New Study Shows Media Plays Role in Dehumanizing Immigrants and Refugees Western
go to original September 24, 2013

The study is available here

A new study from Western University suggests that the news media may take advantage of an existing uncertainty and unease around immigration policies and the treatment of immigrants and refugees to create a crisis mentality in which these groups are portrayed as “enemies at the gate” attempting to invade western nations.

In “Uncertainty, Threat, and the Role of the Media in Promoting the Dehumanization of Immigrants and Refugees,” published in this month’s Journal of Social Issues, Victoria Esses from Western’s Department of Psychology and Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, and her team, including Stelian Medianu and Andrea Lawson, examine the effects of common media portrayals of immigrants and refugees on dehumanization and its consequences. These portrayals include suggestions that immigrants spread infectious diseases, that refugee claimants are often bogus, and that terrorists may gain entry to western nations disguised as refugees.

"In the current global climate, immigration and refugee policies are a hot topic of debate and there is little direct information available to the public to answer their questions," says Esses. "This creates an opportunity for the media and political elites to grab the public's attention, alerting them to supposed physical, economic, and cultural threats from immigrants and refugees as they transform relatively mundane episodes into newsworthy events that can be sold to the public and serve as support for relatively extreme political platforms."

Read the rest at Western

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