Media & Migration: Counteracting negative narratives

We live with a proliferation of fake news, in an echo chamber of social media with increasingly blurred lines between opinion and fact. Such a media environment is making it harder and harder for DEAR projects to campaign or educate on migration issues. In a recent DEAR Programme webinar, speakers offered up some useful and actionable advice.

When it comes to information on migration, is the mainstream media a friend or a foe? Are they part of the problem, wittingly (or unwittingly) peddling false stereotypes of migrants? Or are they potential partners in tackling the misinformation that surrounds this topical and politically charged issue?

“Misinformation is deliberately splitting society, it is based on dividing narratives that make it more and more difficult to envision equality and collaboration against injustice,” said Prof Myria Georgiou, from the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Prof Georgiou illustrated how DEAR projects can help smash negative narratives on migration by exploring three avenues of action: boosting media literacy, raising awareness and developing the vision to exploit opportunities around the ongoing COVID crisis.

There are currently over 30 DEAR projects active across the length and breadth of the European Union and most of them have some focus on migration – a direct reflection of the importance of the issue to European voters, policy makers and development organisations alike.

(Click here or on the image above to access the webinar recording on the infopoint website)

Misinformation describes sharing of news that unintentionally warps the migration narrative, while disinformation is the active sharing of false information to cause harm. Both misinformation and disinformation are present in today’s media landscape, making it ever more important for raising media literacy among news consumers. DEAR projects, as well as  research initiatives have an important role to play in helping European audiences dissect their news and information sources.

DEAR projects can play a vital role in lobbying for greater investment in media literacy, and work to make audiences more literate through their own actions and campaigns. They can give a platform for the research and work of national and regional research initiatives and help develop and publish resources on migration that are based on expertise and hard data.

“Programmes like DEAR, projects like DEAR projects and other collaborative projects,” said Prof Georgiou, “are great opportunities to think together and to bring together expertise to develop public resources on migration that are based on knowledge and expertise.”

DEAR projects can also raise awareness and generate a deeper understanding of the causes and motivations for migration by ensuring that migrant voices are part of the media narrative. All too often, migrants are statistics – nameless, sexless, voiceless – in news reports on migration. Migrants are dehumanised, reduced to statistics and presented as a problem, with European experts offering up solutions with no reference to migrants’ personal stories, experience or predicament.

Sharing of personal stories and testimonies is a way of helping audiences to relate to migrants as another human being, with likes, needs and worries that they can relate to and empathise with.

“Individuals process information at the personal level in a sense asking: ‘How does this affect me in my community?’,” said Prof Georgiou, adding “People engage with big issues by very often thinking in very small and immediate ways.”

DEAR project, MIND - which is short for “Migration.INterconnectedness.Development” – reinforced the importance of sharing migrant stories and voices and how they spent time getting to know their audiences, and testing messages to ensure that their campaigns produced the best results.



“Especially when targeting a broader audience, like with our social media campaign for example, we needed to get to know our target audience first. Meaning understanding who they are and how to customise our messages to reach them in the best way possible,” said Hanna Schindler, from MIND.

“For us value-based communication was the way to go and proved to be really effective,” added Ms Schindler, “which meant that we stayed away from the ‘graphic’ and ‘activist’ messaging and instead tended towards more soft and subtle messaging.”

While the COVID pandemic has serious operational implications for DEAR migration projects, the crisis does present some opportunities too.

“In these times of COVID, it is important that migrants are not made scapegoats when things go wrong,” said Prof Georgiou, adding: “But even though [as a result of COVID] we are talking about a moment of crisis we are also talking about a moment of opportunity.”

MIND demonstrated how they had adapted their communication messaging to show migrants not just contributing to their host communities but taking active and often very personally dangerous roles as front line staff in hospitals and care homes, caring for COVID patients.

While Prof Georgiou reminded participants that exchanges and discussions that once took place behind closed doors are now going online – essentially making it easier to bring in more divergent and varied voices and participants, including, of course, the migrants themselves.

As the COVID pandemic appears to be gathering force again across Europe and infection rates lurch upwards in many EU Member States, Prof Georgiou said that the crisis is a reminder of the importance of tackling broader and more fundamental issues in European society.

“The unequal distribution of the negative effects of the [COVID] crisis remind us how important it is to include the values of recognition for equal partnerships in all of our actions,” said Prof Georgiou.

“There is an ethical and political commitment towards participatory policy making and inclusive actions for equitably societies,” said Prof Georgiou, adding, “we need to take action now because we are going to be dealing with the consequences of our actions for many years to come.”

With thanks to Prof Myria Georgiou from the London School of Economics, Rick Jones and Hannah Schindler from MIND for participating in our webinar of 9 September 2020. The recording of the Infopoint webinar mentioned in this article is available here.

Stay informed about upcoming events and webinars. Sign up to future Community Updates from the DEAR Programme here.

Watch this award winning video from MIND:

/end