Leiden University Student Repository

Wal, Renée van der (2022)

Comparing connotations: investigating the long-term mechanisms of the online news framing of refugees and asylum seekers in the Netherlands

Master thesis | Political Science (MSc)

This thesis examines in what ways the online news media has framed refugees and asylum seekers who arrived in Europe and specifically the Netherlands during the refugee crisis that started in 2015. Carrying out a qualitative content analysis of all news articles on refugees uploaded over a period of six years, it has been possible to construct four distinct connotative frames that used to depict refugees: normalization, victimization, burden and threat. The results show that on the long-term, the victimization-frame turned out to be the most popular frame to use on refugees. Additionally, online news turns out to be susceptible to the occurrence of key events, which occurrence determines the dominant frame of the subsequent weeks. This study nuances the idea that refugees are increasingly portrayed negatively by providing a long-term insight and shows the diffuse process and developments that have occurred over time.

refugees

connotative frames

victimization

normalization

burden

threat

Author

Wal, Renée van der

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development

Supervisors

Dr. Vasiliki Tsagkroni

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en