Through the media’s lens: an analysis of the print media’s portrayal of asylum seekers and refugees within South African borders (May2008–December 2018)

Abstract

This research report seeks to understand how media framing has evolved in South Africa through time with a particular focus on the subject of asylum seekers and refugees. This was done by reviewing articles from five South African news papers namely: Pretoria News, Mail & Guardian, Daily News, The Cape Argus and The Sunday Independent. These newspapers were analysed by using qualitative means to examine the initial trends present in how these particular newspapers represent refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. Moreover, the report seeks to identify and understand the media frames which are attributed to articles on asylum seekers and refugees, this was done by using four identified frames namely: the threat frame, the human-interest frame, the managerial frame and the economic frame. These frames are deemed to be essential in constructing a search in the data, as well as an organisational mechanism in the management of the data. Initially the findings present the evolving nature of the frames showing that: the human-interest frame declined as the years went by, this can be attributed to the quieting down of xenophobic attacks as they are seen to fluctuate very often. Additionally, the use of the managerial frame had a general decline through the years, this can be attributed to the fluctuating levels of migration generally. Moreover, the threat frame was consistent in the period 2009-2012 and then declined in 2013. The economic frame is the only frame which remained consistent and did not decline. Essentially, even though the use of the human-interest frame decreased, the human interest frame was the most used frame among all the newspapers which shows that reporting of asylum seekers and refugees was not negative overall, rather it was positive painting them as a population which requires assistance because of their traumatizing lived experiences