Language, Empathy and Reflection: Teaching Journalists about the Refugee Crisis

This article is republished, please cite first publisher: Briant, E, L (Dec 2016) ‘Language, Empathy and Reflection: Teaching Journalists about the Refugee Crisis’ in Media Education Journal, 40th Anniversary Edition.

More than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015 [1] and this has increased rapidly in recent years. It is unlikely to end soon. The number of arrivals in Greece in was 13 times higher than the total number of arrivals in 2014 [2]. The majority of refugees are fleeing from Syria, but others are still coming from Iraq and Afghanistan which remain unstable. Today our world faces significant challenges. Measures taken will require public support for complex policy solutions. Journalists, amid commercial pressures and flux in the industry, are expected to facilitate this by reporting these complex humanitarian, economic and political challenges with necessary historical context in an accessible, informative, balanced way. Climate change and its accompanying environmental disasters compound the effects of the irresponsible foreign policies of our past, of colonialism, economic exploitation, corruption and proxy wars. These disasters — and our actions — have led directly to much of the unprecedented forced migration we are experiencing. The stakes have never been higher. In combination with the unaddressed economic inequality, the new environmental pressures will heighten scarcity of resources, existing resentments and continuing conflict into our future. Not to mention resulting disease, health and poverty-related emergencies. None of these can be contained behind the artificial walls anti-immigration campaigners often posit as solutions. In my book with the Glasgow Media Group, ‘Bad News for Refugees’, we explored key themes in the coverage and whether important context and migrants’ and refugees’ perspectives were bring represented in the broadcast and print media [3]. This article will present some of our summary findings evaluating reporting on this issue, reflect on reporting during the more recent crisis and talk about lessons that might be drawn to enhance journalism education.

There are many fantastic examples of investigative reporting which draws our attention and resources where it is needed — too many to list here. Positive examples include regional coverage, the recent impact of powerful images such as the Alan Kurdi photograph, which raised awareness about the plight of Syrian children leading to the Refugees Welcome movement and forcing a momentary softening of hostility from David Cameron. Sadly, often the response from our media is far from universally positive. While crises may gain media attention, they are often represented through a domestic political frame. The media all too often focuses on giving audiences the news they want to buy, from their perspective and needs to make it ‘relevant’. Hence during a major humanitarian crisis we also see reporting of the plight of British holidaymakers in Kos having their trip spoiled by the sight of starving smelly refugees as they gorge themselves on fish and chips. In much of the press the sympathy for refugees like Alan Kurdi was gone as quickly as the papers sold… replaced by a flood of fear-fuelled stories and tabloid rhetoric that not only stressed incoming refugees as a burden linked to EU membership, but linked their presence to the risk of terrorist attacks, despite very little indication of their involvement. Confusion of this latter issue has been worsened by deliberate misinformation and false memes spread by social media which some journalism outlets sought to expose [4].

Bad News for Refugees presented a content analysis of refugees’ and migrants’ coverage in the UK and we also interviewed journalists and asylum workers and asylum seekers, and conducted focus groups with members of the public and established ethnic minority communities, looking at media production and content as well as the impact of the media on people’s lives. It was written before the current crisis — and at the time of our second sample, from 2011, asylum to the UK had actually fallen and remained stable since a peak in 2002. But even then we found that the media often portrayed those coming to Britain fleeing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a threat and ‘control’ was a common theme. We found media coverage was relentlessly negative to refugees and lacking in necessary global context. Britain’s responsibility for foreign policy and economic drivers of migration, the hardships faced by refugees and positive stories of refugees were rare or absent. [5].

Perspectives and Voices

Our future depends on reporting that can provide us with the information we need to make informed, cogent decisions about our response to global crises both as a country and individuals. But significant aspects of the picture are distorted, missing or over-represented. The reality of the destitution and abuse faced by refugees in Britain is has not been a prominent image portrayed in its media. Portrayal of refugees as a burden on Britain was a heightened theme in our 2011 press sample, perhaps influenced by the global economic crisis, particularly in the Mail, Sun and Express [6]. After the financial crisis resentment for the austerity cuts was channelled toward the weakest in our society[1]. In one example we found, The Sun used the headline of ‘Migrant Luxury’ to describe a new detention centre Morton Hall, that has since seen neglect, suicide and hunger strikes. The Daily Mail said: ‘taxpayers will be angry that their money has been spent on conditions some hard-working families struggle to afford for themselves’ [9].[2] The media theme of ‘burden’ perhaps also reflected a wider problem of Government voices and the City leading narratives on the problem of the financial crisis and austerity cuts as its solution [11].

Due to news values, our media often focus on domestic perspectives rather than seeing a global picture. This is distorted by the voices prominent in the news. The basic understanding the media give of particular geography, culture, religion, political ideas and history is inevitably simplified and partial. Yet their national focus is reinforced by the choice of sources and ability for deliberate propaganda from our Government to set the agenda. Where public understandings of our own military interventions are concerned, messages have become increasingly coordinated cross-government to ensure defence narratives are echoed by other agencies [12] and influence how conflicts, their participants and their human impacts are discussed. Domestic official sources including politicians, are over-reported in the media compared to, for example, NGOs, human rights organisations or migrants themselves. In the press, 74 statements across 69 articles were from politicians in our 2011 sample, just two positive; NGOs were cited only 5 times and only in the Broadsheets [13]. Creating an echo chamber, where the same ideas that have repeatedly failed us are recirculated. It is important to remember that official accounts necessarily stress British conduct abroad as having humanitarian, noble motives and downplay or ignore human rights abuses by our allies. Prioritising politicians’ voices means that misinformed populist narratives were rarely challenged in our sample. Growing populism combined with strong concern about immigration among a misinformed electorate on this issue [14] places electoral pressure on politicians and this means an anti-immigration consensus has dominated for some time across the mainstream parties. This meant that centrist opposition politicians rarely challenged government officials’ anti-migrant agenda, except to argue immigration controls don’t go far enough. It is important to also tell stories of generosity and compassion, showing also the positive stories of refugee journeys and their contribution to communities. Reporting of integration difficulties might be accompanied by asking questions of how policymakers might better support those communities and consideration of where integration successes have been achieved. The press often fail to provide the necessary context or alternative perspectives, particularly when different politicians are speaking the same line. The only article mentioning Western responsibility in our 2006 or 2011 samples was actually found in The Express, but was critical of this perspective, claiming the BBC ‘scour the African continent in search of dying children’ out of determination to ‘make the British people responsible for the plight of a vast continent’ [15]. Tabloids continue emphasise how Britain takes too many refugees despite the fact in 2014, 86% of refugees were being supported in Developing countries that cannot handle this burden [16]. The population of refugees, pending asylum cases and stateless persons in the UK at that time made up just 0.24% of the population [17].

Of course increasingly the media are very dependent on PR and official accounts which are thrust onto their desk and become easy news. And some humanitarian agencies are more generously resourced PR-wise than others and they are also competing with right-wing think tanks who claim to provide ‘expertise’ but are politically motivated, misleading and frequently inaccurate. Anti-immigration lobby group Migration Watch, for example, get cited often in the British media, often without declaration of their bias. In our 2011 sample, they were cited twice as often as NGOs, or migrants or refugees themselves [18]. They gained much attention in right-wing press in the run-up to the Brexit vote, claiming 500,000 refugee families could move to Britain from Europe after 2020 [19]. The Guardian highlighted these as misleading and baseless claims [20]. Migration Watch narratives inflate the numbers arriving, the sense of threat and falsely claim refugees are financially motivated and get privileged access to British welfare, housing and other services, resulting in distorted coverage.

News values can also draw media concern to crises affecting people ‘like us’ — leaving out context and building in racism. During the November terrorist attacks, the minimal Western coverage given to attacks in Iraq and Lebanon compared with Paris — whether for reasons of proximity or of racism and lack of public interest — certainly bolstered those trying to pretend that this is violence perpetrated by Muslims against non-Muslims, rather than showing us a reality of shared victimisation — this actively harms our process of determining how to respond. Sometimes there is a more obvious racist theme. In our research on refugees we found some racialized language driving up the fear in the UK, The Express is quoted on Africans in UK saying ‘brutality, corruption and a thirst for civil war’ are causes of emigration from that continent, they ‘arise out of African tribal culture’ [21].

Journalism is a business first and foremost — so engendering empathy with the victims of a humanitarian crisis through reporting may become more tricky where it conflicts with domestic concerns. Understandably, people want to know — and the media rushes to tell them — how crises abroad impact us. A starving Syrian child in Aleppo is one thing — an increase in a waiting list for an NHS operation in Stevenage because that child is being treated here in a bed beside your granny, is much closer to home. Yet focusing on immediate British domestic interests may not give sufficient perspective to respond effectively and with empathy to growing problems that will worsen and affect our domestic interests acutely if we do not respond. Human and personal stories from authentic voices in the refugee crisis are essential to harness empathy. Refugee groups work very hard to try and raise these to media attention but they are greatly under-reported (these made up only 3% of the voices journalists quoted [22]. Rather than nurturing empathy and providing balanced, contextualised coverage, in our samples we found fear was enhanced by over-representation of extreme examples, such as Abu Qatada in the press and discussions of criminality that were used to argue for generalised deportation policies affecting the majority of peaceful, law-abiding asylum seekers [23]. Negative coverage is then used to support attacks on the Human Rights Act, ever more draconian immigration controls, surveillance and even secret courts.

Language of Asylum

A key to empathy is also the language used, which in turn can be influenced greatly by the sources quoted, but which also differs according to the news outlet. The traditional responsibility of journalism is of course, in building a picture of any crisis for the public and interpret these events — as, thankfully, most of us will be unlikely to experience it directly, without the media’s frame. This is why it’s so crucial for journalists show where responsibility lies. This means in choosing what language to use and balancing opposing groups or opinions, considering the balance of power actors hold is important. Often in discussing the closure of ‘the jungle’ camp in Calais neutral language was used saying there are ‘clashes’ between ‘migrants’ and police. This phrasing implies police and the camp residents have equal agency even as authorities roll in with bulldozers, CS gas and destroy homes. It results in misrepresenting the crisis.

Accurate terminology is also important because it can discredit and weaken credibility. Terms like ‘illegal immigrant’ or ‘foreign criminals’ are frequently applied to multiple categories of migrant without recognising the difference between a refugee, an asylum seeker and an economic migrant, or where the status of the migrant is unknown. Here’s an example from 2006 quoted in the Daily Mail, ‘I watched one illegal immigrant cut his way through the canvas roof of a lorry. He stood on the tarmac, dazed but happy, and immediately claimed asylum. He did not mind being found; he knew he was in Britain for good.’ [24]. This vivid example demonstrates how the method of entry is often used to justify an assumption and belief that the man who is claiming asylum must be an ‘illegal immigrant’, even before his story has been heard. It is possible that he ‘did not mind being found’ because he had reached sanctuary, had done nothing wrong and was claiming asylum is his right. Refugees may enter the country with difficulty, due to loss or seizure of documentation, the Refugee Convention requires that their mode of entry not be held against them. Conflating distinct groups is an easy way to create large statistics that grab headlines, while confusing issues and reducing empathy. And it’s not just a tabloid practice, in one example The Times stated ‘there are an estimated 310,000–570,000 illegal immigrants in the UK, including more than 250,000 failed asylum seekers’ [25]. Natural disaster rhetoric of people ‘flooding in’ is frequently used in relation to these incoming numbers which results in emphasising the sense of ‘threat’ and building fear in relation to arrivals.

The term ‘illegal’ is often used in misleading and confusing ways, as asylum-seeking is not illegal even if your case was not proven and you are rejected. One journalist we spoke to observed that: “Certainly when it comes to the idea of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, very often they are just interchangeable terms. There’s no attempt ever made to explain what these terms mean. The message always is that they are bad. The idea that an asylum seeker is not an illegal immigrant is lost, they are all a problem.” [26]. However, although some try, it is not easy to challenge the culture and editorial policy of a paper, especially for junior staff. The phrase ‘asylum seeker’ itself has become a slur and increasingly even ‘refugee’ is losing any sympathetic association through negative use, which increases the ‘othering’ and dehumanisation. This has led The Guardian’s production editor David Marsh to argue for discussing those crossing the Mediterranean, often whose status is unknowable, as people rather than using terms inaccurately and such efforts to humanise them are welcome [27].

Images are also important. For example, after November 2015’s terrorist tragedies to The Daily Mail spread fear and distrust by rhetoric and media imagery directed at refugees, some of which sank low enough to mirror WW2 Nazi propaganda at its very worst.

It is sadly predictable that the scapegoats blamed en masse for the Paris attack were the refugee victims of Islamic State in Syria, something IS clearly intended. Frequently images in reporting of migrants asylum seekers and refugees show images of groups of young men (rather than women and children), people climbing fences or emphasise policing and control themes.

Teaching about these issues

In classes on this topic my first aim is often to teach basics about ‘myths’ and fill gaps in knowledge, as new journalism students may know very little. The Refugee Council is a good place to start for facts about hardships faced by refugees, information about what they receive, the asylum process in Britain and many more misunderstood topics [28]. A good resource is also the Red Cross including ‘Why I left my country’ which gives refugees’ own stories and can be contrasted with the reporting in much of the mainstream press in student discussion groups [29]. In lectures you can include new content by finding refugee speakers for your classes so that students hear real stories from those who lived them. Students can also conduct discourse analysis and content analysis of media content in the classroom to grow their understanding of common biases and how power is embodied in choices of language and images they make and how reporting could be improved. We discuss in class things like whether journalists are asking the right questions? The question ‘why did you come to Britain?’ and ‘why did you leave your homeland?’ may elicit very different responses. You might hear ‘I have family in Britain’ from the first, but miss the hugely important threats they were fleeing and risks they have taken, distorting the story. We look at gender balance, comparing images — groups of men are more likely to look threatening. Required reading and opportunities for discussion and reflection on reporting produced can then be incorporated into newsdays to ensure they link their academic knowledge to practicing journalism. You can contact organisations such as Migrant Voice [30] who offer both training and also have media-trained refugees able to comment on migration and refuge for students’ reporting.

I have found class research projects can also be useful for deeper examination of the human side of migration, I organised for University of Sheffield 1st year undergraduates a cross-faculty project on media narratives and ‘migration and integration in Sheffield’. Social science students and law students were working together with trainee journalists — learning together, creating together and bringing different insights. Students developed their own projects to address questions that interested them. They conducted interviews with students, members of the public and refugee workers. I also used my relationships with local refugee organisations including City of Sanctuary and Voluntary Action Sheffield to facilitate question and answer sessions and allow them to ‘interview’ refugees. Of course, if you want to organise a similar activity there are practical and ethical challenges to consider. There are specific ethical considerations in how teaching staff might work with refugee groups and it is important to discuss the design of the activity with the specific groups and consider how you might adapt to their needs. Refugees are asked questions by the home office constantly, have been badgered about their stories and intimate aspects of their lives. They owe you nothing, do not have to contribute and you should be extremely grateful of any time they give, if at all. I needed to ensure there were very small groups and to ensure enthusiastic students do not overwhelm anyone. At the very least offering refreshments, busfare and cash for refugees’ expenses[3] and going to see them in an environment where they are comfortable where possible, not where is convenient for you. Students needed a lot of training, guidance and support, not just in journalism skills but also in relation to how they engaged with refugees. It is essential to ensure students understand the difficulty in certain subjects. It was important that they apply very different skills in ‘interviewing’ — that they should allow the refugee to lead discussion themselves, to make interaction more conversational and not be persistent in asking questions. It is crucial to somehow give back in any way that might be possible, ultimately you could build collaborations with their organisations and class projects can involve students learning while writing positive media stories or helping their communications. Student projects might involve them volunteering at local organisations and help them with specialist skills; offering media training, PR advice and media planning. Activities such as this have great educational benefits allowing students to experience engagement with the topic more deeply and creatively, encouraging empathy in the reporting they produce. Interdisciplinary, independent group work allows them to consider the topic also from different disciplinary angles, sharing knowledge and learning from each other.

Importantly, looking then at how different groups made creative use of a different medium will also encourage them to think about how they can change how audiences experience the stories they produce. As well as academic outputs our students created films, posters and presented their work in a faculty competition at the end, they found it a very rewarding experience. It’s also of course important how you tell the story… One activity I enjoy is to get them to compare different representations of the journey and what they get from delivery of a similar story in different media… comparing for example a traditional online news article, charts and infographics, a mapped journey and an interactive story such as http://twobillionmiles.com/. The latter really draws parallels for the reader with the lived experience of a refugee, showing decisionmaking and dangers — posing the question of what you would do with the risks or challenges faced? And what would become of you? New media developments such as gamification offer great new opportunities for audience engagement. Nash has found with asylum simulation game ‘Asylum: Exit Australia’, audiences drew ‘connections between their experience of play and broader issues, interpreting the simulation not as subjunctive but as reflective of the reality faced by asylum seekers’ [31].

Building improvements in journalism teaching in response to the refugee crisis is most importantly of all, about embedding such concerns both into the teaching process and beyond it, into the concerns of our departments, colleges and universities. We can prioritise these concerns within our institutions in different ways, including campaigning to create training and accreditation opportunities for refugee journalists. Students can get involved in campaign work which will improve their knowledge of threats to journalists, censorship and free speech issues. Not only will creating these opportunities for refugee journalists facilitate future improved reporting and provide opportunities for journalists in danger, welcoming these students brings diversity and rich experiential knowledge to our departments as well as breaking down barriers to understanding more broadly. In combination a strategy incorporating these experiential, deeply reflective and creative elements can challenge embedded assumptions and offer new perspective and more powerful truth to journalism students learning about asylum in the classroom. This essential empathetic understanding, necessary factual knowledge and experience in practice of how it can be applied to differing effect, is essential for preparing journalists adequately for reporting humanely on such complex humanitarian, economic and political challenges as the recent refugee crisis.

Endnotes

[1] BBC News (4 March 2016) Migrant crisis: Migration to Europe explained in seven charts: www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911

[2] UNHCR (2015a) UNHCR Global Appeal 2016–2017 — Europe regional summary: http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/publications/fundraising/564da0e5a/unhcr-global-appeal-2016-2017-europe-regional-summary.html

[3] Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) Bad News for Refugees, London: Pluto.

[4] Dearden, Lizzie (16th September 2015) ‘The fake refugee images that are being used to distort public opinion on asylum seekers’ The Independent: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-fake-refugee-images-that-are-being-used-to-distort-public-opinion-on-asylum-seekers-10503703.html

[5] Op. Cit. Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) 121–130

[6] Ibid. 109

[7] Afoko, C & Vockins, D (2013) Framing the economy: The austerity Story, NEF: b.3cdn.net/nefoundation/a12416779f2dd4153c_2hm6ixryj.pdf

[8] Briant, Emma L, Nick Watson and Greg Philo (2013) ‘Reporting Disability in the Age of Austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new folk devils’ in Disability and Society, vol 28 no 6, pp874–889.

[9] Op. Cit. Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) 110

[10] Townsend, M (2016) ‘Revealed: immigration officers allowed to hack phones’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/immigration-officials-can-hack-refugees-phones

[11] Berry, M. (2013) ‘The ‘Today’ programme and the banking crisis’. Journalism, 14(2), 253- 270.; Manning, P. (2013) ‘Financial journalism, news sources and the banking crisis’ Journalism vol. 14 no. 2 173–189.; Philo, G. (2012) ‘The media and the banking crisis’. Sociology Review, 21 (3).

[12] Briant, Emma L (2015) Propaganda and Counter-terrorism: Strategies for global change. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

[13] Op. Cit. Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) 94–5.

[14] Blinder, Scott (2015) UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall Attitudes and Level of Concern: www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Briefing-Public_Opinion_Overall_Attitudes_and_Level_of_Concern.pdf; Nardelli, A & Arnett, G (2014) ‘Today’s key fact: you are probably wrong about almost everything’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/29/todays-key-fact-you-are-probably-wrong-about-almost-everything; Inglehart, R, F & Norris, P (2016) ‘Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash’ Faculty Research Working Paper Series, Harvard Kennedy School: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1401

[15] Op. Cit. Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) 86.

[16] UNHRC (2015b) UNHCR report shows world’s poorest countries host most refugees: http://www.unhcr-centraleurope.org/en/news/2015/unhcr-report-shows-worlds-poorest-countries-host-most-refugees.html

[17] STAR (2015) Basic Facts & Figures: http://www.star-network.org.uk/index.php/refugees/facts_figures

[18] Op. Cit. Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) 94–5

[19] Sculthorpe, T (31st May 2016) ‘Up to half a MILLION refugee families could head to Britain using EU free movement rules after 2020, report warns’ Daily Mail: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3616995/500-000-refugees-UK-2020-EU-rules.html

[20] Mason, R (30th May 2016) ‘Claims of mass refugee immigration to UK branded ‘false and bogus’’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/31/claims-of-mass-refugee-immigration-to-uk-branded-false-and-bogus

[21] Op. Cit. Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013)

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid. 72–76, 111–115

[24] Ibid. 60

[25] Ibid. 67

[26] Ibid. 8

[27] Marsh, David (2015) ‘We deride them as ‘migrants’. Why not call them people?’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/migrants-people-refugees-humanity

[28] Refugee Council (2015) Top 20 facts about asylum: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/4548_top_20_facts_about_asylum

[29] British Red Cross (2016) Refugee support true stories: www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Refugee-support/Refugees-true-stories

[30] http://www.migrantvoice.org/

[31] Nash, K (2015) ‘Simulation games, popular factual media and civic engagement: an audience study of Asylum Exit Australia’ Media, Culture & Society, 37(7) pp959–971.

Bibliography

Afoko, C & Vockins, D (2013) Framing the economy: The austerity Story, NEF: b.3cdn.net/nefoundation/a12416779f2dd4153c_2hm6ixryj.pdf

BBC News (4 March 2016) Migrant crisis: Migration to Europe explained in seven charts: www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911

Berry, M. (2013) ‘The ‘Today’ programme and the banking crisis’. Journalism, 14(2), 253- 270.

Briant, Emma L (2015) Propaganda and Counter-terrorism: Strategies for global change, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Blinder, Scott (2015) UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall Attitudes and Level of Concern: www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Briefing-Public_Opinion_Overall_Attitudes_and_Level_of_Concern.pdf

Briant, Emma L (2015) Propaganda and Counter-terrorism: Strategies for global change. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Briant, Emma L, Nick Watson and Greg Philo (2013) ‘Reporting Disability in the Age of Austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new folk devils’ in Disability and Society, vol 28 no 6, pp874–889.

Dearden, Lizzie (16th September 2015) ‘The fake refugee images that are being used to distort public opinion on asylum seekers’ The Independent: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-fake-refugee-images-that-are-being-used-to-distort-public-opinion-on-asylum-seekers-10503703.html

Inglehart, R, F & Norris, P (2016) ‘Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash’ Faculty Research Working Paper Series, Harvard Kennedy School: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1401

Mason, R (30th May 2016) ‘Claims of mass refugee immigration to UK branded ‘false and bogus’’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/31/claims-of-mass-refugee-immigration-to-uk-branded-false-and-bogus

Manning, P. (2013) ‘Financial journalism, news sources and the banking crisis’ Journalism vol. 14 no. 2 173–189

Marsh, David (2015) ‘We deride them as ‘migrants’. Why not call them people?’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/migrants-people-refugees-humanity

Mortimer, C (2016) ‘Brexit caused lasting rise in hate crime, new figures show’ The Independent: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brexit-hate-crime-racism-eu-referendum-poland-islam-more-in-common-a7231836.html

Nardelli, A & Arnett, G (2014) ‘Today’s key fact: you are probably wrong about almost everything’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/29/todays-key-fact-you-are-probably-wrong-about-almost-everything

Nash, K (2015) ‘Simulation games, popular factual media and civic engagement: an audience study of Asylum Exit Australia’ Media, Culture & Society, 37(7) pp959–971.

Sculthorpe, T (31st May 2016) ‘Up to half a MILLION refugee families could head to Britain using EU free movement rules after 2020, report warns’ Daily Mail: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3616995/500-000-refugees-UK-2020-EU-rules.html

STAR (2015) Basic Facts & Figures: http://www.star-network.org.uk/index.php/refugees/facts_figures

Philo, G. (2012) ‘The media and the banking crisis’. Sociology Review, 21 (3).

Philo, G; Briant, E & Donald, P (2013) Bad News for Refugees, London: Pluto.

British Red Cross (2016) Refugee support true stories: www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Refugee-support/Refugees-true-stories

Refugee Council (2015) Top 20 facts about asylum: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/4548_top_20_facts_about_asylum

Reuters Institute & Prime (2016) ‘Study shows that majority of press coverage in EU referendum campaign was heavily skewed in favour of Brexit in first two months of campaign’, Reuters Institute: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Press%20release%20-%20EU%20Referendum%20media%20coverage.pdf

Townsend, M (2016) ‘Revealed: immigration officers allowed to hack phones’ The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/immigration-officials-can-hack-refugees-phones

UNHCR (2015a) UNHCR Global Appeal 2016–2017 — Europe regional summary: http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/publications/fundraising/564da0e5a/unhcr-global-appeal-2016-2017-europe-regional-summary.html

UNHRC (2015b) UNHCR report shows world’s poorest countries host most refugees: http://www.unhcr-centraleurope.org/en/news/2015/unhcr-report-shows-worlds-poorest-countries-host-most-refugees.html

Wright, O (2015) ‘Attacks on British Muslims have gone up 300% since Paris’ The Independent: https://www.indy100.com/article/attacks-on-british-muslims-have-gone-up-300-since-paris--ZyMe0b1MhFx?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100

Footnotes

[1] See also Afoko & Vockins [7] for interesting analysis of key narratives of austerity, and also Briant, Watson and Philo [8] on how disability and incapacity benefit claimants were represented in the context of austerity.

[2] Vulnerable people in detention centres like this one, many of whom have been tortured and raped are now being targeted with intrusive surveillance, which makes it even harder for them to speak out to lawyers or journalists in cases of neglect or abuse [10].

[3] Refugees and asylum seekers have little money, asylum seekers are not allowed to work — they can have up to £5 expenses only and need this in cash.