Global Disparities in Journalistic Practices in Mediating Migration Crises: A Mixed- Methods Comparative Study of 14 Countries

• Applicant: Dr. Zhe Xu, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539233881

Journalists and news media have been influential agents in documenting global migration crises, shaping public perceptions and engagement with vulnerability, and inhibiting or supporting societal and political interactions. This pioneering project within the field of humanitarian communication and journalism employs computational text-as-data methods to conduct an extensive, cross-national, and long-term analysis of news content related to the global migration crisis. Specifically, we examine how news media in diverse countries employ news frames to portray the global refugee crisis and explore their journalistic roles using a decade's worth of news text data from 14 countries, encompassing Western democracies, transitional democracies, and authoritarian regimes. Ultimately, this project aims to provide a comprehensive overview of journalistic practices surrounding global migration crises. These findings hold significance for broadening the epistemological and ontological boundaries of humanitarian communication and journalism, which have traditionally been rooted in Western paradigms, particularly in a world characterized by crises driven by globalization and mediatization.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position