Abstract
This monograph investigates the politicisation and framing of immigrants and refugees in the
political and media arenas in two Central and Easten European counties – Czechia and Slovakia
– in the period surrounding the “2015-2016 European migrant crisis”. Immigration today
constitutes one of the main challenges that politicians must handle. Immigration has a
considerable impact on the political agendas of governments around the world. Recently,
conflicts over immigration have become salient in the Brexit referendum as well as in national
elections in many countries. Nevertheless, until recently immigration has been practically
invisible as an issue in the socio-political debates in most Central and Eastern European
countries. This has changed following the outbreak of the “2015-2016 European migrant crisis”.
Following its outbreak immigration became a key issue in political competition as well as wider
societal debates. Against this backdrop, this volume sets out to examine how immigrants and
refugees were debated in the political and media arenas in the two selected Central and Eastern
European countries with the use of politicisation and framing theories. In doing so, it covers the
period between October 2013 and October 2017 so that a sufficiently long period, including
phases both before and after the “crisis,” would be covered, as we know that crises may alter
established practices and trends in debates surrounding particular issues.
The volume opens by providing background information vis-à-vis the research aims and
identifies gaps in the existing relevant research that the volume aims to fill. The first chapter
identifies especially the following research gaps: (a) the existing research mostly investigates a
single event or a short period of time ranging from several weeks to several months, (b) the
previous research is almost exclusively focused on Western European countries, and leaves out
Central and Easten European counties, (c) many previous studies focus only on a limited
number of print media outlets or a combination of broadsheet newspapers and public-service
TV broadcasters, and leave out tabloid newspapers and commercial TV channels in particular,
or leave out TV channels altogether, and (d) an overwhelming majority of the studies do not
differentiate between various categories of immigrants based on their legal status, religious
background, and/ or country of origin although the existing research shows that different
categories of immigrants are represented differently. The monograph sets out to address all
these, as well as other, shortcomings of prior research. The introductory chapter also justifies
the selection of all the main print and audiovisual news outlets and plenary speeches as fruitful
venues for investigating politicisation and framing of immigrants and refugees. To provide the
necessary background information, the second chapter also briefly discusses (the history of) the
politics, policies, and public opinion regarding immigration in Czechia and Slovakia. Before
discussing the main body of the research findings, the monograph discusses the theoretical,
conceptual, and methodological issues related to its research goals. In doing so, it especially
elaborates on its understanding of politicisation and framing theories and how they will be
specifically applied to achieve the formulated research aims. Besides theoretical and conceptual
issues, the third chapter also discusses the methodological foundations of the monograph: the
book mainly relies on quantitative content analysis, descriptive statistics, and regression
analysis as methodological approaches.
The volume then goes on to provide the main research results. First, it discusses the
descriptive aspects of politicisation of immigrants in media (news media items) and political
arenas (plenary speeches). In a nutshell, it shows that immigrants were only politicised to a
highly limited extent before the advent of the “crisis” in both the political and media arenas.
However, with the outbreak of the “crisis”, immigration became heavily politicised in both
countries’ plenary debates and media. The post-crisis year of 2017 saw a substantial decline of
politicisation of immigration in the two countries’ media and political arenas. Nevertheless,
even after this decline, the politicisation of immigration remained above the pre-crisis levels,
and it thus appears that the crisis induced a longer-lasting politicisation of immigration.
Second, the volume accounts for the identified trends and the variation of the
politicisation of immigrants and refugees using inferential statistics. It shows, among other
things, how politicisation of immigrants is positively associated with ‘triggering’ real-world
developments. An increased politicisation of immigration is evident following humanitarian
incidents, while no relationship with politicisation of immigration is found in cases of
occurrences of terrorist attacks (at least not in the media arena). The volume also does not find
a link between institutionalised political events (European Council summits and national
elections) and politicisation of immigration. To a certain extent, politicisation of immigration
also follows real-world immigration statistics. While asylum statistics measured at the countrylevel
are not associated with politicisation of immigrants, their politicisation is linked with the
number of asylum applications lodged and the number of detected illegal border crossings
detected across the EU-28. For the political arena, the volume also shows that it is primarily the
radical right parties which politicise immigration, although some other party-political
characteristics (such as party Euroscepticism) play a role in accounting for the politicisation of
immigrants and refugees.
Next, the volume also presents the findings regarding framing of immigrants. I show
that five main frames were employed in this case: the security, cultural, economic,
administrative, and humanitarian frame. The book shows how certain frames were more salient
than others and identifies several national, outlet-specific, and party-specific trends in the
framing of immigrants. It thus shows that the security, administrative, cultural, and economic
frames were the most salient during the investigated period, while the humanitarian frame was
significantly less salient. All the frames except for the humanitarian frame were predominantly
employed in a negative manner, highlighting the costs and negative aspects of immigration
related to each frame rather than its contribution and positive aspects. In particular, the
portrayals of immigrants in media and political debates were becoming more preoccupied with
(negative) security, cultural and administrative aspects of immigration as the crisis progressed,
and this was particularly the case following the proposal for the EU refugee relocation scheme.
In contrast, the humanitarian perspective was gradually disappearing since the second half of
2015. The crisis therefore had a significant effect regarding the negative securitisation and
culturalisation of immigrants and their presentation in governance and managerialist terms in
both countries.
The volume also shows that framing of immigrants is highly associated with evolving
events and real-world immigration statistics. Media as well as politicians respond to what
happens in the world regarding immigration by altering the framing repertoire to make sense of
immigration and by making particular frames more prominent after certain events. For instance,
the periods following terrorist attacks on European soil are generally positively associated with
an increased likelihood of security, cultural, and administrative frames being used. The periods
following humanitarian incidents are positively associated with the salience of humanitarian
framing and negatively associated with the salience of cultural and security frames. The
institutionalised political events included in the analyses (i.e., European Council summits and
national elections) are not associated with the changes in the salience of framing of immigrants.
The volume also shows how the salience of immigrant-related frames in media is related to
real-world immigration statistics. While asylum statistics measured at the country-level are not
associated with the salience of immigrant-related frames, media respond to the number of
asylum applications lodged and the number of illegal border crossings detected across the EU-
28. For example, a higher number of asylum applications and detected illegal border crossings
in the EU-28 is related to an increased salience of the (negatively valenced) security, cultural,
and administrative frames.
Framing of immigrants also substantially varies based on the explicitly mentioned
characteristics of immigrants in immigrant-related news items and plenary speeches. Explicit
references to the immigrants having an origin in the MENA region are often associated with
more frequent use of the (negative) security, cultural and administrative frames. In contrast,
references to the immigrants having an origin in (non-EU) Eastern Europe are linked with an
increase of (both positive and negative) economic and (positive) humanitarian framing. In terms
of the immigrants’ religious background, direct references to a Muslim religious background
are associated with a more frequent use of the (negative) security, cultural, and administrative
frame. They are also linked with a negative framing based on humanitarian grounds in which
the humanitarian duty and the suffering of immigrants are rejected. In contrast, references to
religious backgrounds other than Muslim are linked with an increased use of positive
humanitarian framing, in which immigrants are understood as deserving help and compassion,
as well as with a more common use of positive cultural framing (in the case of the political
arena) and a less common use of negatively valenced cultural framing (in the media arena). Last
but not least, the volume shows how framing of immigrants in the political arena is largely
structured by traditional political party characteristics. It shows that two conflict dimensions,
the socio-cultural, and the European integration dimension, significantly structure the party
competition over immigrants. In doing so, the book shows that political competitions in Central
and Eastern Europe, or at least in Czechia and Slovakia, are not necessarily as unstructured as
some prior arguments hold. The monograph is concluded by a discussion of the implications of
the extant findings vis-à-vis the different strands of the existing literature it aims to speak to.