{"title":"Focusing on political and civil concerns in news media? European refugee issue seen from China","authors":"Shujun Jiang, Li Zhang, Leen d’Haenens","doi":"10.1007/s10308-021-00608-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The European refugee issue has become one of the major topics in Europe’s media narratives, its public discourses, and political debates, particularly in the peak period from late summer 2015 to the migration worries driving the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016. This study examines what image Chinese newspapers projects of the EU as a global actor against the backdrop of the refugee issue. The focus is on the coverage of the political and civil responses in European societies toward the issue and the actors and factors behind these responses. Based on a content analysis of 536 news articles from four Chinese newspapers spanning from 2015 to 2017, this study found that Chinese media portrayed a fairly unwelcoming attitude from both political and civil society actors in Europe towards refugees, though civil society actors tend to be more welcoming than political actors. The place of the event, reference to religion, i.e., Muslims, non-Muslims, and Christian, and threat themes, i.e., economic threat, security threat, cultural threat, and health threat, affect Chinese media representation of the European refugee issue, and these factors showed a different concern pattern from political and civil societies. However, the portrayed unwelcoming responses toward the refugee issue do not seem to harm the images of the EU as a Union of integrity and a global actor in Chinese news media. The study concludes with a discussion on the image of the EU as a global actor in Chinese news as well as limitations and directions for future research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2021-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10308-021-00608-4","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Asia Europe Journal","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10308-021-00608-4","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
The European refugee issue has become one of the major topics in Europe’s media narratives, its public discourses, and political debates, particularly in the peak period from late summer 2015 to the migration worries driving the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016. This study examines what image Chinese newspapers projects of the EU as a global actor against the backdrop of the refugee issue. The focus is on the coverage of the political and civil responses in European societies toward the issue and the actors and factors behind these responses. Based on a content analysis of 536 news articles from four Chinese newspapers spanning from 2015 to 2017, this study found that Chinese media portrayed a fairly unwelcoming attitude from both political and civil society actors in Europe towards refugees, though civil society actors tend to be more welcoming than political actors. The place of the event, reference to religion, i.e., Muslims, non-Muslims, and Christian, and threat themes, i.e., economic threat, security threat, cultural threat, and health threat, affect Chinese media representation of the European refugee issue, and these factors showed a different concern pattern from political and civil societies. However, the portrayed unwelcoming responses toward the refugee issue do not seem to harm the images of the EU as a Union of integrity and a global actor in Chinese news media. The study concludes with a discussion on the image of the EU as a global actor in Chinese news as well as limitations and directions for future research.
期刊介绍:
The Asia-Europe Journal is a quarterly journal dedicated to publishing quality academic papers and policy discussions on common challenges facing Asia and Europe that help to shape narratives on the common futures - including both risks and opportunities - of Asia and Europe. The Journal welcomes academically and intellectually rigorous research papers as well as topical policy briefs and thought pieces on issues of bi-regional interest, including management and political economy, innovation, security studies, regional and global governance, as well as on relevant socio-cultural developments and historical events. Officially cited as: Asia Eur J