Refugees, in a more traditional documentary way. This contribution aims to grasp which characteristics such media objects have borrowed from computer games and to understand which ethical questions these “ludic” features raise. Moreover, I will provide a critical analysis on the construction of the figure of the refugee in contemporary web-based interactive media practices as part of a broader “new documentary ecology” (Nash, Hight, & Summerhayes, 2014). The research approach uses an interdisciplinary and transnational methodology that focusses on the convergent media features of every case study in order to understand its semiotic and semantics. The sources for this approach come therefore from both film and documentary studies, game studies, interactive documentary studies, software studies, media studies and migration studies.

Game structures in interactive media practices about refugees In this section I will describe the game features of case studies and analyse them through the theoretical frameworks of Jesper Juul and Ian Bogost. The case studies are a serious game produced in 2005 by UNHCR entitled Against All Odds, the newsgame Refugees (ARTE, 2014), and two text-adventures: The Refugee Challenge: Can You Break into Fortress Europe (The Guardian, 2014) and Syrian Journey: Choose Your Own Escape Route (BBC, 2015). Against All Odds has a specific aim: to teach teenagers what a refugee is. Since teenagers love computer games, the idea of learning by playing makes sense, but is it effective? Can a computer game teach something? That is an old question, one that scholars, developers and educators have been trying to grapple with for decades. Oddly the notion of what is today called a “serious game”, defined as “any meaningful use of computerized game/game industry resources whose chief mission is not entertainment” (Sawyer, 2009), is a concept that was first introduced in 1970. Clark Abt published in the seventies a book entitled “Serious Games”, in which he was trying to collect some interesting games developed outside the entertainment system. He wrote, Games may be played seriously or casually. We are concerned with serious games in the sense that these games have an explicit and carefully thought-out educational purpose and are not intended to be played for amusement. This does not mean that serious games are not, or should not be, entertaining. (Abt, 1987: 9) The home page of Against All Odds welcomes the user with a headline: “Against All Odds. The game that lets you experience how it is like to be

44  Nicole Braida a refugee”. In the background, we can see an illustration: a girl with long brown hair and a scared look, holding a backpack. On her back there are two lurking dogs and two men dressed like soldiers. The following sequence is a view from a couch on a television projecting random scenes of refugees from supposedly mainstream media. The titles run: “People you see every day, but you don’t really see them. Imagine if this were you”? Clicking further you can finally decide to start the game (you can do it by registering or not). The preamble tells you that you are in great danger, and you must try to survive; you might be forced to flee your country. You can choose between six characters (two women, four men) and three different situations to start with: dealing with a new oppressive regime, escaping your country and making a new life in another country (these are chronologically connected: if you choose the first you automatically get to the second and so on). “War and conflict” (so is called the first scenario of the game) puts you in the shoes of a person who is being imprisoned. While interrogated by a police or military officer, you are asked to respond to some questions by signing yes or no on a sheet. For instance, you are told to give up your right to vote. Obviously, you won’t give up such a right, but whenever you don’t agree with “them”, you are beaten up. You understand that by hearing noises of your character screaming out in pain and seeing drops of blood falling on the sheet you have just signed. After each part of the interrogation, some additional titles inform you about the issue on which you have been interrogated. For instance “in many countries people don’t have the right to vote”; now, you can click on a link for “web facts”. This link leads you to a dedicated web page where you can browse newspaper articles and websites on the topic of human rights and refugees (like the Amnesty International website or the UNHCR convention). If you dissent to more than one of their 10 statements, you finally get imprisoned, and you must play again from the beginning. If you agree with them, you successfully escape prison, but you are told that another interrogation will follow in 48 hours (in game time), and for this reason you are compelled to flee: that’s your next step. Before the police arrive you must pack your stuff: like in a drag and drop game, you must pick up some objects in your room, but you must do so very quickly since you have only two minutes. After successfully packing the necessary items, the perspective changes: you move a character to a bi-dimensional town (the view is from above), and you must avoid police and their dogs. If you succeed you end up on the borderland, where you can choose between an aircraft, a boat, a truck or walking with some others to cross the border. The boat is full, you have not enough money to fly, and continuing on foot is too dangerous. On the truck, there are few free places. You are forced to decide who among your relatives, your friends or your neighbours is going to stay. The driver asks you for a huge amount of money, but you have no other choice. Once on the way, you have

What if I were a refugee?  45 to let a friend off the truck to pass a militia block (because he does not have the right papers). After that you must choose whether to help somebody during the crossing before reaching the other side of the border. “Borderland”, the second scenario, positions you as an illegal migrant in a neighbouring country. You must find shelter and avoid getting killed; since people over there are not very friendly, you must act cautiously. At some point, after you have found a safe place, you end up in an office, and you look for an interpreter that can help you to register as a refugee. The next step is to understand the difference between migrant and refugee. Once you have learned that successfully, you must be confronted with other pupils in a school: nobody speaks your language. The last scenario puts you in the role of a “legal” refugee, thus, a migrant who has been granted asylum. You try to find a job going through an interview, but even if it goes well you don’t get the best position. You face discrimination also while going to a shopping mall to buy something. The last two parts of the scenario invite you to play again a “drag and drop” game to understand the origin of things like food and other items, and how misleading sometimes our preconceptions may be (for instance: where does chocolate come from? America or Europe? And so on). As a refugee person in a foreign country we face the distrust and prejudice of local citizens living in our own house building. The game ends with you knocking on the door of your neighbours’ and finally get to your first new home. In Germany and Austria, the German version of Against All Odds was rewarded with the Austrian Staatspreis Multimedia in 2006. Despite the inherent simplicity of describing the journey of a refugee and its difficulties, this serious game – or “refugee game” (Raessens, 2010) – succeeds in becoming a learning tool for a specific target of gamers. If we were to try to understand which kind of strategies are here being used, we would have to acknowledge that computer games could also be played not exclusively for entertainment. Ian Bogost believes that games have an educational and political potential; he uses the term “persuasive games” (Bogost, 2007) to include both serious games or newsgames. He argues that “procedural rhetoric” is “the practice of using processes persuasively, that it entails persuasion to change opinion or action”, and – he continues – “To write procedurally, one authors code that enforces rules to generate some kind of representation, rather than authoring the representation itself” (Bogost, 2007: 4). To recognise how this rhetoric works, we must first understand which kind of game structures have been used. Jasper Juul distinguishes between two different kinds of games: games of emergence and game of progression. While the first group is defined as the “primordial game structure, where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine a yield a large game tree” (Juul, 2011: 5), the latter group, argues Juul, was developed relatively recently, following the adventure game genre. He further argues,

46  Nicole Braida the traditional adventure game was based loosely on the fantasy genre inspired by Tolkien […] During the eighties the genre changed from being text-based to being primarily graphical. In the Longest Journey (Funcom, 2000) the game protagonist, April Ryan, is on board a ship threatened by a storm. To save her, the player must perform a predefined sequence of events. If the player does not perform the right actions, the game is over. (Juul, 2011: 73) Against All Odds is therefore modelled on a so-called adventure game, and it is consequently mainly a game of progression. Anyway, some features within the game follow a more primordial structure, one that resembles that of games of emergence. For instance, when we try to escape the country, our position and perspective change from a first-person POV (Point of View) to an aerial view of a two-dimensional game in which we can only move through the axes thank to a sprite (you have a point as avatar). This part of the game resembles old arcade-like games, such as Pac Man. This is the hardest part of the game as it is only after some trials that we finally get how to overcome the challenge. Again, in the drag and drop game sequences we face also challenges that are not exclusively related to the understanding of the situation itself, such as choosing between “refugee” or “economic migrant” for eight people that have different exile stories (such as who is a refugee? Who is a migrant?). In one of the last sequences the game invites us to drag some items like a chocolate bar, a pair of jeans, etc., and to recognise if they were first invented in America or somewhere else; here, the game requires the user to be fast enough in dropping them. Some of the challenges posed by the game Against All Odds require the user to check the “web facts” section and learn how to overcome every situation. Therefore, if you want to play the game until the end you must learn. As Juul wrote, “Playing a game is an activity of improving skills in order to overcome these challenges, and playing a game is therefore fundamentally a learning experience” (Juul, 2011: 5). The second case study that I will analyse here is Refugees (ARTE, 2014), a so-called newsgame (cfr. Schweizer, Bogost, & Ferrari, 2010) – a game that works also as a training for a journalist. It not only is a CGI (Computer-­ generated image) computer game but also entails a double structure: a navigable interface with graphical symbols and documentary audiovisual images. In the game we are invited by our editor-in-chief to join the team of ARTE and make a reportage in three different refugee camps. Refugees works also as an adventure game, exactly as a point-and-click adventure. A point-and-click adventure is a game where “the player clicks with a mouse cursor somewhere on the screen. If the corresponding location in the game is accessible, the avatar walks to that object and picks it up or manipulates it in an appropriate way” (Adams, 2014: 565). The layout of the interface simulates a computer desktop, through which we get a first-person POV on the camp.

What if I were a refugee?  47 The challenges posed in the game are basically choices: who to interview next, where to go next, whether to take an action. For instance, in the first episode (the newsgame was released in an episodic sequence through the website of ARTE), in which we are sent to Iraq, precisely to the Kurdish town of Erbil, we must choose between directly going to the camp or buying some books in the market. However, almost every choice is necessary for the progression of the game. If we don’t buy the dictionaries we won’t be able to attend the interviews since we won’t be able to translate. Moreover, if we don’t interview a specific person, for instance, a young mother residing in the camp of Kawergosk, we will never get to the nearby hospital (as at the end of the interview we are asked to help her) and conquer a new place on the map to visit. At the end of the five days (game time, which in real time it is more or less one hour), we finally get to the point where we can publish our own reportage for ARTE, which is a multimedia preshaped article to which we can add four interviews (ergo audiovisual content) and one photo that we previously collected in the gameplay. This newsgame, following Juul’s definition, is a progression game, in which the focus is on the story and not on the rules. Different, in comparison to Against All Odds, are some of the premises: “be the ARTE special correspondent and tell the story of refugee camps” (ARTE, 2014), as is stated in an introductory trailer. Therefore, what is offered to the user is not the experience of being in the shoes of a refugee but rather the opportunity to look at them from a visitor’s perspective, in this case, a reporter. The trailer goes further: “Travel through the camps, meet the refugees, ask the aid organisations, speak with the local authorities, and create your own multimedia story. However, you need to respect the deadline, as well as your editor-in-chief’s specifications. Have fun!” (ARTE, 2014). This last line is quite explanatory but controversial. On one hand they wish us to “enjoy” this experience, on the other hand the experience of the exile itself in both Against All Odds and Refugees shouldn´t be a joyful situation, but rather a difficult one. In Refugees we learn to make a reportage; that’s why it is not only a game but precisely a “newsgame”. A newsgame can take different forms, but some of these games are made to teach us how to become a journalist (Schweizer, Bogost, & Ferrari, 2010). The focus in the gameplay of Refugees is not on the experience as a refugee or on the choices that someone must take while escaping to a new country, but we can get an idea of their experiences through the interviews, in which real refugees tell their own story of exile. This kind of rhetoric is not procedural; it is indeed a verbal rhetoric or a visual rhetoric, if you like. Thus, the storytelling is constructed partly by the user in browsing the video content by choosing whom to interview first or whom not to. The nonlinear narrative structure of Refugees is best understood by looking at the camp map (check Refugees.arte.tv). Although the departure is unique, the narration can take different paths once every point on the map

48  Nicole Braida has already been discovered. Moreover, for each point on the map, we have more than one interview (audiovisual content) to browse. For William Uricchio, this kind of nonlinear narrative structure, defined as the “building blocks of an experience” (Uricchio, 2014), is a peculiarity of interactive documentaries and interactive media. So-called interactive documentaries, as well as serious games or newsgames, can be grouped into the realm of “new documentary ecologies”. British scholarship refers to it in order to understand how the complex media environment is affecting documentary filmmaking and essentially “expanding the ‘realm of the real’” (Nash, Hight, & Summerhayes, 2014: 2). They further argue that even a game “might trade on the concept of documentary as signifying specific cultural expectations and values while at the same time relying on an understanding (and valuing) or video gameplay” (Nash, Hight & Summerhayes, 2014: 3). A similar nonlinear structure is used by two other examples that, far from offering a long and immersive experience, make use of a very simple game structure. Like in old “text-based adventures” BBC’s Syrian Journey and The Guardian´s The Refugee Challenge invite users to play and embody a refugee trying to reach Europe. A text-based adventure is a game based mostly on text. Moreover “text-based games can have graphics, but they are usually secondary to the text itself” (Orland, Thomas, & Steinberg, 2007). The Guardian’s The Refugee Challenge: Can You Break into Fortress ­Europe? was released in January 2014 by two journalists (John Domokos and Harriet Grant) and The Guardian’s Interactive Team. On the web page a photo and a map of Syria are accompanied by some text that explains while directly addressing us, “you are a 28 years old sunny woman from Aleppo” (The Guardian, 2014). The text therefore asks the user to put herself in the role of a Syrian woman wanting to escape her country. We are given two options: to reach the nearest country and settle in a refugee camp, in this case Turkey, or to try to reach Europe with all available means. Every step provides the user with two or three choices. For instance, if you decide to go to Turkey, you then would have the possibility to choose whether to stay as a refugee there and apply for resettlement or to (illegally) head to Europe. If you decide to stay your journey has ended, but you can any time start from the beginning and try a different route. Although every route has an end, it looks that the longest journey (more decisional steps) is the winning option: to reach Sweden and finally claim asylum there. To succeed you need to head for the European Union (EU), cross the Mediterranean Sea for Italy and then travel to Sweden. Within the story, some of the textual content is enriched with links (highlighted as underlined text) to The Guardian’s web articles that explain in detail with real reports the situation. As an example, once in Turkey, you can still choose to go to Europe and reach Sweden. A related article explains that indeed, in 2013, Sweden declared they would accept Syrian as refugees, and that in Germany some refugees were granted asylum and could flee

What if I were a refugee?  49 directly by airplane. Although the title of this game might suggest a more critical approach to EU border policy (“Fortress Europe”) about refugees, the easy gameplay does not provide a good metaphor for how difficult the journey might be. In 2015 the BBC also produced a similar text-adventure entitled Syrian Journey: Choose Your Own Escape Route. It is more complex in its structure if you compare it to The Guardian’s text-adventure. You are supposed to be a Syrian, and you can choose between a male or a female character. Your goal is explained by this simple line: “If you were fleeing Syria for Europe, what choices would you make for you and your family? Take our journey to understand the real dilemmas the refugees face”. At every step we need to make a choice, but we must reach Europe: by land or by sea? Departing from Egypt or Libya? Here there is no clear path but a range of choices that can help us get to Europe. The journey is not only difficult but also full of danger. We can easily end up in prison or worst lose our family and life. The makers (editorial staff of BBC Arabic digital project) state in the starting page that these routes (even the endings) are based on real stories that two journalists (Mamdouh Akbiek and Eloise Dicker) have collected and researched. The game is available in English, Arabic, Farsi and Russian.

Procedural rhetoric: meaning making as rules If we take a closer look at the procedural structure of those aforementioned examples, we can observe how the rhetoric has been built. Bogost suggests that Videogames are particularly useful tools for visualizing the logics that make up a worldview (following Gramsci), the ideological distortions in political situations (following Zizek), or the tat of such situation (following Badiou) (…) By playing these games and unpacking the claims their procedural rhetoric make about political situations, we can gain an unusually detached perspective on the ideologies that drive them. (Bogost, 2007: 74–75) In the text-adventures from BBC and The Guardian, because of their very simple structure, we can easily describe how their procedural rhetoric works. If writing procedurally means to design rules, they use “choices” as rules. To play the game you must make some decisions, very simple ones: go to Turkey or go to Europe, escape by land or by sea, etc. If we look at the outcome then, we can argue that in The Refugee Challenge the range of our choices is limited but once we make the right decisions we can easily end up in Europe. Claiming asylum is also quite an easy task. In BBC’s Syrian Journey (released a year later) our choices are still limited, but sometimes even if we have more than one option to take, we are confronted in the next step

50  Nicole Braida again with the same question, and we realise that there is only one possible choice to successfully reach Europe. The process illustrated by the rhetoric is a “dead-end” range of choices. We risk our life and to lose our family, if we still can make it to Italy or Greece, and maybe with fake passports finally reach England. Moreover, to succeed you need to make some choices that are against your moral or ethics, like not helping someone in danger. Still the journey is relatively difficult, and you need to play more than once to reach your goal (a possibility that of course not any migrant has). It is therefore very frustrating to realise that the freedom of choice is just apparent. This kind of rhetoric works in a similar way to what Bogost has baptised the “rhetoric of failure” (Bogost, 2007: 95). Some video games indeed use tragedy to show when things do not work. He brings as example the computer game Kabul Kaboom, a game developed by Gonzalo Frasca, that asks users to collect food under the bombings of Kabul. The user understands in a few seconds that it is impossible to collect the food and that eventually a bomb will hit and cause an explosion. The impossibility of success, argues Bogost, wants to “highlight the simultaneity and inconsistency of aggression and relief” (Bogost, 2007: 85). The BBC’s Syrian Journey, released in 2015, allows you to claim asylum in Britain with a fake passport. The clear statement that both The Guardian and BBC’´s text-adventures enforce is that there is no legal way to reach ­Europe. You are given the possibility to take a direct flight to Europe, but that is a dead-end choice. Another claim about refugees that made it to ­Europe is also that the only ones who successfully reached Europe are those who had enough money for the journey (we don’t know where this could come from), enough selfishness or desperation to avoid ethical choices and, especially, enough luck. In Against All Odds the premises are completely different. The game is an educational game, aimed at teenagers. The supposed goal is to teach something through the procedural rhetoric. The process anyway entails different strategies, as already mentioned, through emergent and progressive features within the game. An implicit aim of the game is to empathise the refugee’s decision to exile. The first part of the game explains exactly why some people decide to leave (you still need some money and a passport): a repressive regime, the lack of freedom of speech, sexual freedom, political freedom and so on. These are some a priori conditions that cannot be questioned. Only if you decide to agree with these impositions you can escape the regime. There is no revolutionary ideal: if you resist to the regime and claim your rights you go to jail. To survive (you have a family), you need to fake your submission to the regime. The procedurality works here exactly as in the text-adventures, you have no freedom of choice. The emergent features, like the two-dimensional part of the game in which you must escape, procedurally translate the difficulty of the situation. It is hard not to be caught by police, you need to try more than once.

What if I were a refugee?  51 For this challenge, you don’t need any further knowledge than experience of the game itself. Once you have been granted the refugee status (it is not a hard procedure) you face discrimination, and to succeed in your goal (you are in a shopping mall buying a phone) you are forced to hear what the other people are thinking or saying about you. There is thus no way of escaping discrimination, even in the most common task in a new country. In the last drag and drop sequence, in which you must know if an item was invented in America, it is required instead to read further material. But the rapidity needed to succeed doesn’t have any rhetorical claim. The procedural rhetoric is therefore more or less successful, and the educational task of distinguishing what means to be a refugee is fulfilled. Still the easiness of claiming asylum in the game underplays the difficulties of real situations a real understanding of the situation. Since the game was first developed in 2005 in Sweden we may think that it was the political situation of that time that prevailed, while maybe they would have created a different story today. Refugees, the newsgame made by ARTE, uses procedural rhetoric only on the level of the role-playing game of the reporter. You make choices as a reporter, even ethical ones, but if there is a claim about the refugee’s situation in camps, then this was only left to the visual and verbal rhetoric. Moreover, the procedural structure of the role-playing game is an easy task to challenge. You can effortlessly interview residents and aid organisation workers, but you always end up with a reportage, as there are no right or wrong videos and photos to choose and finally succeed in the task given you by your editor-in-chief. The only apparent effort is to stay within the time limit, which is not too demanding anyway. Refugees represents an interesting experiment that matches video game features and documentary filmmaking, but the procedural rhetoric is not very successful. The nonlinear structure is thus more of a thus results to be a constraint to a linear viewing experience. But if you understand it as an educational game for teaching how to be a reporter, the structure could make sense. What we also can learn from the ethical positions enforced by the logic of these games is that as a refugee, if you make an ethical choice (like helping other people, not leave behind your friends or family) you might put your goal at risk, but as a reporter an ethical choice might help to achieve your purpose.

Politics of change and questions of visibility Procedural features can be effective in meaning making, through the logic of rules it is possible to make claims or “persuade” people. The examples that have been analysed here come from two public broadcasts, BBC and ARTE, a private legacy media such as The Guardian (politically left oriented) and a humanitarian international agency (UNHCR). If BBC, ARTE and The Guardian are definitely only looking for a wider and maybe “younger” audience, by adding game like features, UNHCR was even clearer in producing

52  Nicole Braida Against All Odds for a target audience of teenagers between 12 and 15 years old. Aside from the audiences, what do we exactly learn from these case studies? Which kind of discourses about migration are they framing? How do they represent refugees? Against All Odds reinforces an idea that is the distinction between a refugee and an economic migrant. The UNHCR published also recently an article to claim that a refugee is a persecuted person, unable or unwilling to go back to her home country for political reasons or because of an ongoing conflict. In this article they explain what a migrant is and what a refugee is. At the end, it is noted, “This article was originally published on 27 August 2015. It has been updated to reflect more current figures”. They state, They are so recognized precisely because it is too dangerous for them to return home, and they need sanctuary elsewhere. These are people for whom denial of asylum has potentially deadly consequences. (UNHCR, 2016) This distinction in the game apparently seems clear and the examples provided to prove that are simple. Although the experience represented concerns also the illegal part of the escape of refugees, the emphasis posed in the introduction is on some “invisible” persons. The introduction thus says, “people you see every day, but you don´t really see them”. The aim of Against All Odds is hence to give visibility to refugees, although a refugee is understood in terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which says, Refugees are forced to flee because of a threat of persecution and because they lack the protection of their own country. A migrant, in comparison, may leave his or her country for many reasons that are not related to persecution, such as for the purposes of employment, family reunification or study. A migrant continues to enjoy the protection of his or her own government, even when abroad. (UNHCR, 1951) Many migrants, considered “economic migrants”, are rejected a visa and thus must travel and live illegally. Since a refugee usually can claim asylum within Europe only once in the country of arrival (due to the Dublin Regulation), and because of the fact that often they do not want to stay in southern European countries, they are also compelled to illegality. Steffen Köhn, for instance, argues that, if the asylum process on one hand accepts refugees as “objects of humanitarian care”, on the other hand denounces every other migrant as “illegal” (Köhn, 2015). For him, a visual anthropologist, the purpose of documentary filmmakers should then be to seek new, transformative forms of visibility that do not merely reproduce the visual discourse of the government or the corporate mass

What if I were a refugee?  53 media but rather challenge the given political order by uncovering what is purposefully made invisible, articulating what has not yet been said and picturing viable alternatives to the status quo. (Köhn, 2015: 4) Although the premises of Against All Odds of giving “visibility”, the discourse remains that of UNHCR’s ideological frame: to make a difference between who is “only” an economic migrant and who is eligible to be (recognised as) a refugee, but there is no space for those who are compelled to live illegally. For instance, in the second part of the game, we have to choose between impersonating a “refugee” and a “economic migrant”. Of course, some refugees in the game would today be considered only economic migrants since policy has changed. In the BBC and The Guardian’s text-­adventures the point of arrival (especially in The Refugee Challenge) is to claim asylum. But still the subject is a Syrian, so there is no explicit arguing on the difference with an “economic migrant”, if we consider the current situation in the EU. Although in the articles embedded through links in the text, they explain who has been granted asylum. Therefore, if the visibility to some of “them” is granted, the outsiders remain invisible. For instance, in Refugees, the visibility is differently constructed. In Iraq, Kurd-Syrian refugees can obtain a working permit, but in Beirut, Syrians and Palestinians cannot. They are illegal, and they can only work within the ghetto of Burj-el-Baraneh. Moreover, Palestinians are not even contemplated as normal refugees by UNHCR, therefore a parallel organisation of the UN (the UNRWA, Relief and Works Agency) takes care of them. The interviews in Refugees give voice and visibility to those who are recognised as refugees internationally but who are still ghettoised or prevented from having many rights in some of their hosting countries). The same happens for the Nepal episode, where Bhutanese people with Nepali origins migrated to Nepal because of persecution and winded up in a refugee camp. These latter examples make clear the paradox of national citizenship as a way to protect and assure human rights. As Giorgio Agamben suggests, refugees are homines sacri, he claims, What is new in our time is that growing sections of humankind are no longer representable inside the nation-state – and this novelty threatens the very foundations of the latter. […] When their rights are no longer the rights of the citizen, that is when human beings are truly sacred, in the sense that this term used to have in the Roman law of the archaic period: doomed to death. (Agamben, 2000: 20) Hannah Arendt has also discussed the refugee issue, in her seminal book on the origins of totalitarianism she argues that it is exactly the condition

54  Nicole Braida of refugees, the one of bare naked life (the nuda vita in Agamben, 1995) that only the “natural human rights” regulate, that makes those rights effective only through a national citizenship. She argues, By itself the loss of government protection is no more unprecedented than the loss of home. Civilized countries did offer the right of asylum to those who, for political reasons, had been persecuted by their governments, and these practices, though never officially incorporated into any constitution, has functioned well enough throughout the nineteenth and even in our century. The trouble arose when it appeared that the new categories of persecuted were far too numerous to be handled by an unofficial practice destined for exceptional cases. (Arendt, 1973: 294) Indeed, what happened in Europe in the nineties with refugees from the conflict in Yugoslavia was an exacerbation of asylum regulations. In Germany, as ­Matthias Thiele extensively researched (Thiele, 2005), the mass media campaign on refugees ended up with a revision of the asylum law (­Asylrechtänderung, 26.5.1993) that made only more difficult to obtain the status of refugee and thus pushed the illegal immigration. Thiele argues that during 1991–1993 a certain use of media in an anti-asylum political campaign succeeded to create a negative, crisis contained (crisis contained?), catastrophic and sensational representation of refugees through the use in media. The usual symbols were the depiction of a “unknown dark mass”, of “invasion”, of “danger”, of a situation in need for a rapid solution (Thiele, 2005). The interactive media practices here analysed take distance from the mass media negative depiction of refugees. The role-playing game structure forces us to empathise with the condition of a refugee by putting us “in their shoes”. Furthermore, the stories at the centre of these media objects are well researched to be closer to reality. In Refugees the people that we encounter in the interviews are neither images of a positive and “utopian” agency of the refugees nor negative depictions. Nonetheless, some would criticise such representation too: Lilie ­Chouliaraki denounces humanitarian agency’s discourse as a “post-­humanitarian” discourse of irony that uses “artful textualities” as a reason for us to engage with solidarity upon refugees, but only for the purpose of a moral self-­fulfilment (Chouliaraki, 2012). She criticises UNHCR campaigns, especially “What if”?, a video animation, claiming that it represents an example of commodification of the moral authority and of “the logic of self-­c entred utilitarianism at the heart of humanitarian discourse” (Chouliaraki, 2012: 19). “What if…”? Is a video animation focussing on the refugee issue that addresses viewers directly by asking them to imagine to be a refugee who has lost their family and friends “to contemplate on how the experience of displacement might have felt for us” (Chouliaraki, 2012: 19).

What if I were a refugee?  55

New documentary ecologies and the challenge of framing migration with game structures Computational technology enables creators who strive for factuality? To experiment new ways of storytelling, keeping the traditional idea of what John Grierson baptised as the “creative treatment of reality”. The practices here analysed, that belong to new documentary ecologies, are helpful to understand how to exploit the “computational affordances” (Murray, 1997) of web-based communication, like for instance the “procedural rhetoric” within computer games. But how should filmmakers, game developers and creators, in general, efficiently use these new features and avoid perpetrating utopian, negative or neoliberalist discourses? Köhn argues that filmmakers representing illegal migration “take part in the construction of what an ‘illegal migrant’ might be look like” (Köhn, 2015: 43). If the aim of many documentarists is to depict reality as it is, for Nichols, an indirect discourse privileges the voices of the social actors rather than that of the filmmakers/producers. How can creators avoid such representations or rather “constructions”, if indeed many migrants face illegality? What he suggests by paraphrasing Ranciére, is that effectivity could lie in the reorganisation of visibility, to be able to make visible the “hidden power structures that the consensual discourse of humanitarianism and committed art has effectively obscured” (Köhn, 2015: 146). In game structures lies indeed a potential: to recreate these structures and thus unveil them. For Bogost the “procedural rhetoric” of video games can create processes and through their procedural representation inherently putting them in question. The effectivity of BBC’s Syrian Journey lies exactly in this, although simple, the nonlinear construction of choices makes these same decisions almost impossible to be freely enacted. The invisible border of Europe, baptised as “Fortress Europe” by The Refugee Challenge, is here unveiled: the difficulty of crossing by sea or by land, no matter how many routes and choices you have. This border is the fence between two spaces of power structures that distinguishes those who are “on the other side” of human rights, the side of bared naked life. And thus, as Agamben might say: they are doomed to death. And these structures are made visible not only for English-speaking people. Syrian Journey is available in Arabic, Russian and Farsi. But what if we would really be Syrians wanting to escape? Would we read this experience as a deterrent to take the journey? Or as a proof that we could still make it? The purpose of Syrian Journey is for you to understand what kind of issues a Syrian might encounter in such a journey. In the beginning, the user is being asked, “If you were fleeing Syria for Europe, what choices would you make for you and your family? Take our journey to understand the real dilemmas the refugees face” (BBC, 2015). Even if this was meant for a “­Western” or not Syrian audience, Syrians sure had the opportunity to get access to it. Or maybe other potential immigrants. The website also invites users

56  Nicole Braida to share their own journey through the hashtag #syrianjourney. Reactions on Twitter are mostly in English. There were, for instance, very angry posts of users, claiming that Syrian Journey, says The Daily Mail, is a “‘sickening’ game” that “often ends with migrants drowning in the Mediterranean” (The  Daily Mail, 2015). Last year the game was also nominated for The Game for Change Award for Most Significant Impact. Other users shared their experience and welcomed the Syrian Journey positively. The problem lies, as Hanne-Lovise Skartveit notes, in the concept of a “documentary game”: Game or play and documentary are often considered to have opposite ontological status on the fact-fiction continuum. In dictionaries and common-sense definitions, for example, the concept of game and play is more often linked to the not serious, fiction, make believe, fun. And games are all these things, but that does not need to be in opposition to the goals of documentary, which are to document, argue and raise awareness. (Skartveit, 2010:61) If I do think that game is only made for entertainment, I will consequently do not accept a game that matches a “serious” topic with ludic features. That’s why the effectiveness of Against All Odds relies on its targeted audience: teenagers. BBC, The Guardian and ARTE have a wider audience, and that is why they encounter a higher risk of “false” reception of such interactive media objects. Besides, we should not forget what Raessens and Bogost evidenced as an underlying schema of the political audience. Both scholars use Lakoff’s theory of political use of frames and metaphors. He argued that “frames” are “mental structures that shape the way we see the world” (cfr. Raessens 2010: 98). Lakoff claims for instance that democrats and republicans frame and thus understand issues in a different way. By analysing the refugee game Darfur Is Dying, Raessens defends the oversimplification of such a complex issue as the conflict in Darfur and claims that this simplification was necessary to effectively frame the issue for its young audience. A “documentarising reading” (Odin, 2000), in terms of a semio-­pragmatic approach, would also not always help the acceptance of a game. For Roger Odin, a documentary is “the ensemble of productions that require to be read following the documentarising reading” (Odin, 2000). By watching a documentary, he suggests, we construct a “real enunciator”, for instance, in a video reportage; it is the cameraman that is responsible for the enunciation, the voice-over of a narrator in an expository documentary or the institution that produced a documentary (BBC or ARTE). The reader/ viewer must trust this enunciator as speaking the truth. Important for the documentarising reading is the context in which the viewer experiences the documentary, as a journalistic festival or a film festival dedicated only to documentaries.

What if I were a refugee?  57 We can, for instance, imagine that whenever a user plays The Syrian Journey or The Refugee Challenge, she would think that the platform of BBC or The Guardian is trustworthy since they are news broadcasts. In contrast, they are definitely not recognised as trustworthy by readers of the populist media The Daily Mail. But what if a user came across The Syrian Journey or Refugees through a computer game platform? If they do not recognise the interactive media as part of BBC or ARTE online website, they could even mistrust them. But this seems quite unlikely, as in fact what happened was that many users distrusted the interactive storytelling or the ludic structure. If we can overcome this distrust, or this common sense of associating computer games only with bare entertainment, then we can start to understand that even game structures could be part of a (new) documentary tradition. We might consider constructing a storytelling with a specific medium by first making/keeping clear the focus of our rhetoric claim. If procedural rhetoric works for unveiling processes, we would then have to clarify which processes or structures we want to make visible. Additionally, we must take care of the context in which our project would be distributed, to avoid false readings of its content, framing the issue for our targeted audience. The case studies here presented belong anyway to broadcasts that admittedly support a positive humanitarian discourse and present refugees as people in need of real help; the UNHCR, as a humanitarian agency, works to make life conditions suitable for refugees, as long as they can. But despite their aims, they could fall into a neoliberal rhetoric, as Lilie Chouliaraki denounced. What if the makers would not be consciously aware of that? This neoliberal rhetoric reflects a trend in our Western society that Bauman has called “liquid modernity”: a drive to a standing modernization on a global scale that affects not only goods but human life itself (Bauman, 2010). Globalisation, argues Bauman, indeed produces those same migrants as an outcast of modernity.

References Abt, C. C. (1987). Serious games. University Press of America. Adams, E. (2014). Fundamentals of game design. Pearson Education. Agamben, G. (1995). Homo Sacer. Il potere sovrano e la vita nuda. Einaudi. Agamben, G. (2000). Means without end: Notes on politics (Vol. 20). University of Minnesota Press. Arendt, H. (1973). The origins of totalitarianism (Vol. 244). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ARTE (2014). Refugees trailer. Under www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QEbc1y8xfw (last retrieved 27.10.2016). Bauman, Z. (2004). Wasted lives. Modernity and its outcasts. Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2010). Liquid Modernity. Polity Press. Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games: The expressive power of videogames. MIT Press. Bogost, I., Ferrari, S., & Schweizer, B. (2010). Newsgames: Journalism at play. MIT Press.

58  Nicole Braida Braida, N. (2016). Flucht ins Netz. In Fahle, O., Ochsner, B., Wiehl, A. (Eds.), Die Herstellung von Evidenz. Zur Phänomen Interaktiver Webdokumentationen. ­Augenblick 65/66. Konstanzer Heften zur Medienwissenschaft. Schüren Verlag. Chouliaraki, L. (2012). Between pity and irony – Paradigms of refugee representation in humanitarian discourse. In Moore, K., Gross, B., & Threadgold, T. (Eds.), Migrations and the media. Peter Lang. Juul, J. (2011). Half-real: Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. MIT Press. Köhn, S. (2015). Mediating mobility. Visual anthropology in the age of migration. Wallflower Press. Moore, K., Gross, B., & Threadgold, T. (Eds.). (2012). Migrations and the media. Peter Lang. Nash, K., Hight, C., & Summerhayes, C. (2014). New documentary ecologies. ­Palgrave Macmillan. Odin, R. (2000). De la fiction. Bruxelles: De Boeck Supérieur. Orland, K., Thomas, D., & Steinberg, S. (2007). The videogame style guide and reference manual. Lulu.com. Raessens, J. (2010). A taste of life as a refugee: How serious games frames refugee issues. In Skartveit, H. L., & Goodnow, K. J. (Eds.), Changes in museum practice: New media, refugees and participation (Vol. 5). Berghahn Books. Sawyer, B. (2009). Foreword: From virtual U to serious game to something bigger. In Ritterfeld, U., Cody, M., & Vorderer, P. (Eds.), Serious games: Mechanisms and effects, 1st edn. pp. XI–XVI. Routledge. Skartveit, H. L., & Goodnow, K. J. (2010). Changes in museum practice: New media, refugees and participation (Vol. 5). Berghahn Books. The Daily Mail (2015). BBC bosses blasted for making Syrian Journey computer game about refugees fleeing the war-torn country. Under www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-3027174/BBC-bosses-blasted-making-computer-game-called-Syria-­ Journey-refugees-fleeing-war-torn-country.html#ixzz50NPNbuUa (last retrieved 05.12.2017). The Guardian (2014). The refugee challenge. Under www.theguardian.com/­g lobaldevelopment/ng-interactive/2014/jan/refugee-choices-interactive (last retrieved 27.10.2016). Thiele, M. (2005). Flucht, Asyl und Einwanderung im Fernsehen. UVK-Verlag. UNHCR (1951). Final act of the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons. Retrievable under www.unhcr. org/3b66c2aa10. UNHCR (2016). UNHCR viewpoint: ´Refugee´ or ´migrant´ – Which is right? Published on 11 July 2016, retrievable under www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2016/7/55df0e556/ unhcr-viewpoint-refugee-migrant-right.html. Uricchio, W. (2014). Repenser le documentaire social. In Allard, L., Creton, L., & Odin, R. (Eds.), Téléphone mobile et création. Armand Colin/Recherches.

3 The refugee crisis in Europe A frame analysis of European newspapers Willem Joris, Leen d’Haenens, Baldwin Van Gorp, and Stefan Mertens Introduction This analysis aims to research how asylum seekers and refugees were being framed in the European news coverage in 2015. Therefore, news articles (N  = 500) of national quality newspapers were content-analyzed, making use of deductive frame analysis. Not surprisingly, most news coverage about refugees seemed to be negative through frames such as ‘we take too many’ and ‘increased insecurity’. However, the most used frame in our sample was ‘asylum seekers as victims’. In absence of strong international differences, some frames are overrepresented in one country. Austria is the European Union (EU) country with the highest number of asylum applications in proportion to its population. Hence, Austrian newspapers have a tendency to overrate numbers. Furthermore, we found some co-occurrences between frames and events, such as the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015. Europe has always been a continent of migration. However, the recent ­European refugee crisis in 2015 has brought a different reality to immigration: vast numbers of migrants fled across the Mediterranean Sea and through Southeast Europe to seek asylum in Europe. In 2015, EU member states received over 1.2 million asylum applications, which was more than double the amount of the previous year (Eurostat, 2016). Mostly, the immigrants are political refugees who fled from wars and persecution in their home countries. The statistics provided by Eurostat (2016) show that the top three origins of asylum seekers in 2015 are originally from countries in an ongoing state of civil war, i.e., Syria (29 percent), Afghanistan (14 ­p ercent), and Iraq (10 percent). Additionally, there were economic ­m igrants coming from parts of Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe whose primary motivation for ­ uropean leaving the home country was economic gain (Park, 2015). Since E immigration involves both of these migrants, as a mixed-­m igration phenomenon, EU and its constituents have been showing mixed opinions on the issue. The overlapping gray areas in the categorization of migrants made it even more difficult for policy makers in the member states to take a clear stance with regard to the refugee crisis. However, the increasing number of deaths was proportional to the influx of migrants. This tragic reality has led Europe to perceive the issue of

60  Willem Joris et al. migration in 2015 as a ‘crisis’, exacerbated by the shocking image of Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler drowned and washed up on the beach at Turkey’s seaside. This image has brought the European refugee crisis into the spotlight and developed, at least for a while, more empathy for the tragic plight of the refugees. According to a survey commissioned by the European Commission (2015), more than half of Europeans believe that immigration is the most important issue facing the EU. As a result, policies were set in place at both European and national levels to relocate and resettle asylum seekers among the EU states. With respect to this reality and the political reactions, there have been those voices displaying more skepticism about how migrants would cause future impacts on the country and those who showed more support for receiving refugees. Media are highly interconnected with politics and public perception (e.g., Entman, 2003, 2004; Orgad 2012). Baker et al. (2008) highlighted that the press is to be considered “an excellent source of data for the examination of the construction of refugees and asylum seekers” because of its power “over the selection, extent, frequency, and nature of their reporting” and “the reciprocity of influence between readers and newspapers” that is part of its nature. Moreover, Gamson and Modigliani (1989) argued that media uses its power of influence by interpreting the reality as a way to emphasize certain frames. For this study, the generally accepted definition of Entman (1993, p. 52) is used: to frame is to “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating context, in such a way to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation”. Hence, in order to understand which aspects of the refugee crisis were more salient or promoted in the countries under study, this research adopts eight news frames that were found in UK coverage and may also be used in the media coverage of the refugee crisis in Europe. The research will not only measure the occurrence of these frames but also aim to explain the possible reasons for this prevalence. Thus, the central research question of this study is as follows: Research Question: How prevalent are the eight frames in the ­European news coverage of the refugee crisis and how can we explain these occurrences?

Theoretical framework This study analyzes the coverage of the refugee crisis from the point of view of news framing. News framing starts from the assumption that the way in which a topic is portrayed may affect the way the public understands this topic and the importance attached to it (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). As we use the definition of Entman (1993), which is built around ideas of selection and salience, the frames under study are salience frames (instead of

The refugee crisis in Europe  61 equivalence frames) (Cacciatore, Scheufele, & Iyengar, 2016). This means that we identified elements in the news that are emphasized by the communicator. In other words, this suggests that news framing functions by making some aspects of an issue or event more accessible, visible, or salient to the public. With a focus on salience, the frame analysis in this study is familiar with agenda setting and priming, which are also focused on accessibility. As for the analysis of the coverage of refugee news, news framing theory is a useful tool for investigating how people could formulate their views on refugees. Van Gorp (2005) asserted that the media play a critical role in generating public support for or condemnation of the policy concerning migration. Through his research on Belgian press coverage, he identifies two main frames: the victim frame and the intruder frame. We consider these frames as rudimentary, binding positive and negative angles, respectively, to the news stories on refugees. The victim frame portrays asylum seekers as the victims of the crisis (Van Gorp, 2005), emphasizing the life-threatening conditions faced by political refugees back home as well as during their migratory journey. In other words, refugees are depicted as passive actors who are in need of help and are on the move as an inevitable response to what has happened to them. d’Haenens and De Lange (2001) characterize the victim frame as the compassionate side of the human-interest frame since it “brings a human face or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event, issue, or problem”. By concentrating, for example, on women and children that are left unprotected and traumatized, it would eventually recall sentiments such as compassion and innocence (Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (ICAR), 2012). Refugees’ treacherous experiences with smugglers and human traffickers also belong to that frame as it differentiates refugees from the people who use migration as an economic opportunity. This ­human-interest frame induces the audience to be more empathic toward refugees by personalizing, dramatizing, and emotionalizing the news (­Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). More often, this empathy is linked to morality and responsibility that the host society ought to have. According to Semetko and Valkenburg (2000), the morality frame refers to events or issues in the context of religious, social, or moral prescriptions about how to behave. Helbling (2014) also states that a moral-universal frame is used to refer to general moral principles and universal rights (such as humanitarian rights and international solidarity) that are claimable and acceptable by everyone, regardless of their cultural identity or particular interests. While morality is about what is perceived as ethically right or wrong, responsibility is about who takes action based on those moral principles. Hence, the responsibility frame presents an issue or problem to attribute responsibility to the government, an individual, or a group (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). The multilevel structure of Europe includes many different actors who may be responsible for the refugee crisis (e.g., the EU, member states, local authorities, private actors, or individuals).

62  Willem Joris et al. If responsibility alludes to doing the minimum of what is morally right, the pragmatic utilitarian frame justifies this position through the ability to reach a specific goal or through the potential to meet particular interests (Lerch & Schwellnus, 2006). The utilitarian frame explains why some countries are more actively engaged in accepting refugees. These countries believe to have the capacity to do more but also to respond to globalization and keep the reputation of their country high (Helbling, 2014). In some cases, the victim frame evolves into even more positive frames that accentuate the benefits of migrants. Among the framing typologies of Habermas (1993), the economic prosperity frame points out that migrants may bring potential economic wealth and growth by solving the problem of manpower shortage due to an aging population. Furthermore, the multiculturalism frame stresses the positive effects of immigration by promoting cultural openness and societal diversity (Helbling, 2014). This frame contrasts with the nationalistic identity frame, which we will discuss later. Overall, the initial step of framing asylum seekers as victims paves the way to how audiences think about morality, responsibility, and the positive effects of migration. The second frame by Van Gorp (2005) illustrated asylum seekers as intruders to Europe. This frame is mostly used to indicate economic migrants or fake asylum seekers, those who migrate illegally and seek asylum illegitimately. The intruder frame combined with an influx of migrants portrays asylum seekers as a threat to the country’s future. In many press articles, the word ‘flood’, ‘river’, or ‘stream’ is used to symbolize the plethora of migrants. Because of this illegitimacy and abundance, negative consequences are expected in the fields of economy, security, and identity. Although Van Gorp (2005) lumped all these negative effects together in one frame (i.e., the intruder frame), other scholars (e.g., Haynes, Breen, & Devereux, 2005; Helbling, 2014; Philo, Briant & Donald, 2013) subdivided it into more specific negative frames. The generic frames of economic consequences and conflict by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) might be useful in interpreting some negative aspects of migration (e.g., d’Haenens & De Lange, 2001). In the case of the refugee crisis, use of the economic consequences frame may intensify concerns on unemployment rates, job competition, and the welfare system. In regard to threats on security, the conflict frame emphasizes conflicts between individuals, groups, or institutions as a means to capture the interest of the public. Thus, when the conflict frame is used, the issue of immigration could be linked with insecurity, criminality, and terror. Similarly, Haynes, Breen, and Devereux (2005) identified frames that represent asylum seekers as an economic threat to national prosperity and as a criminal element presenting a threat to personal safety. In addition to the economic and criminal threat frames, the authors included the nationalistic identity frame, which represents asylum seekers as a threat to the national or local integrity because migrants coming from different ethnical and religious backgrounds may fundamentally transform the historically

The refugee crisis in Europe  63 formulated identity of the host society. Understanding asylum seekers as intruders entails worries about the negative impact of immigration on the economy, security, and identity. In order to compare the framing of the refugee crisis across multiple countries, we adopted the eight frames that Philo et al. (2013) identified to explain the public reactions toward asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. These frames are seen as the most comprehensive set of frames encompassing all those that were mentioned previously. The eight frames are (1) representing asylum seekers as illegal immigrants or economic migrants, (2) exaggerated numbers (‘we take too many’), (3) asylum seekers as burdens on the job market and the welfare system, (4) asylum seekers as potential criminals and terrorists, (5) advocating stronger controls and deportation of failed refugees, (6) positive impacts of immigration on economy and culture, (7) problems and sufferings faced by migrants, and (8) the role of the West and its responsibility in the refugee crisis. The first five frames entail the intruder frame and threats to the economy, security, and/or identity. The three other frames aim to look at the subject in a different way. The sixth frame is difficult to categorize as the victim or the intruder frame. Although it was mentioned previously that empathy may evolve through positive framing, understanding refugees as victims or bringing potential benefits is still quite offbeat in the sense that the former stresses solidarity and responsibility, while the latter is interest oriented. Last, the seventh (‘asylum seeker as a victim’) and eighth frames (‘role of the West’) incorporate, respectively, the victim frame and the solidarity and responsibility frame.

Methodology To examine how asylum seekers and refugees are being portrayed in ­European news coverage, we performed a deductive frame analysis. In the next paragraphs, we will explain the selection of the countries, the period of analysis, the keywords, and the coding instrument.

Country selection Five European countries were selected based on their geographical locations, policies, and coping strategies toward refugees and the European Commission’s distribution plan: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Germany is the leading country that shapes the continent’s image as a humanitarian hub, a refuge for international protection. In August 2015, it announced that it would suspend the Dublin Regulation, which places the burden of responsibility on the first entry-point states. Germany asserted that refugees should be allowed to pass through secondary destinations so that equitable distribution of migrants could be managed. Such an open-door

64  Willem Joris et al. refugee stance is clearly expressed in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s famous quote, “Wir schaffen das!” Merkel strongly emphasized the role of Europe in humanitarian actions and constantly argued for solidarity within the EU member states. Germany has been one of the most sought final destinations for migrants arriving in Europe. In 2015, 35 ­p ercent of all first-time applicants in the EU were registered in Germany (in total 441,800 applicants) (Eurostat, 2016). After receiving 40,000 migrants in just one weekend, German politicians and policy makers started to realize that the consequences of the refugee crisis were a far bigger challenge than they had expected and were prepared to admit (Park, 2015). Hence, Germany ­temporarily reinstated its border controls along its borders with Austria. Throughout history, Austria has been a good neighbor to Germany. ­Austria initially shared common attitudes with Germany in responding to the refugee crisis. In August 2015, 71 migrants were found dead in an abandoned lorry nearby Vienna. This incident has raised the awareness of smugglers and human traffickers, who use the desperation of refugees seeking protection or a new life in Europe (Spindler, 2015). This provoked empathy, and consequently, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann agreed with Merkel to open up the borders in the beginning of September. Both Germany and Austria arranged special means of transportation so that the migrants, piled up in Hungary, could be safely transferred. Against the odds, refugees did not merely consider Austria a passing point to eventually settling down in Germany as a significant number decided to stay in ­Austria. As a relatively small country in the EU, Austria had become one of the countries with the highest asylum applications in proportion to its population (Eurostat, 2016). In total, 85,505 asylum seekers registered in Austria (Eurostat, 2016). Compared with 2014, the number of asylum applications was increased in Austria by 233 percent. On September 13, 2015, when ­Germany started controlling the southern border by preventing refugees to enter the country, Austria decided to close its borders (­Polychroniou, 2016). After the end of World War I (1918), France was the first immigration country in Europe due to a shortage of young men (Vallin, Wunsch & Caselli, 2006). In 2015, 70,570 first-time asylum applications were registered in France (Eurostat, 2016). Migration is still a hot topic in the public debate. (Far) right parties aim at gaining votes by claiming that immigration is bad for the economy, the security of the nation, etc. They proclaim that a correlation exists between the number of asylum seekers in the country and the level of criminality. In Belgium, the number of asylum seekers has increased since the 1980s (e.g., Salt, Clarke & Schmidt, 2000). Between 1984 and 1992, the number of applications raised from 25,000 to 421,000. In 1998, a new wave of applications was observed, with refugees coming from the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia. In 2000, the number of applications was at its highest.

The refugee crisis in Europe  65 Consequently, the Belgian government decided to continue to help asylum seekers, but instead of money, the focus is on food, beverage, and a bed. The government also agreed to install a new agency for the reception of asylum seekers (Fedasil), to create new integration programs, and to simplify the asylum procedure, etc. However, the liberal constitution, the cultural life, and the social stability were still attractive for asylum seekers and refugees (Meuleman, Meireman & Billiet, 2006). In 2015, 38,990 asylum applications were registered in Belgium, which meant an increase of 178 percent in comparison with the previous year (Eurostat, 2016). Jacobs, Meeusen, and d’Haenens (2016) analyzed the coverage of immigration in television news in the Flemish part of Belgium and found that the coverage was predominantly negative. A positive story was an exception. Furthermore, the topic of immigration was mostly linked to justice and criminality. Other connected themes were politics and social affairs. Various studies showed that the people in the United Kingdom are concerned about an influx of migrants because the British citizens are afraid of insecurity and want to secure the British identity and society (e.g., ICAR, 2012). The attitude of British people toward immigrants has been initially hostile (Greenslade, 2005). Although they may be no different from other European citizens who are afraid of the alien, there may be specific explanations for the resentment of the British. Probably, this is caused by the fact that the United Kingdom, in comparison with the European countries on the continent, has not been occupied by others since the Norman Conquest in the 11th century (Greenslade, 2005). Since there were no invasions of other cultures, the British people have a more isolated ideology. The fact that Britain is an island also had an impact on the isolation political doctrine. The British newspapers use a rather negative tone toward migrants and immigration (Greenslade, 2005; ICAR, 2012). Greenslade (2005) referred to a reciprocal relationship between the newspapers and the public. In other words, the press represents the attitudes of the audience, but similarly, the press may strengthen certain attitudes. In sum, the selected countries show different stances and coping strategies toward the refugee crisis. Our study focuses on newspapers since in Europe, the print media still remain the backbone of news production and public debate (Lund & Willig, 2010), bringing information to light and influencing the agendas of other media as well as policy makers. Quality newspapers are central to the public debate and play a key role in intermedia agenda setting. The Cascade Activation Theory of Entman (2003, 2004) showed the potential influence of the media, upward (influence on elites, such as policy makers and experts) as well as downward (on the public). For each country, we selected a leading quality newspaper: Der Standard ­(Austria), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), De Standaard (Belgium), Le Monde (France), and The Daily Telegraph (the United Kingdom). The news articles were collected through the archives of the newspapers under study or the newspapers database LexisNexis.

66  Willem Joris et al. To select the news articles, we used the keywords ‘refugee’, ‘asylum seeker’, and ‘migrant’, and their Dutch, German, and French equivalents. The time scope was restricted to seven months from June 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015. These months contain multiple key moments in the refugee crisis, such as Aylan’s tragic death and the negotiations and implementation of the relocation schemes. Also, this period is important to note as the Paris attacks in November 2015 are in the sample, which probably had an impact on the whole European media coverage of migration. In this critical time scope, random sampling was applied to select 100 articles from each newspaper. In total, 500 news articles were studied.

Coding instrument For the deductive content analysis, we constructed a coding book with multiple variables (see appendix). For each article, origin of migrants (Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.); author or source of the article (e.g., staff writer, news agency, academic, nongovernmental organization (NGO), politician, or reprinting from another publication); presence of the eight frames; and the frame sponsor, i.e., the actor who launched the frame in the article (e.g., European, national or local politicians, NGOs, asylum seekers, European citizens, etc.) were coded. The coders indicated whether or not a frame element was present in a given article. In other words, for each article, the coder had to identify the presence or absence of the eight frames under study by means of a simple yes/no answer. This study does not take into account the frequency of a given frame per article. If several frame elements co-occur in a news item, this obviously heightens the salience of the underlying frame. However, this phenomenon is beyond the scope of this study. The authors presented the coding instrument to the coders. To ensure that the coders were able to identify the metaphorical frames, the coders were trained by the authors. First, the coders analyzed 10 training articles together with the authors. Second, they had to code 10 other news articles themselves. If they proved that they were able to work with the coding instrument, they were allowed to start coding the news articles under study. Coding as part of the deductive analysis was carried out completely independently. SPSS Statistics software package was used for statistical analyses.

Results All eight frames turned out to occur in the news articles under study. The frame ‘asylum seeker as a victim’ (32.8 percent, SD = .470) proved to be the most frequent one in the sample as a whole. The ‘role of the West’ frame (28.4 percent, SD = .451) ranked second. The ‘we take too many’ frame came in third (22.6 percent, SD = .419), followed by the ‘increased insecurity’ (19.6 percent, SD = .397), ‘a burden on welfare and job market’ (17.8 percent, SD = .383), and ‘benefits of immigration’ (10.4 percent, SD = .306) frames.

The refugee crisis in Europe  67 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Asylum seeker as victim

Role of the West

We take too many

Increased insecurity

Burden on welfare

Benefits of immigration

Increasing deportations

Abuse of asylum system

Figure 3.1  Presence of frames in the coverage of the refugee crisis (in percent).

The ‘increasing deportations’ frame (8.6 percent, SD = .281) was less frequently used, and the ‘abuse of the asylum system by illegal immigrants’ frame (7.6 percent, SD = .265) was the least common (see Figure 3.1).

High prominence for the ‘asylum seeker as a victim’ frame This victim frame may be characterized as a human-interest frame. ­Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) stated that the human-interest frame brings an emotional angle to the presentation of an issue or a problem focusing on human face. One of the main findings by d’Haenens and De Lange (2001) in their framing analysis of asylum seekers in the Dutch regional newspapers was that the human-interest frame is strongly evident in all newspapers, whether they viewed asylum seekers as positive or as negative. The reason for the high frequency in our study might be because this frame can be used in the context of both pro-immigration and anti-immigration. When the victim frame is used, asylum seekers are portrayed as victims with a focus on the huge problems that asylum seekers had to face in their home countries, a state of war and armed conflicts, and the life-­threatening journey to arrive in Europe. First of all in all newspapers under study, women and children were regularly referred to as the recipient of the problems. Specifying women or children promotes the innocence of the victims (ICAR, 2012). In order to illustrate the detrimental impact of war on asylum seekers, ‘trauma’, long-term psychological distress on the victims, was a key topic brought out by the media. At other times, violation of human rights, especially the right to housing, was emphasized every now and then by depicting the homelessness of asylum seekers.

68  Willem Joris et al. The frame sponsors of this victim frame were mostly NGOs (32 percent of all frame sponsors), national or local politicians (31 percent), and asylum seekers themselves (30 percent). The following quotes exemplify this frame: Most of the rescued men had skin irritations due to the poor hygiene in the places where they were detained in Libya. Often in prisons with little food and water, abused, beaten and raped. (De Standaard, Belgium, 02.06.2015) It cannot be that the Europe of 2015, people are left to fend for themselves, sleeping in fields and wading chest-deep through rivers in freezing temperatures. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 27.10.2015) My little sister also needs help. I think she has seen too much death and she also too often smelled the blood that was all over the streets of our village near Damascus. (Le Monde, France, 27.10.2015) Among the refugees who apply for asylum in Austria, there are more and more children and young people who have started their way without family. (Der Standard, Austria, 20.11.2015) People like Alou Badara Sanogo, a 22-year-old student from Mali. He fled from the conflict in his country, was 3,000 kilometers across the desert and had to mourn friends who died in this way. More people died in the small boat that brought him and 100 others across the ­Mediterranean Sea. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 11.11.2015) The use of the victim frame differed significantly between the countries under study, F(4,495) = 21.523; p < .001. Austria (59 percent) and Germany (47 percent) used this frame more frequently than the United Kingdom (27  ­percent) and Belgium (23 percent). France (8 percent) did not use this frame very often in our sample.

Low presence of the ‘illegal migrant’ and ‘deportation’ frames The ‘illegal migrant’ frame is the least recurrent. This frame is mostly used in combination with the coverage of economic migrants. The frame s­ ponsor was mostly a national or local politician (56 percent), followed by a ­European politician (22 percent) or an expert (15 percent). Examples of the illegal migrant frame are listed in the following: Migrants from North Africa and the Middle East are using fake Syrian passports bought via Facebook to pose as refugees to enter Europe. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 22.09.2015)

The refugee crisis in Europe  69 The Hungarian government regards migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq as economic refugees. ‘Although they flee from war zones, they already travelled through multiple safe countries. They had to apply for asylum there’, says the spokesman of Orban. (De Standaard, Belgium, 21.08.2015) Christian Flisek (SPD) argued that if refugees conceal their identity, they should be sanctioned by all legal means, however, a categorical refusal of entry for undocumented migrants is simply unconstitutional. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 30.12.2015) Although this illegal migrant frame is the least used frame, we came across a significant difference across the countries under study, F(4,495) = 3.673; p < .05. The French newspapers had no single reference to the abuse of the system by illegal immigrants, while the German (13 percent) and Austrian press (11 percent) used this frame significantly more. The UK (6 percent) and Belgian press (8 percent) were in between. Another less used frame in the newspapers under study was the frame of deportation. This frame is mostly launched in the media coverage by frame sponsors such as national or local politicians (45 percent), followed by ­European politicians (21 percent), NGOs (18 percent), and experts (9  ­percent). No significant cross-national differences in use of this frame were found in our study, F(4,495) = 2.153; p = .073. Following quotes exemplify this deportation frame: Marine Le Pen had already visited the town a year ago, in October 2014, to claim that the migrants needs to be sent home, even to countries in war. (Le Monde, France, 04.10.2015) “Voluntary if possible, forced if necessary”. is the slogan of Theo Franken, State Secretary of migration. (De Standaard, Belgium, 23.07.2015) Meanwhile, it emerged last night that EU leaders are drawing up plans to deport as many as 400,000 failed asylum seekers – many to Africa – as part of a bid to regain control of the crisis. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 07.10.2015) “The report […] documented Amnesty cases where refugee were sent back to Iraq and Syria, where they would face persecution, torture or death – a violation of international law”, judges Wiebke Judith, asylum expert. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 16.12.2015) Serbian Commissioner for Refugees and Migration, Vladimir Cucic, expects 1,500 persons labeled as economic refugees could be sent back. (Der Standard, Austria, 20.11.2015)

70  Willem Joris et al. However, in the newspapers under study, poverty was generally regarded as a legitimate push-factor for fleeing to Europe. This sense of generosity and morality is related with the frame that stresses on the role of the West and their responsibilities on the refugee crisis. Another possible explanation on why this illegal migrant frame was not used so frequently is because a clear categorization of political refugees and economic migrants can be rather troublesome. This leads to the assumption that economic migrants do not necessarily symbolize illegal or illegitimate migrants. Although it is still debated, this indicates the potential for embracing economic migrants as legitimate asylum seekers. Over the time period from June to December 2015, policies and attitudes from the countries under study have been going through adjustments. In particular, by the end of September, the German government realized that the influx of refugees exceeded the expectation. As a reaction to control the numbers of asylum seekers, Germany classified some countries in the Balkan region as ‘safe countries of origin’ on September 29. The list of safe countries of origin allowed deportations of migrants to be carried out more swiftly. Even after the restrictive policies were established, the compassionate portrayals of economic migrants were still intact, as exemplified in the following quote: Many of these immigrants live in bitter poverty and are hoping for a better life. And yes, some even hope for a few months of accommodation, meals and pocket money. This is understandable in human terms, and not something to blame. However, economic reasons are not covered by the right to asylum. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 22.06.2015) This empathic perception on migrants from safe countries of origin is closely associated with the frame of deportation of failed migrants. This frame is also less used. Acknowledgment of poverty as a legitimate reason for fleeing and consistent empathic understanding of economic migrants despite policy changes might explain the low frequency of the illegal migrant frame and the deportation frame. Although criticism on the economic migrants is frequently made by right-wing parties, knotting of economic migrants as ‘illegal’ or ‘illegitimate’ is not very common in the newspapers under study.

Poor prominence of the ‘Benefits’ frame In order to encourage the pro-immigration perspective, positive effects of immigration may be accentuated. Some argue that immigration may bring economic gains. The idea is that (young) migrants enhance the economy by filling up jobs that people in the host society do not wish to occupy.

The refugee crisis in Europe  71 The  OECD (2014) announced that migrant workforce accounted for 70 ­percent of increase in Europe’s labor market over the past 10 years. Others claim that migrants may enrich the cultural diversity of the host country (e.g., West, 2011). Because of these benefits, substantial use of the ‘potential benefits provided by migrants’ frame was expected. However, this benefits frame was one of the least used frames in all newspapers under study. The benefits for the economy were seldom mentioned; however, positive effects on cultural diversity were not found in the sample as a whole. When used, the benefits frame is mostly voiced by national politicians (27 percent), civil society (20 percent), and NGOs (13 percent), as is illustrated in the following quotations: The Secretary General of the Association of Industrialists, Christoph Neumayer, was hoping to use refugees in shortage occupations that are not yet occupied by Austrians. […] The Austrians should not be afraid and know that refugees would not take away jobs, but create new ones. (Der Standard, Austria, 01.10.2015) The simplest case is when a refugee occupies a free workplace. Then he produces, asks for goods, and thus increases the gross domestic product. The more people come to work, the better. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 30.12.2015) A different use of the benefit frame across countries was found, although not statistically significant: F(4,495) = 2.305; p = .057: Austria (15 percent), ­Germany (14 percent), France (12 percent), Belgium (6 percent), and the United Kingdom (5 percent). The higher frequency in Austria and Germany might be explained by the fact that both countries were known for their “Willkommenskultur (Welcoming Culture)”, the concept of positive attitude toward foreigners, especially migrants (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, 2011). The quotes referring to the benefits of migrants show that the newspapers reported about potential economic gains. However, that frame was not often used, probably due to the opposite argument that migrants are harmful for the host countries’ economy and society (i.e., ‘burden on welfare and the job market’), which was more prevalent in the news coverage. If this frame was used in the news coverage of the refugee crisis, it was regularly launched by either national (33 percent), local (22 percent), or European politicians (8 ­percent) or citizens (12 percent). The following quotes embody the burden frame: The taxpayer will continue to pay support costs for 15,000 immigrants whose asylum claims have already been rejected by the courts. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 05.08.2015)

72  Willem Joris et al. A large majority thinks immigrants will take the jobs [of the host population] and that is harmful for the economy. (Le Monde, France, 03.07.2015) The burden frame was not uniformly used in the different newspapers under study, F(4,495) = 10.393; p < .001. The burden frame was mostly used in ­G ermany (32 percent) and Austria (27 percent), followed by the United ­K ingdom (18 ­p ercent). In contrast, this frame was less used in Belgium (7 ­percent) and France (5 percent). The high frequency in Germany and Austria might be caused by the influx of refugees coming from Hungary through Austria and (finally) Germany, so these countries are more likely to be overburdened by migrants. Moreover, since Germany and the United Kingdom are considered as popular final destinations for migrants, long-term issues, such as provision of education and advances in integration procedures, were also mentioned: The financially weak Schleswig-Holstein expects to spend almost 290 million euros for refugees this year. This is more than three times as much as in 2014. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 26.07.2015) Furthermore, the low frequency of the benefits frame might also be caused by the frame ‘increased insecurity’, which was also common in all countries. This insecurity frame not only takes into account insecurity directly caused by migrants but also the right-wing violence that is indirectly triggered by the refugee crisis. If the frame was used, the frame sponsor was predominantly a national politician (32 percent), followed by a citizen (21 percent) and a European politician (11 percent). No significant cross-national differences were found, F(4,495) = 1.289; p = .273, respectively, Germany (25 ­p ercent), the United Kingdom (22 percent), Austria (21 percent), Belgium (16 percent), and France (14 percent): The head of the Border Force warned that migrants are being smuggled into the UK to become criminals. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 21.08.2015) People have always feared that immigrants would take away their homes, jobs, and women, says Marlou Schrover Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Leiden. (Der Standard, Austria, 10.09.2015) The town hall was recently covered with racist slogans, swastikas and a banner proclaiming “Refugees not welcome”. (Le Monde, France, 11.10.2015) Crimes against homes for asylum seekers compared to the entire previous year already more than tripled. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 13.11.2015)

The refugee crisis in Europe  73

High prominence of the ‘role of the West’ frame In contrast to the ‘benefits’ frame, the ‘role of the West’ frame emphasizing its responsibilities was used more frequently to promote pro-immigration perspectives. This frame was mostly voiced by European (35 percent); national (34 percent); or, although to a lesser degree, local (5 percent) politicians. NGOs (10 percent) and citizens (6 percent) also used this frame in the refugee coverage. Concerning the ‘role of the West’ frame, German C ­ hancellor Angela Merkel turned out to be the main frame sponsor: Critics argue the EU has wasted a summer arguing over a badly conceived scheme instead of tackling the influx of refugees that are arriving in Europe. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 24.10.2015) ‘Germany will help where help is needed’, said Angela Merkel during her visit in a refugee camp. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 27.08.2015) Striking in this ‘role of the West’ frame is that there seems to be two sides to adopting the term solidarity. On the one hand, it was used to promote pro-migration ideas in one’s own country, claiming “we should take them (asylum seekers)”. On the other hand, this frame was also used to blame other European countries by indicating “we have too many, you should take them too”. In this context, exaggerating the number of refugees is common practice, as is illustrated in the following quotations: Twenty years after the EU accession, Austrian politics once again needs a humanitarian gesture of solidarity. The European Union must help the neighboring countries of Syria, invest more in peace efforts, and they must be ready to take the people of the area legally. Through just distribution and good organization, Europe still has space in the hospitals, schools and homes. (Der Standard, Austria, 09.06.2015) Germany stands by its humanitarian and European obligations and expects the same from its partners. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany, 07.09.2015) This ‘role of the West’ frame was significantly more often used in France (47  percent), Austria (44 percent), and Germany (31 percent) than in ­B elgium (14 percent) and the United Kingdom (6 percent), F(4,495) = 18.226; p < .001. The high frequency in Germany and Austria might be explained by the open-door refugee policies in both countries, when suspending the application of the Dublin system to Syrian refugees. This otherwise obligatory examination testing whether asylum seekers first entered the EU in another member state and whether they should be taken back or

74  Willem Joris et al. deported to that country to start the asylum application (Park, 2015). This meant that countries at the borders of Europe were more likely to be overburdened with an influx of refugees. Hence, Germany and Austria halted this Dublin procedure for Syrian asylum seekers and voluntarily opened up their borders, which could be seen as an act of European responsibility and solidarity.

High frequency of the ‘exaggerated numbers’ frame The ‘exaggerating numbers’ frame, also labeled as ‘we take too many’ or ‘influx of migrants’, is prominent in the news coverage of the refugee crisis, especially in Austria (i.e., in 41 percent of the press coverage). Its occurrence was significantly lower in the other countries, F(4,495) = 7.650; p < .001 (e.g., 13 percent in the United Kingdom, 14 percent in France, 21 percent in Belgium, and 24 percent in Germany). As a small country, Austria had the highest asylum applications in proportion to its population. To make matters worse, concerns of influx were even more exacerbated by the return of migrants from Germany, back to Austria. As mentioned earlier, Austria opened its borders to thousands of migrants, primarily because it had agreed with Germany in allowing them to travel to Germany. This frame is almost exclusively launched by politicians, mostly at the national (47 percent) and European (20 percent) but also the local level (16 ­percent). The ‘we take too many’ frame is exemplified in the following: Mrs. Merkel said she did not want freedom of movement rules to be tightened, but the issue would arises if responsibility for accepting migrants was not shared. Her comments indicate that European leaders are beginning to question whether the EU can continue to exist with open borders as it struggles to cope with the hundreds of thousands of migrants coming into the Continent from Africa and the Middle East. (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 01.09.2015) With the current influx we may expect that at the end of August all buffer places are taken. Volunteers and supervisors are alarmed: ‘What happens now, is madness’. If at the end of August the first army barracks are not open, a major problem arises. (De Standaard, Belgium, 05.08.2015) Overall, the summit in Brussels is interpreted as an attempt in Central and Southeast Europe to slow down the influx of refugees. In particular, in Croatia and in Serbia they are now afraid that one should take longterm refugees and must bear the consequences of slowing down the flow

The refugee crisis in Europe  75 of refugees. On Sunday it was agreed that 100,000 refugees – half of them in Greece – should be housed. (Der Standard, Austria, 28.10.2015) Belgrade fears that the number of refugees in Serbia could temporarily increase tenfold if Hungary manages to shut down the border. (Der Standard, Austria, 10.09.2015)

Development over time of the use of the eight frames of the refugee crisis The prevalence of the eight frames over the entire period of time under examination is one issue. Another is the question whether there is any variation in their frequency over time. Most frames remained fairly stable throughout the period under study. Only the occurrence of the ‘increased insecurity’, F(6,493) = 5.808; p < .001, and ‘role of the West’ frame, F(6,493) = 3.938; p