Chapter Five: Audience Studies
3. The Missing Voices in the News
3.2 Impacts on the Middle-Eastern Students
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about the actual situation of the people in their home country or the journey or where they go”
(Sabina, October 25, 2016).
As other participants noted previously, the German students also showed their understanding of news works, saying that “TV news is always like that.” But they also suggested increasing the information about refugee’s experiences because this could help local people understand better about the refugees. Lena argued:
We don’t understand why these people are here. How is anybody going to be willing to help or going to be willing to give something. (Lena, October 25, 2016)
25 Deutsche Welle articles addressed the problems faced by the asylum seekers, with a primary attention on the hostile behavior toward refugee. This was line with the students’
observation which revealed fewer articles on the journeys and wars in German news media.
The lack of concern for the displaced people was reflected in the distribution of news sources.
Migrants or refugees appeared to be the least often-quoted speakers in the Deutsche Welle stories, with around 12% of the total 123 articles.
3.2 Impacts on the Middle-Eastern Students
The news portrayals of refugee issue generated some impacts on the Middle-Eastern participants. However these impacts were never heard in the news. Firstly, they all agreed that they “were judged” sometimes in Germany. People tended to regard them as refugees because they are Muslims. Latifa illustrated her experience on the bus, being stared at by some old ladies:
When you use public transportation, some old lady would…they’re staring at you or looking, not even saying anything, just looking at you…I don’t know….The thing is that they won’t think I’m an international student in Kiel, but the idea that will come is, “Oh she’s a refugee.” (Latifa, October 23, 2016)
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Mada said it was more difficult for them to find a part-time job in Germany because the employers tended to consider them to be refugees. She described the experience when she and her husband were searching for a job:
He (my husband) was searching for job. When we went together, they felt we were refugees because it was me and my husband. If you’re student, you’re just one person.
It might not seem you’re a refugee. You’re just one. But if you’re with family, the first thing they think is (refugee). And they used to tell us, “Do you have the permission to work here? Do you have the ID or something?” And when you show them these, still they will just say, “No, this is just for one year. It has to be permanent.” or something like that. Although this is not the rule or law, they would think about if this would cause problem or….It was difficult to find a job even in the kitchen or whatsoever where students easily get a job. (Mada, October 23, 2016)
Furthermore, media seemed to represent refugees as criminals. As Omar said:
It made me look a bit bad because especially I see headlines in the news and newspaper. It’s like a Syrian is a criminal or something. They have like a Syrian refugee assaults a man. If a man, for example from Sweden, attacks a citizen here, there won’t be a Swedish man attacks people. (Omar, October 23, 2016)
His opinions generated the following discussion among other participants, commenting that the public tended to connect the Muslims with terrorism:
Mona: Yeah I guess mainly the incident happened in Cologne on the New Year last year was a big issue. Now everyone is kind of scared of it.
Mada: Especially from Muslims.
Mona: And those attacks in Paris.
Naima: There’s a link between refugee and terrorism.
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Mona: Now people look at you and, “Oh god, she’s an extreme.”
Mada: No, they don’t do that between refugee (and terrorism). They do that between terrorist and Muslims. Terrorist-Muslims. (Middle-Eastern students, October 23, 2016)
The portrayals of the refugee issue in the news stereotyped the Muslim community as criminals and terrorists and made them “look worse.” Omar argued:
It’s kind of photo from media. They don’t have to mention the religion…criminal on him. That’s something. Criminal is criminal whether he’s Muslim, Christian or...
(Omar, October 23, 2016)
In the previous chapter, I have displayed how the Deutsche Welle articles connected the Cologne sexual attacks with Islam culture and how the reporters described the offenders as men with “Middle-Eastern appearance” or men spoke “Arabic.” Such emphasis on the ethnic, religious, and cultural background could create a general and simple image that people with this background are criminals or have the intention to do bad things. Such stereotype of Muslims is never challenged in the Deutsche Welle sample articles. Mona concluded the Cologne incident affected how people looked at her because she wears the scarf:
It means that I’m a Muslim. It means that I’m a refugee. It means that I have some intention to do some bad things or I’m not mingling with the western culture. (Mona, October 23, 2016)
Although she was also influenced by the assaults in Cologne and was afraid of going out at night. “Me, myself is a bit scared now here to go outside. I used to think Kiel is so safe that I would go out even it is twelve O’clock. But now I wouldn’t do that” (Mona, October 23, 2016).
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The media pictures the refugees and the Muslims as the same group of people, especially when associating them with crimes. Such a general picture neglects the fact that not all of the Muslims are refugees, not all of the Muslims are criminals, and the most
important fact that not all of the Muslims are men. As Mona said that she now felt a bit scared.
When the news media pictures refugees and Muslims as criminals, they forget that there are refugee females and Muslim females who are also afraid of these crimes. In the Deutsche Welle news coverage, German women’s fear was clearly addressed since they were often quoted to describe the criminal scene or to comment the measures implemented to protect women. They were the speakers for all of the women. Refugees and migrants appeared to be the least often-quoted speakers in the news, while the Muslim female was the most silent actor in the coverage.
3.3 “The Media Helps Us In The Way How We Analyze Things Happened.”
For Rafi, as a refugee in Germany, the news helped him realize why the people would have certain behavior toward him. He pessimistically believed that the news would affect people’s attitudes as well as behaviors and such influences could ultimately motivate him to keep distance from people:
So for me, when we hear some media stuff, so we understand people gonna think, they will believe the media. We don’t have the possibility to think maybe they will not believe it. For example, like things happened in Cologne, if I see people doing bad way to me, I’m gonna understand because they see this or they would not accept me to work or to live with them. If there something happen like that, I will understand because they read the things in the news. So I analyze in this way. I see the people think like that. That’s why I don’t say, “We probably believe it or not believe it”. I will put a line. Maybe I will also make distance to not make (friends with) people, because I think people will think like that. (Rafi, October 25, 2016)
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4. Summary
As previous studies suggested, news coverage of ethnic minorities not only influence audiences’ interpretations but also have some impacts on their daily lives (van Dijk, 1987 &
1989; Philo et al, 2013). The discussions above reveal that participants from different regions had various impressions of refugees. For some Asian students, since they were far away from home, their parents showed more concern for safety issue. For the European students, they were impressed by the image of “beggars” because news in their countries usually reported the messy situation. The Middle-Eastern participants, on the other hand, appeared to be the victims of the prejudice. As for the German students, they had various impressions of refugees because each of them had different experiences with the people.
The participants were aware certain patterns in the refugee news. For instance, they noticed that the reporters tended to use some disaster metaphors or negative connotations to describe the refugees and to make them feel “threatened” or “overwhelmed.” They also observed an overemphasis on the political debate and a lack of concern for refugees in the German news media. Their observation corresponds to the findings in the analysis of the Deutsche Welle news articles, demonstrating a heavy reliance on the authority source and a negative portrayal of the refugee issue.
In addition, the safety issue seemed to bother most participants no matter where they came from. The female participants especially felt the fear after the Cologne sexual assaults took place on the New Year’s Eve, 2015. The Muslim participants were judged because people tended to link the crimes with the entire Muslim community. Amid the various arguments and debates in the news, the Muslim females got zero places to speak loudly that they were also afraid of the attacks.
The refugees were generally depicted as burdens, threats, criminals, or terrorists in the news. Many of the participants denied such portrayals or altered their initial negative
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impressions because they had some interactions with the displaced people. Some of them had refugee friends, some of them participated in voluntary works, and some others tried to start a conversation. These experiences helped them destroy the negative image of refugees in the news and the prejudice. But the interviews also reveal that for some issues, safety issue in particular, the news impacts were so strong that the participants could hardly avoid the influences. As Rafi pessimistically stated he had no possibility to believe that people would not be affected.
The result demonstrates a negotiation between the news and the audiences. The participants did not passively receive the news information. They sometimes rejected it because they knew this was not the truth. To keep distance from the “bad news,” some of them would choose other channels that accorded with their values. But sometimes they failed in the struggles with media and were still influenced by its effects. The study shows a
dynamic relationship between the news and the readers. There is a process of negotiation between these two agents.