Does the Press Distinguish Between Freedom of Movement and Third-Country Migration?

Mass media can play a role in fostering positive or negative narratives concerning migration and freedom of movement. Through an examination of newspaper coverage of immigration and migrants in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, this paper asks several interrelated questions that place the portrayal of freedom of movement within the overall context of migration in the EU. First, what is the balance in terms of the frequency of press coverage of the migration of third-country nationals compared to that of EU citizens who are exercising freedom of movement, and how often are the two groups conflated? Second, is the movement of EU citizens perceived more positively than the migration of third-country nationals? Third, what are the most common narratives that the press constructs surrounding EU citizens who migrate, and do these differ substantially from the framing of third-country national migration? One could assume that the mobility of EU citizens would be linked more predominantly to economic issues, since the EU’s freedom of movement is rooted in the concept of labor mobility. Is this reflected empirically? While the project’s aggregated data provides a pan-European perspective based upon newspaper coverage in the EU’s five largest countries, parsing out the results for each individual country also facilitates the comparison of coverage between the countries. This allows us to assess where there are commonalities in the framing of freedom of movement and migration while also exposing how press coverage distinguishes itself by country.