New Online Publication in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

04.10.2019

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies has published a paper by Tobias Heidenreich, Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Fabienne Lind and Hajo G. Boomgaarden!

Tobias Heidenreich, Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Fabienne Lind and Hajo G. Boomgaarden published their new paper "Political migration discourses on social media: a comparative perspective on visibility and sentiment across political Facebook accounts in Europe" in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Congratulations!

Migration has been dominating media and political discourses in Europe in recent years. Previous studies have mainly mapped migration discourses in traditional media or conventional channels of party communication, often in a single country. Migration-related party communication on social network sites has been largely neglected. This study analyses migration discourses in the Facebook accounts of political actors (n = 1702) across six European countries (Spain, UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Poland). On the basis of automated content analyses, the authors present new insights into the visibility of migration as a topic and sentiment about migration, revealing country- and party-specific patterns. Migration is a more prominent topic in countries with positive net migration (‘receiving countries’) than in countries where net migration is neutral or negative. Although we did not find support for the assumption that right-leaning parties talk more, and more negatively, about migration, our results do suggest a distinct pattern that applies to parties of both the extreme left and the extreme right. Political actors from parties of the extreme left and the extreme right of the political spectrum address migration more frequently and more negatively than more moderate political players.

 

Tobias Heidenreich, Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Fabienne Lind and Hajo G. Boomgaarden (2019) Political migration discourses on social media: a comparative perspective on visibility and sentiment across political Facebook accounts in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Find the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1665990