新聞中的難民危機與閱聽人詮釋：以德國科隆大規模性騷擾事件為例 - 政大學術集成

全文

(1)國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學位學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University. 碩士論文. Master’s Thesis 政治. 大. 立. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 新聞中的難民危機與閱聽人詮釋：. io. sit. y. Nat. 以德國科隆大規模性騷擾事件為例. er. News Representation and Audience Interpretation:. al. n. v i n The Case of CologneCMassive Assaults in Germany h e n gSexual chi U. Student: Ying-Fan Wu 吳映璠 Advisor: Prof. Sumei Wang, Ph.D 王淑美博士. 中華民國 106 年 7 月 July 2017.

(2) 摘要本研究欲達成以下兩項目標：1. 探究德國新聞媒體如何再現難民議題；2. 探究德國本地學生及在德國的國際學生如何詮釋難民議題。研究者使用內容分析法及批判論述分析法檢視德國之聲英文版網站文章，以 2015 年跨年夜科隆大規模性騷擾事件為探究案例，一共檢視 123 篇報導。研究成果和過去研究一致，發現難民報導多呈現特定負面主題，例如聚焦遣返難民的討論，或者強調穆斯林文化是造成性騷擾事件的主因。然而，本研究也發現不少報導呼籲讀者保持理性，避免將性騷擾事件和難民議題混為一談。相較之下，德國之聲在報導難民議題時，呈現較. 政治大本研究第二部份關注閱聽人如何詮釋難民議題，以及哪些因素會影響閱聽人形塑對立. 多元的主題。. ‧ 國. 學. 難民議題的看法。研究者於 2016 年在德國進行 5 組焦點團體訪談，訪談對象涵蓋德國學生、中東學生、歐洲學生及亞洲學生。研究發現，新聞報導、個人的邏輯思考、日常. ‧. 生活中的談話，以及個人和難民的互動經驗都會影響閱聽人對難民議題的看法，尤其互. sit. y. Nat. 動經驗能夠幫助閱聽人扭轉先前對難民的既定印象，然而若牽涉到安全議題，閱聽人對. al. er. io. 難民的態度仍會受制於新聞中所呈現的印象。閱聽人在接觸新聞的過程中，不只是被動. v. n. 地接收訊息，研究發現，閱聽人時而接受這樣的新聞再現，時而立基於自身經驗，抗拒. Ch. 新聞訊息，呈現出不斷協商的過程。. engchi. i n U. 關鍵詞：難民、科隆性騷擾事件、新聞再現、閱聽人詮釋. i.

(3) Abstract Based on my first-hand experiences in Germany, this study aims to explore the relationship between the news representation of the European refugee crisis and the audience interpretation. This study first illustrates how German news media, Deutsche Welle, reported on the refugee crisis. Then, it explores the influences of the reports on the interpretation of audience and whether there were other sources of information used when they formulated their opinions on the refugee issues. In particular, this study puts an emphasis on the effects of interactions with refugees on people’s attitudes. To achieve the first objective, both content analysis and. 政治大 study especially focuses on the case 立 of sexual assaults took place in Cologne on the New Year’s critical discourse analysis are employed to explore the portrayals of refugee in the news. The. ‧ 國. 學. Eve of 2015. It is revealed that the refugees were generally associated with negative images. News reports tended to focus on the discussion of deporting refugees and to emphasize the. ‧. numbers of the coming people. However, these news articles also presented relatively neutral. sit. y. Nat. attitude of the experts and highlighted the problematic situation refugees faced. The findings. n. al. er. io. show that Deutsche Welle fairly reported on the refugee issue with various aspects.. v. To discover how people interpret the refugee crisis, this study conducts five focus group. Ch. engchi. i n U. discussions with students in Germany of different ethnic and nationality. In particular, the participants of the group discussions include local Germans, Europeans, Middle-Eastern people, and Asians. It is found that people’s attitudes toward refugees were influenced not only by news, but also by their logic, opinions of their surroundings, and their own personal experiences. Their personal experiences usually helped counteract the negative impressions of refugee. However, the effects of news portrayals sometimes exceeded that of personal experiences, especially when facing the safety issue. This study reveals a continued negotiation between the news and the audiences. Keywords: refugee crisis, Cologne sexual assaults, news representation, audience interpretation i.

(4) Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. 1. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. 5. 1. 2.. THE EUROPEAN REFUGEE CRISIS THE PORTRAYAL OF REFUGEES IN THE NEWS MEDIA 2.1 Lexicons Refer to Illegality and Criminality 2.2 Uses of Numbers 2.3 Reliance on the Expert. 5 6 7 8 9. 2.4 Immigrants vs. Refugees 2.5 Themes 2.6 German News Coverage of Refugee Crisis 3. NEWS REPRESENTATION OF ETHNIC MINORITY AND AUDIENCE STUDIES 3.1 News Effects on Audience Interpretation. 立. Audience Interpretation and Local Interaction. ‧ 國. 學. 3.2. 政治大. CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY. ‧. 1.. EXPLORING THE REPRESENTATION OF REFUGEE CRISIS IN THE NEWS MEDIA 1.1 Content Analysis. 10 10 12 14 14 16 19 19 19. Nat. CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENTS IN DEUTSCHE WELLE. 30. 1.. 30 30 30 32 32 33. n. al. er. sit. y. 20 21 21 24 25 26 26 27 28 28. io. 1.2 Sample of the News Coverage of the Cologne Sexual Assaults 1.2.1. Deutsche Welle 1.2.2. New Year’s Eve Sexual Assaults in Cologne 1.3 Coding Manual 1.4 Critical Discourse Analysis 2. GATHERING AUDIENCE RESPONSES TOWARD REFUGEE CRISIS 2.1 Focus Group Discussion 2.2 Group Composition 2.3 Interview Questions 2.4 Conducting the Focus Group Discussion. Ch. engchi. CONTENT ANALYSIS 1.1 News Source 1.1.1 Politicians 1.1.2 Police/ Judiciary 1.1.3 NGOs 1.1.4 Citizens i. i n U. v.

(5) 1.1.5 Other Experts. 34. 1.1.6 Refugees/ Asylum Seekers/ Migrants 1.2 Immigrants vs. Refugees 1.3 Themes 1.3.1 The Need for “Immigration Control” 1.3.2 The Cultural Differences, Security Threats, and Problems 1.3.3 Problems Faced by Asylum Seekers 1.3.4 The Blame on Refugees Should Be Avoided 1.3.5 Burden on Administration, Welfare and Job Market 1.3.6 Helping Refugee Stories/ Appealing for Solidarity 1.3.7 Contribution of Immigration 1.4 Summary 2. CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 2.1 Actor Analysis 2.1.1 Offender. 立. 45 47 47 48. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 2.1.2 Police and authority 2.1.3 Victim 2.1.4 Headline 2.1.5 Summary 2.2 The Numbers Used to Describe the Coming People in 2015 2.2.1 One Million Refugees?. n. al. Ch. engchi. sit er. io. Some Vague Figures and Metaphors Speculation about the Future Arrivals Negative Terms Emphasizing the Money in Aid Comparisons Summary. y. Nat. 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.2.5 2.2.6 2.2.7. i n U. 34 36 38 39 41 41 42 43 44 44. v. 49 50 51 52 52 52 53 55 56 56 57 58. CHAPTER FIVE: AUDIENCE STUDIES. 59. 1.. 60. GENERAL IMAGES OF REFUGEE. 1.1 Asian and Afro-Caribbean Group 1.2 European Group 1.3 German Group 1.4 Middle-Eastern Group 2. THE REFUGEE ISSUE IN THE NEWS 2.1 The Difference between Refugee and Migrant 2.2 The Numbers Used to Describe the Displaced People 2.3 “They Are Violent, They Are Aggressive.” ii. 60 61 62 63 65 65 68 71.

(6) 2.4. There Are More Discussions on German Politics Than the Concern about the. Refugees 2.5 “Media Tries to Make the People Not Be Racist.” 3. THE MISSING VOICES IN THE NEWS 3.1 A Lack of Concern for Refugees 3.2 Impacts on the Middle-Eastern Students 3.3 “The Media Helps Us In The Way How We Analyze Things Happened.” 4. SUMMARY. 76 76 77 77 78 81 82. CHAPTER SIX: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. 84. 1.. THEORETICAL FINDINGS. 86. 2. 3.. CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH. 90 90. REFERENCES. 立. 93 101. 學. ‧ 國. APPENDICES. 政治大. ‧. APPENDIX 1: CODING MANUAL APPENDIX 2: LIST OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS APPENDIX 3: THE ARTICLE FOR ACTOR ANALYSIS. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U. v. 101 103 104.

(7) List of Figures and Tables FIGURE 1 NEW YEAR’S EVE SEXUAL ASSAULTS IN COLOGNE- TIMELINE TABLE 1 PERCENTAGE AND FREQUENCIES OF EACH NEWS SOURCE IN COLOGNE INCIDENT NEWS COVERAGE IN DEUTSCHE WELLE TABLE 2 FREQUENCIES AND PERCENTAGE OF EACH LABELS TABLE 3 PERCENTAGE AND FREQUENCIES OF EACH THEME IN COLOGNE INCIDENT NEWS COVERAGE IN DEUTSCHE WELLE TABLE 4 FREQUENCIES OF EACH MAJOR ACTOR APPEARED IN THE NEWS ARTICLE TABLE 5 SUMMARY OF PARTICIPANTS. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 y. sit. n. er. io. Ch. 30 37 39 48 59. Nat. al. 24. engchi. iv. i n U. v.

(8) Chapter One: Introduction 1. Establishing the Context On October 1, 2015, I flew to Kiel, a medium-sized city in northern Germany, to begin my one-year student exchange program. It was during that time when many people from the Middle East and Northern Africa fled to Europe, causing the refugee issue to come into the fore of public life. My parents were worried about me since they read about terrorist attacks in Paris and the news often implied that many of the refugees were terrorists in disguise. During my stay I was not really bothered by the arrival of refugees and asylum. 政治大. seekers. Although there was a refugee camp in the university, I seldom was able to identify. 立. the refugees because I could not tell them apart from the large amount of immigrants that. ‧ 國. 學. came to Germany from the Middle East.. Furthermore, the news I read (often the Deutsche Welle online English website) rarely. ‧. associated the term “terrorist” with the refugees and instead focused on the discussion of. y. Nat. sit. border policy and integration policy. When reporting any accidents related to foreigners, the. n. al. er. io. Deutsche Welle news insisted on using “attack” rather than “terror attack” and reiterated, “It. i n U. v. is not helpful to view all refugees, let alone all Muslims, with suspicion” (Steiner, 2016). In. Ch. engchi. addition with my preexisting personal feelings toward the refugee issue, the German news articles I have read also fostered a different viewpoint when compared to my parents. On the New Year’s Eve 2015, a large scale of sexual assaults conducted by men of “Arab or North African appearance” took place in Cologne. This incident dominated the headlines domestically and globally, with many linking the crimes to Germany’s friendly refugee policy. It goes without saying that my parents showed their concern over the issue, stating that “TV news said refugees raped women.” What my parents saw on TV conflicted with the Deutsche Welle news which merely described the offenders as being “Arab or North African” and appealed to the readers not to 1.

(9) connect the incident with refugees. A few weeks later during dinner with a German friend, she expressed worries about the arrival of refugees because “they do not respect women.” She also showed the distrust of the German news media, criticizing them for being partial toward refugees. My friend was usually informed by the posts on her Facebook page and her parents who live in the countryside. Her comment and my personal experiences with parents have aroused interest in exploring how German news media report on refugee crisis. Meanwhile, I began volunteering in a private organization to help sort donated clothes for the asylum seekers. Many volunteers were in their fifties and sixties but participated. 政治大 about the asylum situation and wanted to know “how it is going.” I was impressed by her 立 regularly. One female volunteer told me she joined this work because she was concerned. statements and was wondering why people would have such different attitudes toward the. ‧ 國. 學. same issue. The experiences motivated me to find out how the people in Germany interpret. ‧. the refugee crisis and what kind of sources foster their opinions in my thesis.. sit. y. Nat. 2. Motivations for the Study. n. al. er. io. Previous studies on the news representation of ethnic minorities found that news. i n U. v. media tend to report refugees and asylum seekers negatively by emphasizing the large. Ch. engchi. number of arrivals, often connecting them with financial burden, security concern, or cultural difference, and by implying refugees are undeserving immigrants. However, recent studies that focused on the German news coverage of the refugee crisis yielded different results, demonstrating a more positive image of refugees. To date, there has not been much research that examines news coverage of the recent refugee crisis, especially those in German news media. It is worth academic attention to explore its news reporting and to give a systematic elaboration. Furthermore, studies in the field of media influences of ethnic issues often focused on the perspective of attitude change by employing survey investigation. Only a few projects. 2.

(10) gave audiences a chance to comment on what they read from news and to illustrate the influences on their daily lives. In recent years, the only research conducting interviews with audiences merely concerned the news effects on established immigrant communities. It is worth further attention to depict how the local citizens respond to the new arrivals.. 3. Aim and Scope of the Study My research aims to explore the relationship between the news representation of refugee crisis and the audience interpretation. To achieve this goal, the study then develops two objectives: 1. It tries to illustrate how German news media reported on the current. 政治大 crisis. By exploring these two objectives, 立 this research hopes to find out how the audiences refugee crisis and 2. It wishes to discover how the people in Germany interpreted refugee. ‧ 國. 學. respond to the refugee news and what kind of sources formulate their interpretations toward the refugee issue. I especially focus on the interactions with refugees and its effects on. ‧. people’s attitudes.. sit. y. Nat. Due to the language constraints, this study only examines the articles on the Deutsche. n. al. er. io. Welle English website, mainly focusing on the Cologne sexual assaults in 2015. In regard to. i n U. v. audience interpretations toward refugees, the study narrows the focus of the audience to local. Ch. engchi. and international students in Kiel. Therefore, this thesis consists of two research questions: 1. How is the refugee crisis portrayed in Deutsche Welle in regard to the Cologne sexual assaults? and 2. How do German students and international students interpret the refugee crisis?. 4. Significance of the Study One intended outcome of the study is to analyze the common frames Deutsche Welle used for refugee news in regard to the Cologne sexual assaults, primarily because there is not much discussion in the academic community about its refugee reporting so far. A second intended outcome is to discover the relationships between news influences, audience interpretations, and personal experiences which hopefully can contribute some new findings 3.

(11) in the field of audience studies.. 5. Overview of the Study This thesis is comprised of six chapters. The first chapter briefly illustrates my personal experiences which inspired this study. Chapter 2 investigates previous literature on ethnic news coverage and audience studies, and establishes two research questions. Chapter 3 explains how I resolved these two research questions. Firstly, in order to explore how Deutsche Welle portrayed the Cologne incident, both content analysis and critical discourse analysis were employed to examine its news coverage. Secondly, focus group interviews. 政治大 Asian and Afro-Caribbean students 立 in order to explore how the students in Germany. were conducted with German students, European students, Middle-Eastern students, and. ‧ 國. 學. interpreted the arrival of refugees. The analysis of the frames of the Deutsche Welle refugee news and the interviews are displayed in chapter 4 and 5 respectively. In the last chapter, I. ‧. discuss the general ideas the study has reached and display the conclusions.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 4. i n U. v.

(12) Chapter Two: Literature Review 1. The European Refugee Crisis In 2014, more than 200,000 people arrived on Europe’s Mediterranean shores, three times the number for all of 2013 (UNHCR, 2015). In 2015, the statistics revealed that the number of arrivals had sharply increased to 1,014,000 (UNHCR, 2016b). Meanwhile, nearly 34,900 people arrived in Europe by land (“Migrant crisis,” 2016). Figures from the UNHCR (2016b) revealed the top five most common countries of origin in 2016 were Middle-Eastern countries and Northern African countries, with Syrians constituting 23% of the arrivals. The. 政治大. other four included Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq, and Eritrea. A large number among those. 立. arriving at sea were refugees and asylum seekers fleeing from war, violence, and persecution. ‧ 國. 學. (UNHCR, 2014).. There are three major routes most refugees and asylum seekers used to enter the. ‧. European Union (EU): the Eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to Greece, Bulgaria, and. y. Nat. io. sit. Cyprus, the Central Mediterranean route from Northern Africa to Italy, and the Western. n. al. er. Mediterranean route from Northern Africa to Spain. Most refugees, around 850,000 people in. i n U. v. 2015, fled across the sea through the Eastern route. After the EU-Turkey Statement on March. Ch. engchi. 18, 2016, the number of refugees arriving on European shores decreased significantly to around 170,000 since fewer people took the Eastern Mediterranean route. The Central route remains the primary way for asylum seekers to reach Europe currently (UNHCR, 2017). However, the Central route is also the most dangerous among the sea routs, taking 90% of the asylum seekers’ lives in 2016 (UNHCR, 2016a). This increase in arrivals has prompted EU states to adopt three major responses. Firstly, the European countries began to strengthen the EU’s internal and external borders, preventing people from making their way to Northern and Eastern Europe (Cardiff School of Journalism, 2015). Hungary is currently building the second fence along its southern border 5.

(13) with Serbia (“Hungary begins second line of fence,” 2017). Bulgaria and Turkey closed their borders (Wesel, 2016). Five Schengen zone countries, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, imposed border controls beginning in 2015 (“European Commission recommends,” 2017). Moreover, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, all strengthened the importance of protecting the EU’s exterior borders during an EU interior ministers meeting in Vienna (Wesel, 2016). Secondly, the states tried to prevent people from entering the EU by restricting the activities of human traffickers in the Mediterranean (Cardiff School of Journalism, 2015). To cope with. 政治大 to relocate 120,000 refugees across the continent over two years, although Slovakia, Hungary, 立. those who have arrived in Europe, the EU member states approved a plan in September 2015. Romania, and Czech Republic opposed the proposal. However, the plan is being implemented. ‧ 國. 學. slowly. In September 2016, it was revealed that only 5,651 asylum seekers have been. ‧. relocated from Greece and Italy to other European countries (“Thematic Briefing,” 2016).. sit. y. Nat. More than 1.2 million asylum seekers applied for international protection in the EU in. io. er. 2016. Among the member states, Germany is the major destination for refugees, with more than 722,300 (60%) new asylum applications. Italy secured second place for asylum. al. n. v i n C happlications by theUend of December 2016. applications. It received 121,200 (10%) engchi. Regarding the application rates, Germany had the highest in proportion to its population. Nearly 8,800 refugees per 1 million German inhabitants claimed asylum in 2016. It was followed by Greece with 4,625 applicants (European Commission, 2017).. 2. The Portrayal of Refugees in the News Media The media plays a prominent role in the “public representation of unequal social relations” (Cottle, 2000). Apart from the explicitly unequal and violent treatment of ethnic minorities, such as segregation, lynching, systematic discrimination, or even insults in public discourse and everyday conversation, it is said that nowadays media engages in a way of. 6.

(14) “new racism” (Barker, 1981), which describes minorities as not “biologically inferior, but different” (van Dijk, 2000). Van Dijk (2000) argued that these discursive descriptions can be as effective as those obvious discriminations which marginalizes and excludes minorities. They are often tacitly accepted by most members of the dominant majority group because they seem so “natural” and “normal.” Through media representations, audiences are invited to construct a sense of who “we are” and who “we are not”, and to demarcate “us” and “them,” “insider” and “outsider,” “citizen” and “foreigner,” “normal” and “deviant” (Cottle, 2000). The media not only constructs the image of the minority group, but also the beliefs people. 政治大 minorities (van Dijk, 2000). Previous studies have found some general patterns of news 立 have, which influences the knowledge, attitudes, ideologies, norms, and values toward. reporting on ethnic minorities. I discuss them in the following paragraphs.. ‧ 國. 學. 2.1 Lexicons Refer to Illegality and Criminality. ‧. Immigrants as well as refugees are generally depicted in negative terms in the media. sit. y. Nat. (van Dijk, 2000; Klocker & Dunn,2003; Gilbert, 2013). Lexicons, including “illegal,” “alien,”. al. er. io. and “criminal,” are widely used to describe the undocumented immigrants. Words such as. v. n. “bogus” and “fraudulent” imply that immigrants may violate the norms and the law (van Dijk,. Ch. engchi. i n U. 2000; Gilbert, 2013). Ethnic minorities are thus connected with criminality and illegality by the media, and are framed as a threat to the host society (Klocker & Dunn, 2003; Chavez, 2008; Newton, 2008). The mechanism of “otherness” is also employed to depict the minority groups as different and deviant (van Dijk, 1991; Dunn & Mahtani, 2001; Klocker & Dunn, 2003). As van Dijk (2000) noted in his analysis of reports on ethnic affairs, he found that there is an overall strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation in the media. These kinds of narratives create a political imagination and serve as a justification to curtail the rights of the minority groups in entering or remaining within the host nations, and. 7.

(15) thus drive the immigration control debate (Jiwani, 2006; Koulish, 2010; Gilbert, 2013). These lexicons draw a natural demarcation between us and them. These narratives are normalized and embedded in everyday ideologies and attitudes (Gilbert, 2013).. 2.2 Uses of Numbers When producing news reports, numbers are frequently used to suggest objectivity and credibility (van Dijk, 2000; Gilbert, 2013). However, as van Dijk (2000) argued, when reporting on immigration issues, numbers are also used to “associate immigration with problems and threats.” For example, Gilbert (2013) found that when Canadian press reported. 政治大 arrivals. The speculation could立 be some vague estimations, including “hundreds more,”. on the count of refugee claimants, a speculation was frequently used to estimate the future. ‧ 國. 學. “thousands more,” or a specific number of “7,000.”. Transportation metaphors or terms referring to natural disasters, such as “busloads,”. ‧. “like an iceberg,” and “flooding in,” are also used to illustrate the speculation (Gilbert, 2013;. sit. y. Nat. Philo, Briant & Donald, 2013). Philo et al. (2013) argued that the disaster rhetoric evokes. n. al. er. io. people arriving in huge unmanageable number and implies an inherent danger. Actually, there. i n U. v. are not so many people arriving in the host nations. This is just a strategy of hyperbole to. Ch. engchi. leave the audience with the impression that figures are increasing and their countries are being flooded by migrants and thus keeping the crisis alive (van Dijk, 2000; Jiang, 2012; Gilbert, 2013). Numbers are also used to emphasize the cost or expense of refugee services. In the examination of Canadian coverage of the influx of refugees from Mexico, Gilbert (2013) found that specific figures, $250,000 for example, were frequently used along with such lexicons as “and rising daily” in order to “keep the readers interested and alarmed.” Terms including “overload” and “crunch” also implied the government’s powerlessness against the large number of arrivals and related costs. Such alarming numbers and metaphors depicted. 8.

(16) the Mexican refugees as economic problems, “draining” public resources and “stealing jobs.” Mexican refugees were therefore regarded as “a threat to the local economy and a burden to the Canadian state.” Other problems with the numbers cited in the ethnic coverage include the undeclared origin which fails in informing the readers of credibility (Jiang, 2012; Philo et al., 2013). Jiang (2012) further argued that the massive increase of figures is presented without explaining contextualizing factors. Examples include improvements in detection techniques or the method to measure these statistics.. 政治大 Media relies heavily on立 expert sources when reporting on immigration issues. In the. 2.3 Reliance on the Expert. ‧ 國. 學. examination of refugee representations in seven British newspapers, Philo et al. (2013) found that politicians were most cited sources in the press. Only around 3% of statements were cited. ‧. from refugees and asylum seekers themselves. Nearly half of the statements were negative. sit. y. Nat. and critical to the asylum discussion and only seven statements expressed positive position.. n. al. er. io. It is reasonable that media takes expert statements seriously since they stand in an. i n U. v. official status. Expert utterances thus carry authority in both discourse and practice (van. Ch. engchi. Leeuwen, 2008). However, as Jiwani (2006) argued, a heavy reliance on experts and the government as official sources may lead to an “authority-disorder bias.” Since their duty is to restore order in the society, experts and government officials are frequently asked to comment on the breaches of norms and values, or on the threats to social stability and social order. Example includes a case in Windsor, a small town in Canada, which expert opinions completely overshadowed the personal stories of refugee claimants and the expertise of refugee rights activists. Mayor of Windsor, who was the most frequently interviewed in the news, argued that the city was overwhelmed by the cost of the social services provided for Mexican refugees which could extend financial uncertainty. Though the number of asylum. 9.

(17) claimants appeared to decrease, service providers kept speculating: “There might be many more coming through the border that we aren’t aware of” (Gilbert, 2013).. 2.4 Immigrants vs. Refugees The news accounts of refugees and migrants were also discussed in previous studies. Demarcation between immigrants and refugees implies who deserves the protection and social aid offered by the international community (Willen, 2012; Huschke, 2014; Holmes & Castañeda, 2016). According to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1967), people who are outside the country of. 政治大 nationality, membership of a particular 立 social group or political opinion,” and are “unable or,. his nationality due to the “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,. ‧ 國. 學. owing to such fear, are unwilling to return it” acquire the status of “refugees.” Status prior to the process of being confirmed as refugee is referred to “asylum seeker” (Philo et al., 2013).. ‧. The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) defined the. sit. y. Nat. term “forced migration” as “the movements of refugees and internally displaced people. n. al. er. io. (those displaced by conflicts) as well as people displaced by natural or environmental. i n U. v. disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects. (‘What is forced. Ch. engchi. migration’, n.d.)” Generally, the definitions of refugees and asylum seekers suggest that these displaced people are “forced” to leave their home countries and imply that these people “deserve” protections, assistances, social rights, and services in another country (Yarris and Castañeda, 2015; Holmes & Castañeda, 2016). In contrast, immigrants or migrants tend to be portrayed as “voluntarily” leaving their home countries to make a better life. They are regarded as crossing the borders with their own choices. They are positioned as being unworthy of social, economic, and political rights (Holmes & Castañeda, 2016).. 2.5 Themes 10.

(18) Previous studies of race coverage in Europe and North America revealed that reports are usually limited to a small number of themes, including immigration, crime, cultural difference, and race relations (Smith, 1984; van Dijk, 1991). Parallel to the prior findings, van Dijk (2000) noted that news about immigrants and ethnic minorities is often restricted to the following kinds of events: arrival of new immigrants; political response to policies about (new) immigration; reception problems (housing, etc.); social problems (employment, welfare, etc.); response of the population (resentment, etc.); cultural characterization: how are they different; complications and negative characterization: how are they deviant; focus on. 政治大 immigration; and integration conflicts. 立. threats: violence, crime, drugs, and prostitution; political response: policies to stop. Other ethnic issues, such as migrants leaving the country, the contributions of. ‧ 國. 學. immigrant workers to the economy, everyday life of minority communities, and. ‧. discrimination and racism against minorities are much less reported in the news. Van Dijk. y. sit. io. er. a threat to us.. Nat. (2000) thus concluded that media tend to represent immigration being different, deviant, and. Studies of British media representation of minorities revealed that media coverage. al. n. v i n Ch places more emphasis on issues about reduction of migrant rights, the burden on welfare engchi U states, and the dishonesty of migrants (Kaye, 1998; Koser & Lutz, 1998; Philo, 1999;. Pickering, 2001; ICAR, 2004). Finney and Robinson (2008), however, found that local presses tend to report on varied themes, including conflict for resources, problems concerning the number of asylum seekers, causes of asylum seeking, contributions and experiences of asylum seekers, and so on. Their findings showed a “human face” of the often “de-humanized and abstract issues” and the “good deeds” of asylum seekers. In addition, Philo et al. (2013) employed thematic analysis to examine eight key themes in the discussion on asylum and how these discussions were demonstrated in the news texts. The key themes included: 1. Conflation of forced and economic migration; 2. Numbers 11.

(19) and exaggeration; 3. Burden on welfare and job market; 4. Criminality, threat, deportation, and human rights; 5. The need for “immigration control;” 6. The benefits of immigration; 7. Problems facing asylum seekers; and 8. Global capitalism, imperialism, and western responsibility. They assumed that in any controversial area there will be a range of contested perspectives and aimed to explore which perspective dominated while others were absent or appeared only as fragments. The research identified some key issues: 1. There was a persistent and overwhelmingly hostile coverage of refugees in much of the national media; 2. There was a confusion in news accounts between refugees, asylum seekers, and other. 政治大 the inaccurate and partial reporting, were relatively absent. 立. migrants; and 3. Voices of refugees or those who represented them, as a form of balance to. ‧ 國. 學. 2.6 German News Coverage of Refugee Crisis. When searching for studies of German news portrayal of recent refugee issue, two. ‧. studies were generated. Cardiff School of Journalism (2015) compared media coverage of. sit. y. Nat. refugee crisis in five European countries, including Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK, and. n. al. er. io. Sweden from the middle of 2014 to the beginning of 2015. In the German case, three. i n U. v. newspapers were examined, namely Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Die Welt, which stands. Ch. engchi. for populist right, center-left, and center-right respectively. Following the previous studies, Cardiff School of Journalism (2015) employed content analysis to examine the news accounts for refugees and immigrants, news sources, and themes in the press. With regard to the lexicons used to describe the displaced people, refugee (flüchtling(e)) and asylum seeker (asylsuchende(r)) were most used in German media. Phrases, such as economic migrant (Wirtschaftsmigranten), economic refugee (Wirtschaftsflüchtlinge) or illegal (Illegale(r)), were almost never used. In the discussion of news sources, it is found that German presses relied heavily on domestic political sources. More than 75% of the sources were contributed by the then grand coalition government. 12.

(20) comprised of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), while the Greens (GRÜ NE) made up almost the rest of the coverage appearances. Refugees and NGOs were also prominent sources, which talked about the suffering refugees experienced on the way to Germany, their hopes, aspirations, or the experiences of living in Germany. The citizen opinions that were reported were overwhelmingly positive toward refugees. Themes in German presses fell along a left-right axis. Central right newspapers tended to be more policy-oriented, focusing on refugee numbers and threats to the national. 政治大 threat themes and concentrated on tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea, the positive integration 立 security, cultural cohesion, and resources. In contrast, center-left newspapers featured less. of refugees, humanitarian angles, and appeals against deportations.. ‧ 國. 學. In another study, Holmes and Castañeda (2016) employed discourse analysis to. ‧. evaluate how refugee issues were framed in German media and how the local communities. y. Nat. resisted such frames through practices. It is found that such terms as “criminals” or “terrorists”. er. io. sit. were used in refugee reports, implying that refugees were “inﬁltrated with Muslim extremists and were a potential ISIS Trojan horse.” Cultural, ethnic, and religious differences were also. al. n. v i n C h Holmes and Castañeda highlighted to mark refugees as a threat. (2016) therefore concluded engchi U. that these narratives suggested “Europe is homogenously white and Christian, erasing. long-existing ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity” (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1998). Issues regarding “solidarity,” “responsibility,” and “Willkommenskultur” (culture of welcome), however, were also identified in German news media. People could read stories about newly formed neighborhood organizations or existing groups shifting their missions to provide support for refugees. There have not been sufficient studies of the recent refugee crisis in German news media to date. Although these two studies have expanded our horizons, some of the patterns of news reporting were not discussed. For instance, how the numbers were used in the news 13.

(21) reports still remains unclear. Furthermore, the main focus of the studies was placed on the early phase of the European refugee crisis, news coverage before September 2015 in particular. Public opinions and the tones of media discussion have changed following the development of the issue. For example, there are increasing criticisms toward the “open-border policy” in Germany since the sexual attacks on the New Years’ Eve 2015 in Cologne. Therefore, it is worth examining how the refugee crisis was portrayed in German news media in the aftermath of the issue. The present study especially places the interest in the news representation of the incident of Cologne sexual assaults in Deutsche Welle. Thus. 政治大 Q1: How is the refugee crisis portrayed in Deutsche Welle in regard to the Cologne 立. the first research question is as follows:. sexual assaults?. ‧ 國. 學. 3. News Representation of Ethnic Minority and Audience Studies. ‧. 3.1 News Effects on Audience Interpretation. y. Nat. io. sit. News media influences people’s interpretations and attitudes toward public issues. In. n. al. er. the study of the British TV news coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict and of how. i n U. v. television viewers understood the conflict, Philo and Berry (2004) found that around 84% of. Ch. engchi. the focus group participants cited the TV news as the key source. Participants were given the false impression over the issue, including the nationality of the settlers in the West Bank, the causes of the conflict, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the casualties on each side. Israelis were depicted as “people like us with manners, customs, and lifestyle,” while the Palestinians were “more hostile.” Generally, TV news was criticized for lack of explanations about the background of the conflict and adapting a perspective in favor of the Israeli government. News media influences audience interpretations toward ethnic minorities as well. Van Dijk (2000) argued that media not only constructs the image of the minority group but also 14.

(22) builds up the beliefs people have, “influencing the knowledge, attitudes, ideologies, norms, and values toward minorities.” In his study of racism in everyday talk, van Dijk (1987; 1989) presumed that people establish their images of ethnic minorities through personal experiences or stories heard from others. However, most of the people do not have interactions with ethnic minorities. Mass media therefore plays a significant role in “expressing, distributing, and receiving ethnic prejudice and ideologies among other people.” His research team then conducted 170 focus group interviews in both Amsterdam and San Diego which substantiated such assumption. Van Dijk found that participants often cited the media as the sources when. 政治大 high-contact areas and have more experiences with ethnic minorities. The findings also 立. expressing or defending ethnic opinions. This was even the case for people who live in the. to go out at night due to their fear and insecurity.. 學. ‧ 國. revealed that the media was the major source for “ethnic crime,” making participants hesitant. ‧. Recent media research on ethnic minorities also found the media effects on audience. sit. y. Nat. interpretations (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009; Fujioka, 2011; Zúñiga, Correa, &. io. er. Valenzuela, 2012). For example, Fujioka (2011) used survey analysis to investigate the attitudes of 326 White and African American college students toward Latin/Hispanic. al. n. v i n C hnegative the respondents Americans. She revealed that the more perceived Latin Americans engchi U in the news, the greater threats the respondents would feel. The greater perceived threats would then be related to more negative attitudes toward immigrants. In another study of partisan cable news in the United States, Zúñiga et al. (2012) found that audiences exposed to FOX news tended to express negative views toward immigrants and to support a more restrictive immigration policy. Recent scholarship on news coverage of ethnic minority and audience interpretation offered convincing evidence for media effects on the formation of attitudes by employing survey analysis and providing persuasive statistics (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009; Fujioka, 2011; Zúñiga et al., 2012). However, these studies did not advance our 15.

(23) understanding of how the audiences responded to the news coverage or how the news impacted the audiences in their daily lives. Apart from the quantitative approach of the studies on media effects, Philo et al. (2013) conducted a series of focus group interviews with established immigrant communities, Asian and Afro-Caribbean immigrants particularly, in London. The findings showed that participants were aware of how news media portrayed refugee issues. Some of the participants noted that news media highlighted the numbers of arriving people which made them “more aware of these people.” Other participants even pointed out that media “preyed. 政治大 refugees.” In regard to the news influences on the daily lives, these immigrant participants 立 on people’s fear and created a climate of hostility by consistent negative portrayals of. mentioned that their British citizenship was questioned which put them under the pressure to. ‧ 國. 學. distinguish themselves from refugees or to always bring their passport with them. This study. ‧. reveals that news coverage not only influences how audiences interpret refugees and asylum. immigrant communities in the host society.. io. 3.2 Audience Interpretation a and Local Interaction. er. sit. y. Nat. seekers, but, it also exhibits how the news impacts the daily lives of the established. n. iv l C n U role in formulating audience Research has shown that news h media e nserves g c has ia key. attitudes toward ethnic minorities, whereas it is not always the case that media effects are so huge and news viewers are passive about what they receive. As discussed in the previous paragraph, audiences are well aware of how news media portrays public issues (Philo et al., 2013). By contrast with Hall’s encoding/decoding model (Hall,1980), in which Hall assumed audiences who adapt the oppositional position may “be closed off from the intended message” and create their own meanings according to their class, gender, or ethnicity, Philo (2008) argued that audiences do not necessarily create new meanings when they disagree with the texts. In his opinion, audiences may just refuse the meanings of the texts while understand. 16.

(24) that a particular viewpoint is encoded in the news texts. In addition, Philo (2008) argued that audiences reject the preferred meanings not necessarily because of their class or cultural affiliation. Factors including class and cultural history, self-interest, immediate economic and political conditions, the sense of logic, and previous accumulated experiences may all influence audiences to take an alternative perspective and to deny the preferred meaning. Previous studies have found the important role of personal experiences in formulating or altering audiences’ understanding of public issues. For example, Philo and Berry (2004) found that students who attended the Arab. 政治大 Studies of racism, however, reveal that public beliefs or stereotypes of ethnic 立. school would interpret the Israeli-Palestinian conflict differently.. minorities partly come from their own experiences (Hartmann & Husband, 1974; van Dijk,. ‧ 國. 學. 1984). Such findings contrast with what Amin (2002) assumed, in which interactions with. ‧. adversaries would help disrupt easy labeling of strangers and learn the difference between. sit. y. Nat. people from various ethnic backgrounds. He argued that mixed housing policy or open spaces,. io. er. such as cafes, parks, and shopping malls designed for multicultural encounters and mixture, do not facilitate intercultural dialogue and understanding since contacts between strangers in. al. n. v i n C h Back’s (1996) ideas these spaces occur rarely. Amin borrowed of “prosaic negotiations” and engchi U “micropublics” to stress the significance of endless talk and interactions with adversaries. within everyday spaces, workplaces and schools for instance. These talks and interactions can be operated through discussions of national identity, citizenship, and multiculturalism in school curriculums, or through common activities in the neighborhoods. In his view, people are asked to “step out of the routine environment and thus are offered the chance to break out of fixed relations as well as fixed notions” through these interactions (Amin, 2002). What can be implied from Amin’s study is that it is possible to alter ethnic stereotypes or images formulated by the media. However, the key lies in the level of interaction and engagement with ethnic minorities. 17.

(25) The second part of this study is interested in how German students and international students interpret the refugee crisis and what kinds of sources formulate their points of view. Based on the previous findings, this study recognizes that the news impacts audience interpretations while it also believes in the audiences’ ability to reject the preferred meaning in the news coverage. It does not regard the mass communication as a transmitting process, which transmits the messages at a distance for the purpose of control. Instead, it views communication as a “symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, transformed” (Carey, 1975) and even struggled (Gramsci, 1971).. 政治大 focused exclusively on media effects and attitude change by employing survey analysis 立 Prior research on the topic of ethnic news reporting and audience interpretation. (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009; Fujioka, 2011; Zúñiga et al., 2012). Only a few studies. ‧ 國. 學. discussed how audiences interpreted the news portrayals and its influences on their daily lives. ‧. (Philo et al., 2013). Furthermore, though studies have identified the key role of personal. sit. y. Nat. experiences in formulating audience attitudes toward public issues (Philo & Berry, 2004),. io. significance.. er. many of them merely viewed the experiences as a second-order issue and did not highlight its. al. n. v i n C300,000 In Germany, where more than international students enrolled in the U heng i h c. universities since 2014 (DAAD & DZHW, 2016), I am especially concerned how these international students interpret the refugee issue and if there is a difference between local students and international students regarding their attitudes. Moreover, the German government has launched an appeal to help refugees and there are various organizations, whether official or private, offering aid for the new arrivals. I assume that there are frequent interactions between people and asylum seekers at the local level. I am therefore curious about how these local interactions influence or even alter people’s attitudes toward refugees. The second research question covers all of these concerns: Q2. How do German students and international students interpret the refugee crisis? 18.

(26) Chapter Three: Methodology 1. Exploring the Representation of Refugee Crisis in the News Media In the search for answers and in regards to research question 1, a mixed method approach, with content analysis and critical discourse analysis, was employed to examine the news coverage.. 1.1 Content Analysis One of the most well-known definitions of content analysis comes from Berelson. 政治大 quantitative description of the manifest content of communication.” The quality of being 立 (1952): “Content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic and. objective and systematic suggests that personal biases are avoided as little as possible by. ‧ 國. 學. specifying some clear rules in advance, by assigning the raw materials (such as newspaper. ‧. articles) to categories and by applying these rules in a consistent manner which makes the. sit. y. Nat. analysis replicable (Bryman, 2008). One of the most prominent characteristics of content. io. er. analysis is to seek quantitative accounts of the raw materials. What kind of raw materials can be analyzed? Berelson (1952) is only concerned about the “manifest content,” while Holsti. al. n. v i n C has a method to identify (1969) broadly defines content analysis “specific characteristics of engchi U. messages,” which expands the analyzed unit from the apparent content to latent content,. namely the meanings lying beneath the content. In the practical level, researchers not only employ content analysis to count certain words but also to identify certain themes within texts (Bryman, 2008). The present study aims to explore the framing of the news coverage on the topic of refugee crisis in Germany by specifying certain issues. For example, which source dominates the refugee coverage and which theme most often appears. These issues all revolve in a quantity-oriented discussion and need statistic accounts, namely the proportion and the total numbers. The content analysis is therefore an ideal approach to be employed. 19.

(27) 1.2. Sample of the News Coverage of the Cologne Sexual Assaults On the New Year’s Eve 2016, large scale sexual assaults were conducted “by men of. Arab or North African appearance” outside Cologne main station (“String of New Year's Eve sexual assaults,” 2016). This event had dominated the German news over the following month and brought the issue of Germany’s refugee policy once again to the forefront of public attention. Meanwhile, the German government published that over 1 million refugees had arrived in the year 2015 (“Flüchtlinge Hoffnung Europa,” 2016). This was a watershed event in the development of refugee issue – security concerns and the acknowledgement of. 政治大 Due to language constraints, 立 primarily with the German language, news media which. cultural differences between locals and the refugees continued to grow.. ‧ 國. 學. offers English reports was the priority in this study. Among the varied German news media, only Deutsche Welle and Der Spiegel provide English content on their websites. Deutsche. ‧. Welle’s online English website was ultimately chosen because it provides more daily news. sit. y. Nat. which is important for examination in this study compared to its counterpart. Additionally,. n. al. er. io. Deutsche Welle serves as the international broadcaster for the German government and is. i n U. v. enjoyed by a global audience of more than 135 million people and 29 million users of their. Ch. engchi. digital offerings weekly (Tellmann, 2016). Instead of examining the media that is representative of the media landscape in Germany, in terms of liberal, conservative, and neutral positions, which previous research has explored (Cardiff School of Journalism, 2015), I decided to put the focus on a media that secures more audiences worldwide. Being an international broadcaster for the Federal Republic of Germany, Deutsche Welle is positioned as a significant instrument of Germany’s “public diplomacy,” projecting its own “national values, policies, self-image, and underlying myth” (Zöllner, 2006). Its official stance was then compared with the statements of the focus group interviewees to see if Germany’s asylum policy was in line with the public opinion.. 20.

(28) The study explored the news articles published on the English website of Deutsche Welle. News reports carried between January 4 and January 18, 2016 were examined. All types of articles that either took the Cologne assaults, issues related to asylum seeking, or immigration as their main themes were selected. Keywords included “Cologne,” “refugee,” “migrant,” and “asylum.” Overall, a total of 123 articles were examined.. 1.2.1.. Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster. It was founded in 1953 as a. radio service to inform audiences abroad about the new, post-Nazi Germany (Zöllner, 2006).. 政治大 a global audience of more than立 135 million people with 29 million users of their digital. Today, Deutsche Welle offers radio, television and online services in 30 languages and claims. ‧ 國. 學. offerings weekly (Tellmann, 2016). Among its TV programs, their English program is the most popular with viewers reaching 30 million people every week. On its own website,. ‧. Deutsche Welle claims that its mission is to convey “Germany as a nation rooted in European. sit. y. Nat. culture and as a liberal, democratic state based on the rule of law.” Deutsche Welle is publicly. n. al. er. io. funded, receiving 261 million euros per year. Though it claims it remains editorially. i n U. v. independent guaranteed by an elaborate system of regular parliamentary accords, its. Ch. engchi. autonomy is still limited by its political mission. As the station’s ex-director general, Erik Bettermann, noted, “[Deutsche Welle] conveys a part of the Federal Republic of Germany’s significance and all her social and political positions” (Zöllner, 2006). Deutsche Welle functions as a part of the country’s “public diplomacy” (Zöllner, 2006).. 1.2.2.. New Year’s Eve Sexual Assaults in Cologne On the New Year’s Eve 2015, in Germany’s fourth-largest city, Cologne, up to 1000. intoxicated men groped and sexually assaulted women in the city’s famous square between central train station and towering Gothic cathedral. Around 90 women were robbed, threatened, or sexually molested by men of “Arabic or North African appearance.” Similar. 21.

(29) offenses occurred in a smaller scale in other European cities, including Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Helsinki. It was not until January 4, 2016 that the news media uncovered the incident because the police initially described the New Year’s Eve as “peaceful.” The police defended that the situation was not clear because the complaints only came in bit by bit. This incident soon dominated the political debate and public discourses on social media, with many linking the offences with the recently-arrived refugees. German police and authority initially refused to comment on whether refugees were involved in the violence and appealed to the public not to exploit the incident with refugee. 政治大 daily Die Welt revealed that the police actually checked at least 100 people’s identity on the 立 debate. However, on January 7, 2016 local newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger and national. New Year’s Eve and found that “most of them were recently-arrived asylum seekers.”. ‧ 國. 學. Furthermore, the newspapers stated that the officer wanted to mention “asylum seeker” and. ‧. “Syrians” in the first internal police report, but the senior officer decided not to because it. sit. y. Nat. would be “politically awkward.” The police did not confirm whether these people were. io. er. involved in the sexual assaults. On January 8, 2016, Cologne police chief, Wolfgang Albers, was sent into provisional retirement due to the police’s inability on the New Year’s Eve and. n. al. withholding information.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Until January 18, 2016, the police had received 561 complaints, 45%of them were related to sexual violence. Two rapes were reported. Meanwhile, 19 suspects were under investigation. Ten of them were seeking asylum in Germany while others were staying in Germany illegally. According to the police, these suspects were mainly involved in pickpocketing. On the same day, the police arrested the first sexual assault suspect. The Algerian suspect was caught at a refugee accommodation. To prevent such violence, the German authorities were considering deploying more video surveillance in public places and police presence on the streets. At the same time the politicians, especially the ruling parties, CDU and CSU, were proposing amending the laws 22.

(30) to deport criminal foreigners easier. This proposal was supported by the Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, and the Justice Minister Heiko Maas. On January 7, 2016, Merkel stated that a close attention would be paid to the issue of deportation. She was also concerned about “the fundamentals of cultural co-existence in Germany.” However, the focus of the deporting issue was ultimately narrowed down to the asylum seekers. Asylum seekers who commit crimes like bodily harm, homicide, rape, and sexual assault would be deported even in the event of a suspended sentence. Sentences of more than one year would significantly increase the possibility of deportation. The rest of the ruling. 政治大 asylum seekers back to their home countries where their lives could be threatened contradicts 立. party, SP, and some left-wing politicians were against this proposal, arguing that sending the. the spirit of Geneva Convention. Furthermore, the ruling parties were also calling for North. ‧ 國. 學. African countries like Morocco and Algeria to be reclassified as “safe countries of origin”. ‧. which could facilitate deporting asylum seekers from these two countries. In addition to. y. sit. io. er. better.. Nat. tougher penalties, the parties all agreed on updating sexual assault laws to protect victims. This incident raised security concern among other European countries. Eastern. al. n. v i n C h the Czech Republic, European governments, including Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, engchi U. especially connected these sexual assaults with the arrival of refugees. They then redoubled their opposition to take in Muslim refugees. Domestically, several demonstrations were staged in different cities in the aftermath of the incident, showing a polarized German society. It was observed that Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA), the “anti-Islamization” organization, attracted some citizens who have never demonstrated with them. Meanwhile, counter-demonstrators also protested against sexism and racism. They argued that sexual violence against women was not a migrant phenomenon but a long-standing social problem. On January 15, 2016, the public broadcaster ZDF published a poll, showing a rising number 23.

(31) of Germans were more skeptical of refugees and questioned the Chancellor Merkel’s policies. 42%of the respondents believed that refugees represented a threat to German culture and social values. Figure 1 New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Cologne- Timeline. Cologne mayor, Henriette Reker, suggested women to stay at “arm's length” from strangers which led to a backlash of criticism.. 5th Jan. 政治大. 7th Jan. Local newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger and national daily Die Welt revealed that the police actually checked the IDs of at least 100 people present at Cologne's central station on the New Year's Eve after their behavior became suspicious and found that most of them were recently-arrived asylum seekers. The police later decided not to publish the country of origin and the status of the people because it would be “politically awkward.” The news coverage stated that it is still unclear whether the same persons were involved in the sexual assaults.. 8th Jan. Cologne police chief, Wolfgang Albers, was sent into provisional retirement due to the allegations of withholding information on the NYE sexual assaults.. 學. ‧. y. Nat. io. The Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jäger, confirmed that the police had currently identified 19 suspects. Ten of them are asylum applicants and nine of them had stayed in Germany illegally.. sit. 11th Jan. 立. n. al. er. 4 Jan. First news report covered the string of sexual assaults in the city of Cologne. Around 90 complaints were brought to the Cologne police department, including one allegation of rape. The city police chief, Wolfgang Albers, said there was around 1,000 heavily intoxicated men who gave the appearance of being “Arab or North African” gathered in the city’s famous square.. ‧ 國. th. 18th Jan. Ch. i n U. v. A 26-year-old Algerian asylum seeker was detained for groping a woman and stealing her mobile phone. This is the first sexual assault suspect in the Cologne attacks. The other 21 suspects were charged with non-sexual offences.. 1.3. engchi. Coding Manual The Glasgow University Media Group conducted a series of research into media. representation of different issues in the last forty years, including strikes and the Palestinian-Israel conflict (Glasgow University Media Group, 1976; Philo & Berry, 2004). This study referred to its framework, hoping to explore the frames used for the refugee. 24.

(32) coverage. In addition to the Glasgow research, this study also made the reference to the findings discussed in the previous paragraph and thus generated the following coding framework that sought to capture: a.. the sources that dominated media discourses. b.. the labels used to describe the displaced people. c.. themes in coverage Regarding the coding manual, please see the Appendix 1.. 1.4. Critical Discourse Analysis. 政治大 address some other questions, 立 there needed to be a closer look at the discourses used in the Apart from generating the quantitative accounts of the refugee news coverage, to. ‧ 國. 學. news articles. Critical Discourse Analysis was additionally employed in the study to explore the news coverage. Van Dijk (2015) defined the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a type. ‧. of analytical research that primarily studies the way social inequality is enacted in the text. sit. y. Nat. and talk. It does not merely study the discourse structures outside the social and political. al. er. io. contexts. Rather, it singles out the social inequality and abuse by specifying certain structures. v. n. deployed in the discourses. As Fairclough and Wodak (1997) put it, “Discourse constitutes. Ch. engchi. i n U. society and culture, and CDA addresses social problems.”. CDA analysists presuppose that discourses are controlled by certain powerful groups and institutions such as the military, the rich, parents, and journalists. These groups may influence the contents of discourses in ways preferred by them while against the interests of the recipients. These discourses will ultimately influence the minds, namely the knowledge and opinions, and the actions of the recipients (van Dijk, 2015). The critical approach of discourse analyses vary between genres, including conversation, news reports, and issues, such as sexism. The present study focuses on the news representation of recent refugee crisis. Van Dijk (1991, 2015) had identified certain strategies. 25.

(33) employed in the discourse structures in the press regarding ethnic reporting. These strategies include some implications and presuppositions that aim to obliquely assert some facts which may not be true. Van Dijk also referred to the metaphors and some negative lexicons expressed to make the abstract mental models more concrete. Moreover, passive sentences may be used to downplay the negative actions of state agents. The present study took his approach of analysis to specify the strategies employed in the Deutsche Welle reports. a.. Actor analysis was employed to examine one typical news article regarding Cologne sexual assaults. By doing so, this study aimed to see which role dominated the coverage. 政治大 123 refugee articles were examined to identify the number or statistics used in 立 and which actor was neglected in the news.. b.. describing the arriving refugees in 2015.. ‧ 國. 學. 2. Gathering Audience Responses toward Refugee Crisis. ‧. A series of focus group discussions were carried out to answer research question 2.. Nat. io. sit. y. 2.1 Focus Group Discussion. n. al. er. Hennink, Hutter, and Bailey (2011) have noted that focus group discussions are. i n U. v. especially suitable for “exploring new topics about which little is known or where the issues. Ch. engchi. are unclear.” As discussed in the previous paragraphs, little is known on the topic of media influences on the audience’s daily lives and how their personal experiences counteract the news effects. This is due to the majority of prior studies focusing primarily on attitude change and did not probe more on personal experiences. By employing focus group discussions, participants are encouraged to share their own opinions and stories and to give more concrete pictures of their daily lives under the refugee crisis. When exploring research objects’ opinions, a frequently asked question is whether to use in-depth interviews or focus group discussions. Hennink et al., (2011) argued that focus group discussions are employed in the situation when gaining a broad range of views in a. 26.

(34) single episode of data collection. Since the study took a special attention on the different experiences between German, European, and Middle-Eastern students (discussed in detail in the next section), it would be more economical to gather a range of views in a short period of time by employing focus group discussions. Moreover, the interactive nature of the method could facilitate further discussion between participants, “providing greater detail and uncovering various facets of the issues” which the researcher might have overlooked (Hennink et al., 2011). This study aims to explore how news coverage influenced audience interpretations. 政治大 interactions with refugees counteracted the refugee images formulated in the news media. A 立 toward refugees as well as their daily lives and how either personal experiences or. wide range of opinions among different ethnic groups of students were gathered through. ‧ 國. 學. focus group interviews. The findings could fill in the blanks in the field of ethnic news and. ‧. audience studies, and illustrate the dynamics between news influence, audience interpretation,. sit. y. Nat. and the daily lives of the participants during the recent refugee issue in Germany.. io. n. al. er. 2.2 Group Composition. i n U. v. The study narrowed the interviewees down to German students and international. Ch. engchi. students in the universities in Kiel, Germany. Based on my own experience that my parents usually connected refugees with terrorism since they often read such news in Taiwanese media, the study is especially interested in the difference between German students and international student’s perception toward the refugee issue. Therefore, the interviewees were categorized into a German group and an international group. The international group was further categorized into a European student group and a Middle-Eastern student group since students from these two areas were more concerned about the refugee issue. To test if the interview questions were workable, one pilot interview with my friends which included three Asian students and one Afro-Caribbean student was conducted one month before the formal. 27.

(35) interviews. The recruitment process began in the middle of October, 2016. Most of the Middle-Eastern and European participants were invited through the pilot interviewees while the German participants were mostly recruited from the students who lived in the same dorm. One participant was attracted by the recruitment advertisement I posted on some Facebook groups. It should be noted that it was not easy recruiting European students since many of them were exchange students. During the recruiting process, most of my European friends had already returned home while others were not willing to join the discussion because they. 政治大 invitation through friends, ads on Facebook, cafeteria, and dorms, only three European 立. did not want to share their opinions with others. After exhausting each avenue, including. students participated in the discussion.. ‧ 國. 學. The study ultimately recruited two groups of German interviewees with four and three. ‧. members in each group. In regard to the European participants and the Middle-Eastern. sit. y. Nat. participants, each group consisted of four and five members respectively. It is worth noting. io. er. that two refugees from Syria joined the European and Middle-Eastern group interviews. The participants were either bachelor or master degree students except for one refugee who had. al. n. v i n already obtained his PhD years priorCand who currently works h e n g c h i U in Kiel. 2.3 Interview Questions. This study referred to interview questions from Philo et al. (2013) and Philo and Berry (2004), and developed its own interview questions to explore how the news media influenced the audiences’ interpretations and their daily lives, and how personal experiences counteracted the negative portrayals of refugees and asylum seekers. See appendix 2 for the list of interview questions.. 2.4 Conducting the Focus Group Discussion In the interviews, I first introduced the purpose of the research and addressed the. 28.

(36) ethical issues as well as rights the participants were entitled to, including assuring the protection of their personal information and seeking consent for recording the discussion. The participants were then asked to answer some general questions, such as the image of refugees, the news headlines of the refugee issue, and the influences on their interpretations and daily lives, in writing which formed the basis for subsequent discussion. By asking the general questions first, the participants were invited to share their own opinions and experiences and therefore created a more comfortable environment for further discussion. I was then able to ask some specific questions the study was concerned with, including the differentiation. 政治大 place in relaxing and quiet spaces, including the participants’ dorm, a study room in the dorm, 立. between immigrant and refugee and the statistics used in news coverage. The interviews took. and the student cafeteria. Cakes, cookies, and tea were offered to make the participants feel. ‧ 國. 學. more relaxed. Each interview lasted around 90 minutes.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 29. i n U. v.

(37) Chapter Four: Contents in Deutsche Welle 1. Content Analysis In this section, 123 news articles regarding Cologne sexual assaults and general refugee issue, carried between January 4 and January 18, 2016 in Deutsche Welle, were examined with three coding items, including the news source, the labels depicting the displaced people, and the themes. The results are illustrated in the following paragraphs.. 1.1 News Source. 政治大 examined the articles by identifying six key speakers in each of the reports, including 立 To find out which sources dominated the refugee news coverage, this study. politicians, police, NGOs, citizens, other experts, and refugees. The results demonstrate. ‧ 國. 學. the proportion of each news source quoted in the total 123 articles. See Table 1 for some. ‧. statistics.. Table 1 Percentage and frequencies of each news source in Cologne incident news. Nat. sit. y. coverage in Deutsche Welle. n. al. Percentage (Total N articles). Politicians/ Officials/ Governments and government reports. Ch. engchi. er. io. News Source. i n U. v. 63.4% (78). Police/ Judiciary. 31.7% (39). NGOs. 13.8% (17). Citizens. 13.8% (17). Other experts (Academia, Religion etc.). 13.8% (17). Refugees/ Asylum seekers/ Migrants. 12.2% (15). 1.1.1 Politicians Among the 123 news articles, politicians were the main speakers in the reports, with 63.4% of the articles (78 articles) quoting politicians. The massive sexual assaults in Cologne 30.

(38) were the most discussed issue. A dominant stance that many politicians possessed was to threaten foreign criminals with deportation. For example, a statement quoted from the interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, on January 6, 2016 said, “Anyone who commits serious crimes must reckon with getting deported from Germany, regardless of his status” (Deutsche Welle, January 6, 2016). The Cologne sexual assaults stirred up Germany’s refugee debate, with many people linking the perpetrators with the recently-arrived asylum seekers. Countering with the anti-refugee sentiment, the authorities and some politicians, left-wing politicians in particular,. 政治大 For instance, on January 6, 2016 when being asked whether refugees were responsible for 立. served key roles by appealing to the public not to place blame on the refugees for the assaults.. some of the attacks, the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas declined to answer the question. ‧ 國. 學. and only replied, “This is not about where someone is from but what they did.” He also. ‧. warned against exploiting the incident in order to place blame on the refugees. Maas stated,. sit. y. Nat. “Making an issue out of it, lumping it together with the refugee issue, is nothing but. io. consequences” (Deutsche Welle, January 6, 2016).. al. er. exploitation. Now is the time to determine the facts and then decide on the necessary. n. v i n C hwere mainly blamed Besides the refugees, the police due to their inability to control engchi U. the situation during the New Year’s Eve incident and withholding the information that many perpetrators were asylum seekers. On January 6, 2016 the Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere criticized the Cologne police force for waiting passively while the attacks were taking place. He stated, “The square was evacuated – and then these events take place and [the police] wait for people to bring them complaints. That’s not how police must work” (Deutsche Welle, January 6, 2016). Another prominent issue among the political debate was that some of the European countries, including Sweden and Denmark, announced that they were going to impose border control policy in order to stem the “refugee tide.” For example, on January 4, 2016 the 31.

(39) Swedish Migration Minister Morgan Johansson defended the country’s policy move by telling the reporters that Sweden was “preventing an acute situation where we can no longer welcome asylum seekers properly” (Deutsche Welle, January 4, 2016). Such policy change was especially criticized by German politicians who were concerned that the move would harm the freedom of movement in the Schengen area. An EU-wide solution which aimed to secure the EU’s external border was deemed to be the priority in order to cope with incoming refugees. For instance, on January 4, 2016 the German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schäfer criticized the border control policy for. 政治大 one of the biggest achievements [in the EU] in recent years” (Deutsche Welle, January 4, 立. putting the Schengen area “in danger”, “Freedom of movement is an important principle -. 2016). The solution to the influx of migrants did “not lie on the border between Country A. ‧ 國. 學. and Country B,” said the Chancellor’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, reiterating the. ‧. administration’s determination to find an EU-wide solution to the refugee crisis (Deutsche. sit. y. Nat. Welle, January 4, 2016).. io. n. al. er. 1.1.2 Police/ Judiciary. i n U. v. The police and members of the judiciary, including judges and prosecutors, were. Ch. engchi. quoted less often than the politicians, but they still possessed a prominent role in the news coverage, with 31.7% (39 articles) of the articles citing their statements. Since the police were the main authority to investigate the Cologne sexual assaults, most of their statements tended to describe the situation during the New Year’s Eve and the following investigations.. 1.1.3 NGOs Non-government organizations (NGOs) attracted relatively less attention in the news as well as the citizens and other experts, such as academics and clergy, with each category receiving 13.8% (17 articles) of the news coverage. NGOs tended to have two major concerns. Firstly, they were concerned about the 32.