Does Voice Improve Image? Studying the Link between Migrant Voice and Migrant Representation in the Media

This study questions the views in the literature which suggest that in almost all newspapers in Europe and across time stories on migrants present migrants negatively (for example migrants represented as criminals) or passive (as objects of reporting with no voice from the migrants themselves). If this literature is correct the main question is why this would be the case. One of the possible explanations may be sought by studying whether migrants are represented negatively because they do not have an active role in the news. In order to answer this question, this paper relies on evidence from research combining qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the data collected from print media in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and France. It also draws on framing theory to understand whether the proposition that ‘newspaper articles, that feature migrant voices, portray migrants in a more positive way than those that do not’ is correct. In order to do so, this study will rely on the data in the categories of sources of information (whether the individual migrant is speaking in the news and/or whether the pro-migrant association has a voice) in relation to, for example, the perspective of the news piece as well as the frames used (communitarian-cosmopolitan). The paper concludes with a discussion on inclusion in media debates, discussing whether active voices contribute to improving the image of migrants in general and Muslim migrants in particular.