The Long 2015 in Germany: Activists’ Pro-Refugee Frames and Media Counter Frames

Introduction

In 2015, countries across Europe witnessed the largest mass movement of displaced people in the region since World War II. Many of the displaced persons were refugees who had undertaken dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean or overland through the Southeast Europe and the Balkan Route. The upsurge in the number of refugees entering Europe – and the dramatic rise in the number of incidents resulting in their death – was met with varied responses from politicians, media, civil society groups, and individuals. While many civil society organizations, groups and individuals provided support to refugees and welcomed them into their countries, a common discourse among the media outlets and politicians was that of a refugee ‘crisis’ making it comparable to the unfolding economic and financial crisis in Europe.

There was fierce opposition to the resettlement of refugees from politicians and publics in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania. These countries voted against the proposal to allocate quotas for refugees among the EU countries and Hungary built a barrier on its border with Serbia and Croatia. In response to this hostility, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s door to refugees on 5 September 2015, particularly those coming from war-torn Syria, and effectively suspended the Dublin II accord which mandates refugees and displaced people claim asylum in the first EU state in which they set foot. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, a total of 1,091,894 million people were registered as asylum seekers in Germany in 2015. The number of asylum applications reached 476,649 which is 135% more than 2014, making it the largest number of asylum applications that Germany has ever received. ¹

German individuals, institutions, and migrant rights groups responded to the arrival of refugees with an outpouring of support and solidarity. They cheered refugees upon arrival in German stations and donated food, water and clothes. In many occasions, locals opened their homes to the newcomers and volunteered to provide them with different forms of everyday support. Similarly, refugees gained considerable support from German educational and cultural institutions. Many German universities accepted refugees to their programmes and offered information events on higher education, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) developed various programmes to facilitate the integration of refugees at German universities. Moreover, an online university for refugees was launched in Berlin to provide free higher education for refugees worldwide. Likewise, the Goethe Institute, which is a renowned non-profit German cultural association, organized various cultural and educational programmes to facilitate the integration of refugees into German society. Some theatres allowed refugees to tell their stories and offered them free admissions to their programmes. The German word Flüchtlinge, meaning refugees, was selected by the Society for the German Language as its Word of 2015 and Angela Merkel received global recognition for her decision to open Germany’s doors and was named Person of the Year by Time Magazine.

The cheerful and welcoming pro-refugee atmosphere was quickly overshadowed by an anti-refugee and anti-migrant backlash and rise of social movements and political parties such as Pegida ² and Alternative for Germany ³ (AfD). Pegida mobilized approximately 20,000 supporters at a demonstration in Dresden on 19 October 2015. For the first time, the German Government accused the far right of organizing anti-immigrant rallies and called on Germans to ‘stand together’ ⁴ while the German president of the European parliament warned of the potential for the rise of ‘far-right violence and brutality’. ⁵ In 2016 state elections, AfD campaigned against mass migration and received a high percentage of votes and enjoyed surprising electoral success. In Merkel’s home state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, AfD polled second with 20.8% of the vote, defeating the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The very clear conclusion drawn from these victories is that the anti-immigration and anti-refugee sentiment increased among the German public after September 2015.

Social movements like other political actors compete for creation of meaning, and hence, they are involved in ‘framing contests’ (Cooper, 2002) and a ‘struggle for cultural supremacy’ (Noakes and Wilkins, 2002) if they aim at considerable mobilization. Hence, it has been argued that to be able to promote their frames, social movements must engage with other collective actors such as the state, counter-movements, and the media (McAdam et al., 1996; Tarrow, 1998). Moreover, framing contests and struggles are played out in the realm of public discourse which comprises four sub-discourses: official discourses, discourses of challengers such as social movements, experts and mass media (Cooper, 2002: 37). Moreover, the media also engages in framing which includes identifying a problem, their causes, and potential remedies. Although mass media as part of their framing process incorporates different discourses from the other sub-discourses, this is not distributed evenly, and the coverage of issues and discourses by media and the level of support they receive vary significantly. Furthermore, media frames ‘select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient’, therefore, enormously affecting the ways problems, causes and solutions are represented (Entman, 1993: 52). This plays an important role in the outcome of framing contests and ‘the battle for the hearts and minds of the broader public’ (Cooper, 2002: 38). Hence, media framing of an issue can significantly affect social movement’s capacity of mobilization. In this article, I analyse the pro-refugee frames employed by two long-standing pro-refugee groups based in Berlin and contrast them with media counter frames which eventually dominated the public discourse. I show that the movement failed to engage with media’s counter frame and argue that a systematic engagement with increasingly dominant media counter frames could have facilitated the acceptance of the message the groups under study were trying to deliver to the broader public.

This article proceeds as follows. In the next section, I briefly explain the origin and significance of framing literature. Moreover, I draw on literature on dynamics of movement and media frames and show that while media frames are a significant mobilization tool for social movements, the literature has paid scant attention to competing counter frames produced by media. In the third section, I present original research on the frames of two pro-refugee groups in Berlin and contrast them with the competing media counter frames. In the fourth section, I demonstrate how the movement failed to critically engage with media counter frames and why this was a strategic failure. In the conclusion, I explore the implications of this research for our understanding of the relationship between movements and media frames as well as contemporary politics surrounding refugees in Europe.

Frames and their significance

The concept of frame was introduced to the social sciences in the 1970s and early 1980s (Gitlin, 1980; Goffman, 1974). Erving Goffman (1974), who is the pioneer of frame analysis, argues that in order to negotiate and comprehend a complex social world, everyone practices framing. Frames are important because they present a specific issue in a particular way and have the potential to influence the way people think about that issue (Gamson and Modigliani, 1987). Therefore, frames are not neutral and are ‘imprints of power’ and ‘central to the production of hegemonic meanings’ (Carragee and Roefs, 2004: 222).

By the late 1980s, frame analysis had already become one of the central concepts in social movement studies, especially through the writings of Robert Benford and David Snow (Benford, 1997; Benford and Snow, 2000; Snow and Benford, 1988, 1992; Snow et al., 1986). Throughout their work, Benford and Snow argue that framing, or the construction of meaning for participants and opponents, should be considered as one of the most crucial processes in social movement mobilizations. Frame analysis enables scholars to better understand the discursive processes such as the speeches, conversations, written communications, and narratives that are involved in the articulation and development of social movements’ hopes and concerns (Benford and Snow, 2000). Accordingly, frame analysis has become one of the most important theoretical models that explain the dynamics of mobilization in social movement studies (Noakes and Johnston, 2005). Usually, framing processes are directed at inspiring potential constituents. Moreover, they also enable activists to communicate their claims with different groups of people and eventually influence public perceptions of what is important in regard to a particular issue, which solutions work best for it and why mobilization is worth (Cooper, 2002). Snow and Benford (1988) attribute three interlinked tasks to the framing process. Diagnostic framing identifies the problem and the source of discontent, and introduces those responsible for the undesirable situation to the potential supporters. Prognostic framing presents the target audience with a set of solutions to the problems identified with the diagnostic framing. This constitutes the goals and actions of the movement and shows how the problem can be fixed. Motivational framing encourages others to act and provides a rationale for joining a movement. Movement frames can vary in terms of flexibility and rigidity, inclusivity and exclusivity, scope and influence and degree of resonance. Some scholars understand framing as a form of ‘interaction, negotiation, and communication between different actors’ (Coe, 2011: 496) while others consider frames as ‘an expression of the movement’ (Gillan, 2019: 306).

Besides social movement studies, the concept of frame has also gained significant scholarly attention in media analysis, and scholars have highlighted the impact of media frames on the construction of socio-political realities (Entman, 2007; Johnson-Cartee, 2004). Media frames define a problem, interpret relations and causes, and recommend solutions (Entman, 1993; MacKendrick, 2010). Within these debates, the potential effect of media frames upon controversial issues (Kuypers, 2002) has been particularly discussed as they can stimulate support or opposition for provocative laws, regulations and actions or could shift the focus from addressing a controversial issue in one way to another. In his Bush’s War, Kuypers (2006) has offered an analysis of how media justified the American military action on Iraq in the post–September 11 era. Similarly, Fryberg et al. (2012) have shown the significance of the media frames in providing support or opposition for the anti-immigration bill in the United States. In her analysis of Canadian newspaper articles, MacKendrick (2010) illustrates the impact of media frames on individualization of risk and shifting the focus from collective ways of protection from risks.

The significance of media frames in construction of public and hegemonic discourse and their consequent impact on movement frames (Steinberg, 1998) has led to emergence of a body of literature on movement-media frames. For example, Cooper (2002) has demonstrated that convergence between media framing and movement framing of an issue positively affects social movement mobilization, and divergence hinders movement mobilization. Particularly, ‘media framing of issues is a prime source of the cognitive tools for people to evaluate movements’ diagnostic framing’ (Cooper, 2002: 41). She has argued that empirical credibility of a movement’s frames has close linkages to approximate similarity between movement frames and potential participant’s perception of an issue which is largely shaped by media. This is because media is the main source of information, particularly about politics, for most people. Moreover, media frames, to great extent, shape the context, or the ‘opportunity structure’, which is the political, cultural, and social context within which movements operate (Coe, 2011). This includes the larger cultural environment and belief systems (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989), as well as formal political institutions (Tarrow, 1988). Opportunity structures affect the effectiveness of frames but, at the same time, frames have the potential to shape the opportunities (Coe, 2011: 498). In other words, the context within which a movement operates has an impact on its strategic framing.

Most of this literature focuses on the ways media framing affects movement’s mobilization capacity and public’s opinion of a movement. In other words, this literature demonstrates if media favours any movement, it validates its actions and contributes to its mobilization and public’s acceptance, and if it portrays a movement negatively, it marginalizes it (Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993; Gitlin, 1980; Koopmans, 2004; Kriesi, 1996; McCarthy et al., 1996; Terkildsen and Schnell, 1997). This literature has provided useful tools for analysing the relation between media and movements’ frames, but the relationship between movement frames and media counter frames – frames which contradict a movement’s existing frames – has remained under-researched. Significance of critical engagement with counter frames of an opposing movement and the impact this could have on reframing process have been discussed by scholars of social movements (Benford and Hunt, 2003; Dugan, 2004). Building on this base, I argue that social movement groups need to respond to media counter frames rhetorically. Moreover, they may need to reframe based on the resonance of their frame considering the success of the rhetorical impact of media counter frames.

In the next section, I contrast the pro-refugee frames of the two groups under study with counter frames produced by the media. I argue that given the significant control the media employed on framing the refugee issue, failure in systematic engagement with media counter frames in part affected the success of the pro-refugee movement.

Pro-refugee frames and their media counter frames

In July 2015, Hungary began to build a fence along its border with Serbia, signalling a shift in European refugee policy. On 26 August 2015, 71 refugees were found dead, locked in an airtight truck in a small town on the route from the Hungarian border to Vienna, and on 2 September 2015, Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and his picture provoked international outrage. On 5 September 2015, Germany opened its borders to refugees arriving via Hungary. Following the influx of refugees, the German public expressed support and solidarity, which became known as the ‘welcome culture’ (Wilkommenkultur). However, the welcome culture which dominated the public discourse in September was rapidly replaced by ‘culture of exclusion’ advocated by the mainstream media (Wodak, 2015).

In the following section, I examine frames of two long-standing pro-refugee groups in Berlin. The data cover the formation of pro-refugee frames from September 2015 when Germany opened its doors to refugees until the end of the year when anti-refugee sentiments gradually dominated the public and media discourse. In the second section, I investigate counter frames of three widely read German newspapers around the same period. In the third section, I provide an analysis of the specific frames used by both the movements and the media.

Ignoring media counter frames: a strategic failure

Social movement framing plays an important role in social movement strategy. Kevin Gillan (2019) has referred to framing as ‘one of the key ways in which movements bootstrap themselves into existence’ (p. 302) and Rucht and Neidhardt (2002: 11) have demonstrated that ‘social movements cannot exist in the long term without the promotion of convincing movement-specific frames’. In an influential paper, Snow et al. (1986) discuss strategic efforts of movement participants to connect the social movement frames with the interests of bystanders. These processes are referred to as frame alignment processes (Snow et al., 1986). These are strategic ideological works which require engagement with popular political and social conceptualization of issues in order to resonate with movement’s target population (Steinberg, 1998). Four frame alignment processes have been identified. Frame bridging links ideologically similar but structurally disconnected frames regarding a particular issue; frame amplification clarifies or idealizes beliefs or values; frame extension extends a movement’s interest beyond its primary interests; and frame transformation changes old understandings of an issue and embraces new ones. Hence, it is assumed that groups ‘construct frames through practices of on-going interaction, communication, and negotiation with the individuals they seek to mobilize’ (Coe, 2011: 497). Each process is focused on ‘the reconstruction of collective action frames on the basis of expectations about the effect this would have on the general public’ (Gillan, 2008: 249). Groups that decide not to interact with bystanders’ frames are unlikely to expand. Hence, most groups engage in frame alignment processes. However, some groups decide not to, because they might not be interested in attracting support from bystanders and prefer to communicate their particular message in a harsh and persuasive way (Gillan, 2008: 250). The emphasis of frame alignment literature has remained on process of framing rather than the content of a collective action frame. However, because of its focus on participants’ sense of agency in developing a diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing, it is likely to establish the degree in which movements’ groups pursue frame alignment by analysing the content of a group’s frame (see Gillan, 2008).

As time passed, linking the pro-refugee frames to German and European politics in general and claiming open borders and the right to movement for everyone seemed undisputed by the movement activists. Although these frames initially attracted some young supporters and sections of the left who were ideologically driven, they failed to resonate with the wider public. Confronting the EU and the German state on very broad and time-irrelevant issues to the refugees and the proposal to open borders were neither shared values by many Germans nor did they foster any emotional connections with refugees among the German public. Moreover, the prognostic framing of open border policy and the right of movement for everyone seemed unrealistic and disconnected from actually existing politics. Despite an explicit intention and commitment to foster support for refugees over time, the number of sympathizers decreased, and these groups struggled to attract many supporters.

Furthermore, a disconnect emerged between the prognostic frame and the day-to-day experience of refugees. Although some of the initiatives supported by the pro-refugee groups – for example the Open Border Caravan – were aimed at providing ‘actual’ help for the refugees and easing their journey upon arrival in Berlin, most of the daily support of providing food, shelter, medical aid and language support came from the ordinary citizens; activists of other, and mostly newly established, groups; civil society organizations; or established institutions. The increasing disparity between the pro-refugee frames and actual reality and suffering of the refugees over the months sparked various forms of discontent and criticism among the refugee activists as well. For example, one of the activists explained in an email to all members of the group:

I only want to inform you that many attempts are being made by the so called European refugees welcome sympathizers in the western countries to exploit the refugee crisis due to our inability to organize ourselves in a larger community of refugee activists by any means possible in Germany and Europe. Interestingly, I would like to re-emphasize that those activists who may be dreaming to solve the problem of oppressed refugees without the parallel regime of the refugee community are only playing to the gallery of the so called left wing or progressive political entertainment. (Emphasis in original) ¹⁹

By the end of 2015, the conservatives using similar frames provided by their allied media outlets managed to dominate the increasingly right-wing public and political discourse. They capitalized on what Wodak (2015) has referred to as ‘politics of fear’. According to Wodak, the politics of fear entails instrumentalization of a social group by the right-wing and populist parties as the cause for problems and construing the respective group as dangerous. As this politics was gradually manifesting itself through the autumn, reports of the New Year’s Eve mass sexual assaults and thefts ²⁰ fuelled this politics immensely and provided a gloomy end to the long 2015 in Germany.

Conclusion

This article makes a number of sociological contributions on the theoretical and empirical level. On the empirical level, it provides a unique insight into a segment of a pro-refugee movement in Berlin. Despite the growth of pro-refugee mobilizations in Europe within the past years, particularly in the months following the arrival of refugees in 2015, scant attention has been given to micro politics of these mobilizations. The example of the pro-refugee groups in Berlin is particularly significant as the unfolding politics around refugees in Germany has become influential in shaping European migration and refugee politics, beginning with Merkel’s waiving of the EU’s Dublin II regulation. Moreover, the rise of anti-immigrant Pegida and AfD could challenge the leading role Germany has been playing in the formulation of EU migration politics.

On the theoretical level, this article contributes to the theoretical understanding of media and movement frames by emphasizing the significance of dynamic engagement with media counter frames for creation of progressive political alliances with the wider public. As discussed before, Snow and Benford (1988) attributed three interconnected tasks to movement fames: diagnostic farming, prognostic framing, and motivational framing. This research shows the significance of motivational task and links it to what Benford and Snow have called resonance. They argue that the concept of resonance is related to the issue ‘of the effectiveness or mobilizing potency of proffered framings, thereby attending to the question of why some framings seem to be effective or “resonate” while others do not’ (Benford and Snow, 2000: 619; also see Snow and Benford, 1988). They claim that one of the important factors which influence the frame resonance is its salience to the target of mobilization. They identify three dimensions of salience as centrality, experiential commensurability, and narrative fidelity. Centrality highlights the significance of the issues raised to the lives of the target of mobilization; experiential commensurability refers to significance of the issue to the personal and everyday experiences of the potential supporters; and narrative fidelity denotes the resonance of the framing with cultural and ideological values of the targets. As was discussed in the previous section, the proffered framing of the pro-refugee groups under studied did not entail any of the three necessary dimensions of salience. In contrast, media counter frames entailed all three dimensions and provided the most persuasive source of information based on everyday experiences of Germans and their lived reality such as challenges surrounding refugee’s integration ahead, issues related to refugee housing and work place, emergence of disruption in areas where refugees were settled, and the economic cost of the refugees for Germans who are very sensitive and particular about what the government should be doing with relatively high rate of taxation imposed on them.

Developing a more salient frame and engagement with media counter frames would have contributed to promoting the movement’s goals as harnessing and challenging hegemonic discourses is one of the central tasks of social movement frames (Coy et al., 2008: 3). This could have been done through what Esacove (2004) has termed dialogic framing which argues for creating and recreating of meaning through a dialectical relationship between the frames and their media counter frames. Because frames are in continual process of making and remaking and not static movement-created understandings of the contested issue, groups cannot control how people receive their messages and interpretation of problems. This research illustrates the necessity of social movements and groups to be sensitive to the broader environment and opposing movement’s rhetoric (Rohlinger, 2002) created by media to be able to remain viable. The pro-refugee groups under study did not allow for fluid and active encounter with increasingly dominant media frames. Rather, they operated as if they were the only actors working to impact refugee politics. This is in line with the result of previous research conducted by the author on a different phase of pro-refugee struggle in Germany which demonstrated that activists were more preoccupied with confronting existing structures and institutions, hoping to be able to replace them, rather than trying to attract more support for their mobilization and/or finding solutions for refugees’ immediate problems (Fadaee, 2015).

It is clear that media frames represent the structures of power and the hegemonic ideology (Gramsci, 2000), and I am not arguing for an unchallenging framing which supports the hegemonic discourse represented by dominant media outlets. However, given the influence of contemporary media in construction of hegemonic discourse, the pro-refugee groups could have more successfully interacted in a dynamic, dialogic, and counter-hegemonic process of framing (Steinberg, 1998) through engaging with actual realities of the German society.

Finally, a critical analysis of progressive pro-refugee politics becomes particularly relevant as conservative discourses increasingly dominate Europe and politics drifts towards right-wing populism. These concerns have brought once again the fundamental question of social change, movements and progressive politics to the forefront of the political discussions: ‘what is to be done?’ as Vladimir Lenin (2013) in his celebrated political pamphlet asked at the dawn of the 20th century. In fact, the prognostic framing in social movements is meant to address this question. As this article has shown, the dominant prognostic framing by the pro-refugee groups, that is, open borders, proposed a progressive but idealistic solution to the refugee issue. Although the proposed open-border policy addressed dark truths of the modern world system (Frank, 1969; Wallerstein, 1974) and engaged with what Saskia Sassen (2014) has referred to as expulsions in the current brutal global economy, this proposal seemed to be more about confronting a structure and a system than immediate solutions to an unfolding humanitarian crisis. The rhetoric of a ‘refugee crisis’ adopted by politicians, much of media, and even many cultural and educational institutions proposed an immediate response to an extraordinary emergency. In such political and social context, offering a frame which promoted a ‘ruptural strategy’ (Wright, 2010) of social transformation – which is revolutionary in essence and requires confrontations with existing structures and institutions – seemed unrealistic.

Although it is beyond the scope of this article to explore the best strategies for a pro-refugee mobilization and politics in Europe, the victory of conservative and right-wing political parties in recent European elections and the triumph of anti-refugee rhetoric in the public discourse suggest that a realistic pro-refugee politics, which resonates with everyday experience and future anxieties of Europeans by proposing solutions to real challenges while simultaneously addressing structural injustice, should become the centre of pro-refugee politics.