Over the last several years, the migrant and refugee flow to European countries has significantly increased. The main reason is that the majority of migrants are forced to flee their home country due to unsafe and horrific circumstances such as political conflicts or the everyday fear for terror by groups as ISIS. Here in Europe, migrants hope to find a safe environment and to start a new life with their loved ones.
However, 'Fort Europe' is not always as kind and warm as it appears. The growing negativity, and even fear, among European citizens is often caused by how migrants and refugees are reflected in news items, as; job stealers, terrorists or lazy people for example. The negativity and fear towards them is misplaced and unfair.
It shows that words can have a huge influence on someone's view. This essay will further explore to what extent the tropes used by the media are beneficial in terms of shaping the public's political view on the migrant and refugees crisis in either a negative or positive way.
In the second part, I am going to compare Geert Wilders' and Angela Merkel's different views on migrants. In the third part, I am going to analyze the tropes that are being used to describe the migrant and refugee crisis by the majority of politicians and news channels. And finally, I will conclude that the choice of words by the media or any other public figure can certainly affect the way people view migrants in a positive or negative light.
Reflection of migrant and refugee crisis by politicians
In the second part, a comparison between two politicians, Geert Wilders and Angela Merkel, will be made. Geert Wilders is a far-right politician from the Netherlands, who has a strong opinion when it comes to migrants, refugees and Muslims. Geert Wilder' has the tendency to connect migrants and refugees to the Islam in a negative way. Wilders believes that his country should take care of its own people first and will do good by closing the borders. For example, one of his statements is: 'The only way to deal with it [migrant/refugee crisis] is that the national borders must be closed across Europe, to halt an 'Islam invasion' (Thornhill, 2015).' Closing the borders is of course a metaphor, not all borders are visible and physical. He also uses a form of deliberative rhetoric. It is Wilders' advice on how to deal with the migrant and refugee crisis in the future. However, by referring to words as 'job stealers', 'Muslims from the Middle East' and 'Islamic invasion', the immigrants are considered all to be Muslims and that is not entirely true, hence Wilders is stereotyping all migrants and refugees. And most of all, the word 'invasion' is very negative because it implies that the migrants are like bees or spiders invading an area; unpleasant, unwelcome and a little scary. The media will headline these forms of statements and also influence the objectivity from the new items, which people will receive. Geert Wilders is a public figure that uses his status in his own advantage, and even feels that he is always right.
Angela Merkel is a right politician from Germany. Geert Wilders and Merkel are each other's opposites. Where Wilders is in favor for closing Europe's borders to migrants and refugees, Merkel is more in favor of having a friendly and open attitude towards people who are in need of a safe heaven. Geert Wilders expressed multiple times that he disagrees with Angela Merkel's, and also other politicians who share her opinion, approach. All though it is getting harder to defend her open-arms policy due to negative media reports on migrants, Angela Merkel still feels that Germany should accept, welcome and take care of an enormous amount of new arriving migrants, who seek asylum. Ms. Merkel's goal is to legalize the migrant flow to make their journey to Europe less dangerous with the use of legal sources instead of using little boats for example. According to Merkel this is also a good opportunity to tackle human trafficking (Thomas, 2015). It is not only an obligation and good deed in a moral way, but taking in migrants will benefit Germany's (and any other European country) economy in the long run; wages will increase, new businesses will arise and young workers will keep the pension funds floating and taxes capital full (Davis, 2015).
Remarkable is the use of different rhetorical tools by Geert Wilders and Angela Merkel. Wilders tends to lean more towards words that can be associated with negative feelings, his approach is more epideictic. Merkel uses deliberative rhetoric, her choice of words are more soothing and gentle, urging Europe to welcome the refugees. She does not affiliate migrants and refugees with Islam only and she does not shed any negative light on them either. Merkel uses words as; tackle human trafficking, asylum seekers, people in need of sanctuary and receiving migrants with open arms. All these words indicate that the public has no reason to be afraid for migrants and refugees. They attempt to escape horrible situations in their home country, only to undergo an unsafe journey arranged by traffickers who are only concerned about the money instead of people's safety. Both Wilders and Merkel use a pathos appeal, both politicians use words that appeal to the public their emotions and provoke empathy. Wilders uses words that recall negative feelings towards migrants and refugees, Merkel uses kinder words when referring to the refugees such as 'asylum seekers' as opposed to Wilder's 'job stealers'.
Migrants and refugee crisis presented by the media
In the third part, tropes used by the media in general will be analyzed.
As mentioned earlier, politicians like Geert Wilders connect migrants to the Islam. Sometimes migrants are also referred to as possible terrorists; they come from countries where ISIS is very much present, ISIS also claims that they infiltrated the large stream of migrants. And due to the recent attacks in Paris, many people are afraid that taking in migrants could also mean that the government is taking in possible terrorists (Brown, 2015). This feeds the fear and hostile attitude among many citizens.
The stream of migrants is often called the migrants and refugee crisis or issue in many news items, this could appeal to negative emotions because words as crisis or issue indicate that there is a problem, which is true of course. However, the combination of words make it seem that the migrants are the problem, when the real problem lies with governments that are not able to process the many asylum claims and provide everyone with proper shelter and food. The word 'dilemma' is rarely used, but it comes across more gentle than issue and crisis. Other words that often come across new items are asylum seeker and fortune seeker. The words itself are not mean or negative since the migrants do wish to find happiness and a permanent place to stay in their new environment. On the other hand, when used in a certain context, where migrants are not being highly spoken off, the meaning of asylum seeker or fortune seeker can change. For example, if one of these words is used in an article about jobs and benefits, it could imply that migrants are just coming here for the money instead of fleeing dangerous circumstances.
Words should be chosen carefully when describing people, because after all we are talking about human beings and not about a herd of sheep. The following cited statements show that it is not always taken into consideration (Oliver, 2015):
CNN host: 'Europe's migrant crisis is spiraling out of control.'
CNN host: 'Europe's migrant crisis is getting worse with the day.'
CNN host: 'A human wave washing over Europe's Southern shores.'
David Cameron: 'A swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean.'
A poor choice of words can lead to a deformed image of migrants from a public point of view. They are not animals, nor should they be seen or treated that way.
Sometimes the media use sources, but fail to check the reliability or dates, which can lead misguiding and faulty information. For example in news items on Fox News about Europe opening up doors to potential terrorist. A video was shown; Muslims were praising the lord out loud. The underlining text was 'terrorists inbound? Taking in refugees could open door to jihadists.' The host stressed that they were not labeling anyone in the video as terrorist, but that it did show how many of the refugees from Syria and Iraq are Muslim. This is very contradicting. If you do not want to label the any Muslim refugee a terrorist, you should not even mention it to the public. The title 'people praying on the train' would have been more relevant, but probably not exciting enough. And later on it even surfaced that Fox News did not their homework and check their sources, because the video turned out to be recent at all but dated from 2010 (Christopher, 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, chances are that your attitude towards migrants and refugees will be very hostile if you are only informed by public figures as Geert Wilders. Due to the simple fact that politicians of that sort only emphasize their own ill bearing opinions. Nevertheless, if you are informed by both left and right politicians and also hear information from the third party: the migrants themselves, then the opportunity for people to create an opinion of their own, based on facts of both sides and the use different words and opinions will arise.
The same applies to the media; media is rarely objective, and it does not help when hosts and writers do not think carefully about the words they use to describe a situation. Especially when it comes war and political conflicts or the exact reason why people flee their home country, the facts are not always obvious and well known. Too many emphasizes on the issues which the migrant flow cause and on the wrong words can take away all the light from the good things migrants do.
Tropes used by the media and public figures, such as Geert Wilders and Angela Merkel, do shape the public's opinion on the migrant crisis. But whether the general opinion is negative or positive, can be stirred by smart politicians who use the recent media reports in their advantage.
The messages the tropes sent to the public are, overall, not beneficial for the migrant crisis. This is due to the negativity that can be found in the tropes that describe migrants and refugees.
There is also a clear shift from left to right in the public's opinion. Angela Merkel is more positive and uses kind words when she is talking about any matter that concerns migrants and refugees. However, her message is not effective, due to recent media reports and change in attitudes among citizens. Merkel does not manage to get the majority on her side because of political figures as Geert Wilders. He knows how to use the recent media reports in his advantage, for his own propaganda, and plays the citizens. Wilders' messages are way more negative than Angela Merkel's messages, he rebels against the mainstream that is all about taking migrants and refugees in and offering them a safe haven. And this works, because many people support what he is saying. The tropes Geert Wilders uses and the messages they sent are definitely not beneficial to the migrants and refugees.
Especially negative tropes have an enormous influence on public opinions when it concerns migrants and refugees. Negative words and circumstances always outweigh the positive thoughts on migrants. People seem to be able to remember the negative matters better than they remember the positive matters. Tropes can definitely stir people's view on migrants in a certain directions and in the matter of migrants and refugees coming to Europe, it is mostly a negative direction. The media plays a big role in this as well, especially when someone's intent is persuading and leading people's thoughts in a certain direction, tropes can come in handy. Geert Wilders' rhetoric strategies are a great example of using tropes in his advantage, for his own cause.
To conclude, words used by the media and politicians, in combination with visual images the public receives, can be very powerful and influential in shaping one's view. And in this particular case, the tropes that are used are efficient in achieving their purpose, however they are not beneficial to migrants and refugees themselves.