Beyond the humanitarian savior logics? UNHCR's public communication strategies for the Syrian and Central African crises

Abstract

Forcibly displaced people often face restrictive migration policies and stereotypical discourses. Therefore, this study analyzes UNHCR's public communication strategies towards the Syrian and Central African crises. Through a comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) of UNHCR's (international) press releases (N = 28), news stories (N = 233), photos (N = 462) and videos (N = 50) of 2015, we examined its main representation and argumentation strategies. First, we found that UNHCR primarily represents forcibly displaced people in its press releases and news as victimized and/or voiceless masses, reproducing humanitarian savior and deservingness logics. However, stories, photos, and videos frequently portray them also as empowered individuals. This can be partially explained by media logics and political and private sector discourses and agenda-building opportunities. Moreover, UNHCR mainly voices pity-based and post-humanitarian Self-oriented solidarity discourses, and links protection to states’ (perceived) interests. Finally, these discursive strategies respond to dominant migration management paradigms and the increasingly neoliberalized, political realist international refugee regime (IRR).

Keywords

Agenda-building distant suffering forcibly displaced people humanitarian communication media representation multimodal critical discourse analysis public communication refugee organizations

Introduction

Forced migration and humanitarian needs have substantially increased in recent years (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2021). Nonetheless, forcibly displaced people face restrictive refugee policies, negative public opinions, xenophobia and the far right's rising popularity. In these contexts, international refugee organizations, and particularly the UN refugee agency UNHCR, often play pivotal roles. They mainly assist forcibly displaced people (Betts et al., 2012) but also inform, sensitize, build agendas and influence relevant policies (Dijkzeul and Moke, 2005).

Most research in the field has sought to understand news media's agenda-setting roles and processes (McCombs and Valenzuela, 2021). Building on the agenda-setting theory, various studies have adopted an agenda-building perspective and investigated which external sources (e.g. political sector, private sector, civil society) set the agendas of news media and other stakeholders, including on the theme of forced migration. Most studies have examined how these actors attempt to influence which topics news media, citizens, or other stakeholders should think about (i.e. first-level agenda-building) (Kim and Kiousis, 2012). However, to our knowledge, only some have thoroughly examined refugee organizations’ second-level agenda-building strategies, that is, discursive strategies that shape how or what news media, citizens and other stakeholders should think about certain topics (ibid.). Nevertheless, refugee organizations’ public communication can influence forcibly displaced people's and crises’ public perceptions and thus have broader policy and societal consequences, both at macro and micro levels (Chouliaraki, 2012; Ongenaert, 2019, Ongenaert and Joye, 2019). More specifically, most studies have identified that refugee organizations mostly use humanitarian and post-humanitarian representation and argumentation strategies (ibid.). However, although being valuable, these studies mostly analyze only one or a few discursive strategies, often neglect underlying production and/or societal contexts, and/or usually focus on only one media genre and/or crisis.

Acknowledging these gaps, we investigate how international refugee organizations usually (or not) present forcibly displaced people and the main argumentation strategies that are used, recognizing that both what is present and absent are discursively meaningful (Richardson, 2007). For this purpose, we apply a comparative-synchronic (Carvalho, 2008) Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) (Hansen and Machin, 2019; Machin and Mayr, 2012) on UNHCR's (international) press releases (N = 28), news stories (N = 233), and related photos (N = 462), and videos (N = 50) about the recent Syrian and Central African crises of the key year 2015. UNHCR is the key actor in the international refugee regime (IRR) and produces much public communication, including about the Syrian and Central African crises. These are protracted, large-scale displacement crises with a very diverse, complementary nature, allowing us to analyze whether, how and to what extent this affects UNHCR's discursive strategies. The methodology originates from analytic traditions in critical discourse analysis, social semiotics, and (audio)visual studies, and is well suited to study international refugee organizations’ discursive strategies. First, it investigates how actors use discourses to influence people's interpretations of topics, considering broader social, economic, and political contexts (ibid.). Second, by adopting multimodal and comparative-synchronic perspectives, we can adequately analyze meanings in both textual, visual and audiovisual media genres, and pinpoint media genre and crisis-related differences and commonalities.

Recognizing interactions between discourses, production contexts, and societal contexts (Fairclough, 1992), we bring together and connect three commonly isolated fields. We first discuss the broader IRR, and then various relevant stakeholders and their forced migration discourses, which both shape and are shaped by international refugee organizations’ discursive strategies, and eventually highlight the latter. Hence, the literature review provides new textual, production and societal insights about the subject, which inform the analysis.

The international refugee regime

The IRR is an institutional multilateral framework designed to guarantee principled and predictable responses to forced displacement (Betts et al., 2012). It has followed transformations in the modern state system, international law, politics, economics, and ideology (Barnett, 2002), and its founding (mainly “Northern”) states’ predominant interests (Aleinikoff and Zamore, 2019), reflecting political realism (Sökefeld, 2017). Its central elements are the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereinafter “the Convention”) and its 1967 Protocol and UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency mandated to provide international protection and permanent solutions (Aleinikoff and Zamore, 2019).

Globalization and increasing interdependence have introduced several new regimes (e.g. development, security, human rights, humanitarianism, peacebuilding, trade, travel, and labor migration) in the IRR, coinciding with and complementing or undermining the Convention (Betts, 2010). The IRR is thus a “refugee regime complex” in which overlapping, parallel international regimes interact and shape refugee policies (Betts et al., 2012). Furthermore, regimes are constantly evolving, dynamic and contested sites (Kuyper, 2014). Therefore, we argue that this “international regime complexity” (IRC) (Alter and Meunier, 2009) has enabled current refugee policy paradigms, measures, and underlying factors, as well as influenced stakeholders’ forced migration narratives, particularly refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (infra).

Regarding the former, since the 1990s, “Northern” states have pursued two overlapping refugee policy paradigms (Crisp, 2005). First, many states worldwide have established more restrictive asylum and border security policies. However, these reactive approaches are regularly inefficient, and sensing the emergence of a migration crisis, the IRR is moving toward “migration management paradigms.” This implies that migration should be managed predictably and orderly through comprehensive, internationally harmonized policy approaches, including (re)connecting migration with overlapping regimes (Geiger and Pécoud, 2010). Migration is considered beneficial by “regulated openness” toward economically desirable migrants and continued restrictiveness toward unwanted migrants, inserting more political realist and (neo)liberal rationales into migration policies (ibid.).

Both paradigms serve state interests and are reflected in shifting emphases from protection (e.g. local integration and resettlement) to humanitarian approaches (e.g. voluntary repatriation and [limited] local assistance) (Aleinikoff and Zamore, 2019). As most forcibly displaced people originate from and remain in the “Global South” (UNHCR, n.d.), “Southern” states have the largest legal responsibilities but, acknowledging diversity, usually have the least capacity to protect incoming forcibly displaced people (e.g. through asylum). Resourceful “Northern” states are barely obliged to contribute to “Southern” protection (i.e. burden or responsibility sharing), incentivizing them to pursue regional containment. While this “North-South impasse” severely affects forcibly displaced people's access to protection and sustainable solutions (Betts, 2010), many states increasingly close, securitize, and/or externalize their borders, focus on policies in and/or with third countries, and/or violate forcibly displaced people's rights (Andersson, 2014). These measures are regularly enabled through overlapping regimes (e.g. travel migration restrictions) (Betts, 2010).

Various stakeholders and their forced migration discourses

Considering these socio-political contexts, refugee organizations and other stakeholders interact and attempt to build agendas through public communication to obtain media, political, financial, and/or public support (Green, 2018), possibly affecting refugee organizations’ communication strategies. Therefore, we respond to calls for approaching “representational strategies on migration from a multi-stakeholder perspective” (d’Haenens and Joris, 2020: 437), which enables investigating how different relevant actors reproduce or counter certain migration representations. Specifically, this article discusses refugee organizations’ interactions with, and the forced migration discourses of news media, political, and private sector actors, as they substantially influence, directly and/or indirectly, refugee organizations’ discursive strategies.

News media

Since the 1980s, competition for media attention within the growing humanitarian sector has increased dramatically (Cottle and Nolan, 2007). Additionally, given increasingly digitalized and globalized news landscapes, international NGOs (INGOs) obtain greater agenda-building opportunities (Van Leuven and Joye, 2014). Driven by professionalization, mediatization, and marketization, NGOs increasingly create mainstream news-aligned content (Ongenaert et al., in review; Powers, 2018), tapping into journalists’ amenability toward information subsidies (Reich, 2011). Hence, INGOs’ agenda-building efforts increasingly culminate in more diversified yet media logic-aligned news reporting (Powers, 2018).

Specifically, news media mainly ambivalently portray forcibly displaced people as economic, socio-cultural, health and/or security threats and/or burdens, and as, mirroring humanitarian images (infra), conflict victims (Eberl et al., 2018), spotlighting iconic images of victimized children (Al-Ghazzi, 2019). Likewise, these representations are often gendered: forcibly displaced women are underrepresented and rather depicted as (inoffensive, vulnerable, submissive) victims (Amores et al., 2020). Similarly, forcibly displaced people are frequently collectivized, homogenized, anonymized, silenced, and decontextualized (Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017). More broadly, news coverage repeatedly reproduces crisis and emergency discourses, including cartographic and numerical representations of forcibly displaced people. This mirrors seemingly neutral management mindsets (Nikunen, 2019), similarly shaping refugee policies (supra) and influencing broader political and societal processes (Eberl et al., 2018). News media rely on numbers, as they mainly aim to provide clear factual information, but simultaneously simplify complex issues, ignore tragic events and create distance from the suffering of others (Silverstone, 2007).

However, news media sometimes evoke sympathy through human interest and/or heroic discourses (Pantti and Ojala, 2019), in which forcibly displaced people are personalized as normal, contributing citizens. Nevertheless, these humanitarian stories can also be problematic. By centering gratitude, innocence, humility, explicit vulnerability, and/or local charity, their agency and/or voices can be impeded (Wickramaararchchi and Burns, 2017).

Political actors

Reflecting news discourses, politicians generally portray forcibly displaced people as threats and/or victims (Van Leuven et al., 2018). Migration management measures are usually legitimized through these discourses (Crane, 2020). Through threat or burden narratives, political actors want to generate fear and “us-them” divisions, position themselves as necessary strong leaders, and divert attention from or blame forcibly displaced people for urgent socioeconomic issues (de Haas et al., 2020), facilitating xenophobia, the far right's popularity and more restrictive policies (Betts et al., 2012).

For refugee organizations, influencing governments through public communication is thus complex, especially with states’ increasing reluctance to cooperate (ibid.) and financial and political authority (Maxwell and Gelsdorf, 2019). UNHCR and many INGOs largely rely on states’ voluntary, short-term, earmarked responsibility-sharing contributions (e.g. funding, resettlement quotas) (Betts, 2009), inhibiting too strong criticism about refugee rights’ erosion (Chimni, 2000). Additionally, refugee organizations must continuously balance advocacy and adhering to national policies to assist (Maxwell and Gelsdorf, 2019). Furthermore, enabled by the IRC, UNHCR faces increased institutional competition, forum-shopping and regime shifting and has lost moral authority (Betts, 2009; Richey and Ponte, 2011).

Private sector actors

Following declining government and individual donations, growing resource demands, and competition, refugee organizations increasingly form partnerships with private sector actors (Benton and Glennie, 2016), mainly involving mutual financial, substantive, and branding benefits (Richey and Ponte, 2011). These partnerships embody the IRR's increasing neoliberalization and technologization (Geiger and Pécoud, 2010) and broader global humanitarian-corporate complexes, which largely coordinate, finance, and implement humanitarian aid (Johnson, 2011a).

Equally echoing neoliberalism, private sector actors usually represent forcibly displaced people heroically, spotlighting their agency, determination, courage, and rational decision-making, commonly in gendered ways. Technology companies strategically argue that technology can empower forcibly displaced people, presenting themselves as adequate humanitarians and eliminating the need for further assistance (Plambech et al., 2021). Likewise, corporate humanitarian initiatives tend to represent refugee women as homogeneous “Others” who can be empowered by participating in labor markets and activating latent entrepreneurial skills. Such neoliberal, self-reliance-oriented narratives reproduce humanitarian savior logics, obscuring the gender division of responsibilities and artisanal labor's precarious nature (Bergman Rosamond and Gregoratti, 2020).

Refugee organizations’ discursive strategies

Representation strategies

In representing forcibly displaced people, refugee organizations mainly respond to the above-mentioned stakeholders’ discourses and states’ limited incentives for protection by applying humanitarian discourses of pity, relying on universalist common humanity, and, increasingly, post-humanitarian ironic discourses (Chouliaraki, 2012; Ongenaert, 2019).

Pity-based representations

Forcibly displaced people's humanitarian images have generally changed from heroic, politicized individuals in the Cold War period to, mirroring media and political discourses (supra), anonymous, voiceless, depoliticized, dehistoricized, decontextualized, universalized, racialized, and/or victimized masses from the “Global South,” mostly involving (innocent and vulnerable-looking) women and children as “ideal victims” (Höijer, 2004; Johnson, 2011b). Recognizing important genre differences (Ongenaert and Joye, in review), mainly refugee organizations, celebrities, and other humanitarian actors obtain voices about forcibly displaced people, largely neglecting and dehumanizing forcibly displaced people themselves (Chouliaraki, 2012; Ongenaert and Joye, 2019). These discursive transformations interact with the aforementioned policy shifts and serve to mobilize public support and manage forcibly displaced people's perceived threats (Johnson, 2011b). These representations belong to frequently oversimplified (Fransen and de Haas, 2019) crisis and emergency discourses that, driven by financial and media interests, emphasize the severity of humanitarian situations (Crisp, 1999; Kleres, 2018) and can have negative long-term implications (e.g. [indirectly] fueling threat narratives and compassion fatigue) (Ongenaert and Joye, 2019a).

Given increasing skepticism about these “negative,” agency-lacking representation strategies, forcibly displaced people from the “Global South” are sometimes portrayed more “positively” (Chouliaraki, 2012) as hopeful, self-determined, talented, fitting within “Northern” cultures and morals, and contrasting reality (Crawley and Skleparis, 2018), distinguishable from economic migrants, indicating assimilation and hierarchies of deservingness (Rodriguez, 2016). As a result of refugee organizations’ focus on self-reliance, resilience (Krause and Schmidt, 2020), and innovation within an increasingly neoliberalized, technologized IRR, they commonly echo private sector discourses. Forcibly displaced people are reframed from “burdens” or “threats” (supra) to “entrepreneur,” “opportunities,” “resources,” being closer to “whiteness,” and more acceptable for Western audiences and donors (Turner, 2020). These “self-reliance” narratives support cost-effective exit strategies from long-term refugee populations and can imply unintended consequences for refugees’ well-being, protection (Easton-Calabria and Omata, 2018), economic subjectivity, broader conditions (Pascucci, 2019), and migration politics (Gürsel, 2017).

Furthermore, these representation strategies can also dehumanize forcibly displaced people by representing them as, contrasting reality, too self-determined (Chouliaraki, 2012). Typically, only charming, talented, and/or middle-class forcibly displaced people acquire a “voice”. These are regulated to reinforce organizational messages (Pupavac, 2008) and consequently are depoliticized and homogenized (Godin and Doná, 2016). Hence, refugee organizations risk strengthening hierarchies of deservingness (Yukich, 2013) and undermining asylum rights (Pupavac, 2008). Generally, the regime of pity perpetuates forcibly displaced people's perceived ambivalence via “negative” and “positive” strategies (Chouliaraki, 2012).

Irony-based representations

In the emerging regime of irony, refugee organizations use post-humanitarian, “Western Self”-oriented discourses. They attempt to remove forcibly displaced people's perceived ambivalence through innovative portrayals that respond to Western audiences’ self-reflection and cultivation. Specifically, this regime focuses on celebrity advocacy, mainly involving personalized testimonies and contrasting earlier more human rights-oriented communication. Meetings with forcibly displaced people are usually represented as contributions to self-development (Chouliaraki, 2012). While this celebrity humanitarianism can reach broader audiences (Ongenaert and Joye, 2019), citizens tend to engage and identify more with the media spectacle and celebrities than with forcibly displaced people (Chouliaraki, 2012; Kyriakidou, 2019). Coproduced “doing good” reality television and films also repeatedly focus on voiced Western figures, largely neglecting forcibly displaced people and their broader contexts. While generally effective in promoting solidary feelings and mobilizing donations, they lean on the politics of emotion, centering on self-directed senses of doing good (Nikunen, 2019).

The regime of irony is thus a generally innovative, financially successful but morally problematic response to the regime of pity's limitations, increasing competition and audience-related challenges (Chouliaraki, 2012). This ironic shift relates to three fundamental intersecting transformations since the 1970s: the profit-oriented instrumentalization of aid and development fields, the decline of major solidarity narratives, and the “technologization” of communication (Chouliaraki, 2013).

Argumentation strategies

Acknowledging these trends, refugee organizations frequently try to persuade states to voluntarily engage in protection by connecting their contributions to larger interests in related regimes (e.g. human rights, humanitarianism, economics, migration, and security) (Betts, 2009; Ongenaert and Joye, 2019). This pragmatic, political realist communication strategy, known as “cross-issue persuasion,” is enabled by IRC, builds on issue linkage (see McGinnis, 1986), and presupposes two crucial factors. First, protection must be structurally connected to the other issue area(s). Second, refugee organizations should create, change, or recognize and communicate effectively about these substantive relationships to states (Betts, 2009).

In the early 1990s, UNHCR and numerous NGOs tried to persuade governments to structurally address displacement issues by presenting them as security challenges (Hammerstad, 2014). This strategy further securitized forced migration, making forcibly displaced people more politically relevant. Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, UNHCR withdrew from security discourses. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States and prevailing (possible) security threat perceptions of forcibly displaced people, it sought to desecuritize protection and reconnect it with human rights and humanitarianism (Hammerstad, 2014). More recently, UNHCR stated that supporting “Southern” protection can help reduce “Northward” irregular migration (Betts, 2009).

Having linked various commonly isolated discursive strategies and production and social contexts of refugee organizations, we now extend and nuance the literature by applying an MCDA to different media genres of public communication on two crises and comparatively analyzing interactions between text, production and/or societal dimensions.

Methodology

This paper examines how UNHCR's public communication typically (not) represents forcibly displaced people, and the argumentation strategies used. Being the key actor in the IRR (supra), UNHCR is engaged in and communicates about the large-scale Syrian and Central African crises, including in 2015, forming our empirical focus. The Syrian crisis has existed since 2011 and was at the end of 2015, then involving 11.7 million forcibly displaced people, the largest displacement crisis worldwide. The Central African Republic, affected by recurring conflicts for decades, constituted with 0.99 million forcibly displaced people the 14th largest crisis worldwide (UNHCR, 2016). Furthermore, in 2015, both the number of forcibly displaced people, particularly those involved in the Syrian crisis, the humanitarian needs (UNHCR, 2016) and levels of mediatization increased tremendously (Krzyżanowski et al., 2018). Moreover, the sample constitutes a temporally limited and logical entity, enabling relevant statements on contextual dimensions.

The first author applied, supported by Microsoft Office software, a comparative-synchronic (Carvalho, 2008) MCDA (Machin and Mayra, 2012) on UNHCR's international press releases (N = 28), news stories (N = 233), and related photos (N = 462) and videos (N = 50), which represent forcibly displaced people involved in the above-mentioned crises.¹ The aselect data selection of the media content units (MCUs) included applying crisis category-specific search formulas in UNHCR's main website. Because the Boolean operators (apart from “AND”) do not function adequately within the search filters of UNHCR's website, we used respectively “Syr*”, “Central African”, and “Syr* AND ‘Central African’” for searching press releases, and news and stories in the respective sections “Press releases and news comments”, and “Stories”. Based on their media genre and content, we then identified and listed all relevant MCUs, both primarily or secondarily mentioning the investigated people.

Considering crisis categories, we identified that UNHCR communicated (much) more about forcibly displaced people involved in the Syrian crisis than about those in the Central African crisis or about both groups (see Table 1). All analyzed photos and videos belong to news stories and particularly to the more human-interest-focused subcategory, “stories” than to “news.”

Table 1.

Number of relevant MCUs per crisis category and/or media genre.

	Crisis category
Media genre	Syrian crisis	Central African crisis	Both crises	Total
Press releases	23 (82,1%)	4 (14,3%)	1 (3,6%)	28 (100,0%)
News stories	200 (85,8%)	29 (12,4%)	4 (1,7%)	233 (99,9%)*
Photos	344 (74,5%)	113 (24,5%)	5 (1,1%)	462 (100,1%)**
Videos	48 (96,0%)	1 (2,0%)	1 (2,0%)	50 (100,0%)
Total	615 (79,6%)	147 (19,0%)	11 (1,4%)	773 (100,0%)

Note: The total is less than 100 percent due to rounding; The total is greater than 100 percent due to rounding. Source: Authors’ calculations.

(M)CDA is, however, a critical, interpretative state of mind, rather than an explicit, systematic, reproducible research method (Reisigl and Wodak, 2016). Hence, for the reliability of this study's results, we reflexively discuss our research decisions and used various discursive criteria (Joye and Maeseele, 2022: in press), informed by multiple key works (Hansen and Machin, 2019; Machin and Mayr, 2012; Reisigl and Wodak, 2016) and the literature review. Nevertheless, given the limited and fragmented research on the subject, this study approaches the data from an open, explorative, inductive perspective. Hence, we respond to common criticisms that (M)CDA lacks comparative analyzes and large datasets, gives little attention to (non-journalistic) social actors’ discursive strategies, and is too text-focused, neglecting (audio)visual content (Carvalho, 2008; Hansen and Machin, 2019).

Results

We discuss the general results and relevant variations regarding (sub)media genre and crisis category. While not distinguishing between the dimensions of text, discursive practices, and social practices (Fairclough, 1992), the latter two are integrated into the discussion of textual strategies to contextualize the analysis.

Representation strategies

Refining earlier research, the analysis shows that UNHCR mainly uses different intertwined “negative” and/or “positive” pity-based representation strategies, varying according to the media genre.

Generic forced migration masses versus specific, nominated individuals

In general, we find that UNHCR represents forcibly displaced people in its press releases and to lesser extents in its news as generic forced migration masses, while in its stories, photos and videos it mainly portrays them as specific, nominated individuals.

First, UNHCR largely represents forcibly displaced people as groups in its press releases and frequently in its news through semiotic choices, including particular terminology (e.g. “refugees,” “[internally] displaced people”), pronouns, and/or statistics, which might homogenize and dehumanize. It barely presents forcibly displaced people as individuals, which might humanize and elicit sympathy (Hansen and Machin, 2019).

Corresponding with the large numbers of collectivizations and acknowledging gradations of a generic nature (e.g. “refugees” vs. “Syrian refugee households”), we found that UNHCR always presents forcibly displaced people, including individuals, as generic types in its press releases, and mainly in its news, which might dehumanize them.

Likewise, UNHCR routinely aggregates forcibly displaced people in its press releases to refer to and/or emphasize crises’ magnitude or the large reach of its assistance (e.g. “millions of refugees”). Aggregations can suggest objective scientific credibility while obscuring underlying ideological motives (Van Dijk, 1991). However, aggregations are not always strategically used. UNHCR routinely utilizes more statistics than aggregations, and aggregations are frequently based on and/or clarified by statistics. Nevertheless, UNHCR sometimes aggregates forcibly displaced people as part of a phenomenon, dehumanizing them (e.g. “massive refugee flows,” “a tsunami of people”). These elements reflect and reproduce crisis and emergency discourses, corresponding with news media logics (supra).

Similarly, the analysis shows that UNHCR tends to functionalize forcibly displaced people in its press releases by reducing them to their generic role (e.g. “refugees,” “asylum-seekers”), which can dehumanize. However, corresponding with the few individualizations and specifications, UNHCR barely nominates (e.g. proper nouns and/or humanity oriented terms), which sounds more personal and can humanize, Machin and Mayr, 2012), and if so, mostly generically (e.g. “Syrians”, “children”).

More generally, the large presence of collectivizations, genericizations, aggregations, and functionalizations points to the prevalence of “negative” pity-based representation strategies in UNHCR's press releases. Responding to news media logics (supra), UNHCR tries to gain necessary media attention and build news agendas through fact- and figures-based press releases. However, these numerical approaches tend to present forcibly displaced people as generic masses, which has dehumanizing implications. This requires a reflexive reassessment from UNHCR as to whether, how, and to what extent UNHCR can gain media attention while limiting or even avoiding such dehumanizing effects.

In contrast, UNHCR's stories mostly involve more individualizations (e.g. personal names and pronouns) than collectivizations. Further, we often observed individualizations and collectivizations in the photos (Figures 3 and 6), respectively, spotlighting the person's thoughts and/or experiences, or the related events, as well as combinations, which have mixed effects (Figures 1, 4, and 5). In the latter cases, one or a few people within a group, including affiliated celebrities, are highlighted, mainly through the setting, different poses, actions, gazes, facial expressions, clothing, and/or physical characteristics, visibility, and/or digitally increased focus. Coinciding with the large numbers of individualizations, stories and photos mostly present forcibly displaced people more as specific (Figures 4 and 6) than as generic figures (Figure 3) or combinations (Figures 1 and 5), which can be humanizing (Hansen and Machin, 2019). Likewise, in its news, and particularly in its stories, more nominations than functionalizations are applied, which is frequently reflected in their respective photo captions (Figures 1 and 6).

Figure 1.

“Gildas walks through the Grand Séminaire camp in Bangui. ‘Our duty is to provide these kids with a good education’. It's essential for them to grow up and help in rebuilding our country.” © UNHCR/Anthony Fouchard’ (UNHCR, 2015, May 3).

Figure 3.

“A Syrian man looks longingly as a boat heads out to sea from Izmir on Turkey's Aegean coast. The city has become a popular departure point for those crossing to Greece. © UNHCR/D.Breen” (UNHCR, 2015, February 2).

Figure 4.

“Syrian refugees rest in an emergency shelter after their tents collapsed when heavy snows lashed Za’atari refugee camp in northern Jordan. Hundreds of refugee families were effected by the winter storm and had to sue emergency centres. © UNHCR/B.Szandelszky” (UNHCR, 2015, January 9).

Figure 5.

“A Syrian refugee family from Raqqa finds safety in Suruc refugee camp in southern Turkey. © UNHCR/I.Prickett” (UNHCR, 2015, June 25).

Figure 6.

“Justine sits in the back of a UNHCR vehicle that will evacuate her from Bili to Gbadolite, where medical facilities are better. Her leg may need to be amputated if she cannot get there in time. © UNHCR/Brian Sokol” (UNHCR, 2015, January 29).

Similarly, in the videos, we mainly observe combinations of individualizations and collectivizations. One or a few individuals, including UNHCR officers and/or affiliated celebrities, are projected as protagonists, facilitating relatedness and identification (Figure 2). Other forcibly displaced people are mostly collectivized, impeding audience engagement and emphasizing the protagonists’ individual nature, and/or (briefly) individualized, especially children as “ideal victims” (supra). Likewise, the protagonists and sometimes one or more relatives are usually specified (Figure 2), while other people are mostly genericized and/or occasionally (briefly) specified. Moreover, in the videos, UNHCR usually nominates the main characters (Figure 2) and the (few) UNHCR officers and celebrities, while functionalizing other forcibly displaced people.

Figure 2.

Screenshot of video “Jordan: The Syrian Mousetrap Inventor” © UNHCR (UNHCR, 2015, March 15).

More generally, the large presence of individualizations, specifications, and nominations points to the prevalence of “positive” pity-based representation strategies in UNHCR press releases. UNHCR tries to engage wider audiences through in-depth human-interest focuses in its stories, photos and videos. More concretely, it seems to try to facilitate identification and relatability among the general public through more elaborate individualized, specified, and nominated representations of forcibly displaced people. The forcibly displaced people presented in UNHCR's stories, photos and videos are consequently more humanized.

Anonymous forced migration characters

We identify that UNHCR often does not mention represented individualized people's names in its news stories, photos or videos, or, in the case of main characters, usually only uses their first names or, for explicit protective reasons, pseudonyms. These pseudonymized people are sometimes (audio)visually anonymized (e.g. through extreme genericization, limited or no visibility, side and/or rear views, and/or extreme and very long shots, infra) (Figure 3), but are regularly simultaneously in other content, to varying extents, textually and/or (audio)visually recognizable. While recognizing that necessary protection levels may vary on a case-by-case basis, this seems to indicate inconsistent, questionable protection approaches, both for the featured people and their broader environments.

As forcibly displaced people are seldom represented as “speakers” in press releases and news (infra), they are sometimes anonymized through indirect representations of voiced high-ranked employees: “one father said life as a refugee was like being stuck in quicksand (…)” (UNHCR, 2015, March 12). While anonymous resource use is common and often recommended for protective reasons, this might also indicate unequal access to UNHCR's communication department. Similarly, forcibly displaced people are sometimes anonymized through general, not easily verifiable, unsubstantiated paraphrases: “Most see little opportunity of returning home in the near future” (ibid., June 12). While we do not question per se these statements’ veracity, it seems important, especially given their content and implications, to substantiate them, especially as such discursive devices can be used to avoid developing specific, easily refutable arguments (Hansen and Machin, 2019).

Us-them portrayals

We examined if UNHCR tries to align audiences around or against certain ideas through using pronouns, presenting their ideas as “ours” and creating contrasting collective “Others” (Machin and Mayr, 2012). In sum, UNHCR often uses, particularly in its press releases, various implicit interconnected discursive “us”-“them” dichotomies in pity-based solidarity expressions and calls (infra) to generate solidarity for forcibly displaced people and to persuade states to engage in protection.

First, “us” mainly refers to (envisioned) “active doers,” including the international community, states, UNHCR, and citizens. “Them” mostly refers to the “beneficiaries”: the examined forcibly displaced people and sometimes the most important regional host states and communities, and/or forcibly displaced people in general. The latter are thereby often implicitly Othered as dependent actors in need whom “we”, discursively constructed as homogeneous actors to emphasize unity, should support, trying to align “us” around “negative” and “positive” pity-based humanitarian discourses. For example, “As anti-foreigner rhetoric echoes through Europe, it is important that we remember that refugees are fleeing war and violence in places such as Syria” (ibid., March 12).

Second, it tries to align “us” against anti-immigration discourses, counteracting common negative images of forcibly displaced people and constructing anti-immigration actors and threats as contrasting, hostile collective “Others”:

“Refugees are made scapegoats for any number of problems from terrorism to economic hardship and perceived threats to their host communities’ way of life. But we need to remember that the primary threat is not from refugees, but to them,” Guterres said.

Third, confirming the literature, UNHCR sometimes reproduces deserving–undeserving dichotomies between “refugees” and “economic migrants” to strengthen refugees’ rights and claims. For example: “These are not economic migrants looking for a better life, these are desperate refugees who are fleeing war and persecution” (ibid., June 20). Although UNHCR wants to strengthen refugee rights in this way, it neglects that these policy categories in reality usually conflate, undermines other types of migrants’ rights, and risks undermining forcibly displaced people's rights in the long term (Crawley and Skleparis, 2018; Pupavac, 2008).

Finally, “we” occasionally refers to forcibly displaced people, contrasting traffickers or state authorities, or both forcibly displaced people and UNHCR communication officers, indicating the potential for forcibly displaced people-centered and/or more unifying, inclusive discourses devoid of humanitarian savior-saved dichotomies.

Passive, voiceless victims versus the empowered doer, speaker, and/or thinker

Based on Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) verb classification, we investigated the roles in which forcibly displaced people are mostly (not) presented and subsequent implications. We observe that forcibly displaced people are generally represented in diverse media genre-related ways. More concretely, the findings reveal a predominantly “negative” pity-based representation strategy, particularly in press releases (cf. Ongenaert and Joye, 2019).

First, UNHCR regularly presents forcibly displaced people as passive, suffering, impoverished, and dependent beneficiaries of material processes. They are rescued, hosted and/or assisted by active doers, particularly UNHCR, states, the international community, and humanitarian, private sector, and/or celebrity partners. These representations reproduce and reflect humanitarian savior logics. For example, “UNHCR also distributed 29,000 blankets donated by the United Arab Emirates to Syrian refugees, many of whom live in precarious conditions and are ill prepared for the sub-zero temperatures” (UNHCR, 2015, January 7).

Relatedly, we found representations of forcibly displaced people as victimized “done-tos” of material processes, facing and/or suffering from (increasing) violence, hostility, restrictive policies and regulations, and severe climatic conditions, including in news stories. UNHCR typically condemns the violence but, contrasting its discursive treatment of the Central African conflict, barely (explicitly) names the culprits in the Syrian conflict, including through concealing passive verb forms, nominalizations, and/or vague terminology. This seems to indicate the importance of pragmatic, context-sensitive communication. Additionally, UNHCR often presents forcibly displaced people as passive participants of primarily negative existential processes (e.g. living in miserable, usually deteriorating physical, psychological, and/or material conditions) in all media genres (Figure 4).

Connected therewith, the findings reveal representations of forcibly displaced people as largely voiceless, passive objects of verbal processes, including solidarity expressions, calls, and needs assessments primarily by UNHCR and its affiliated organizations and celebrities. Moreover, UNHCR regularly portrays forcibly displaced people as subjects of relational processes. In press releases and news, forcibly displaced people are presented as (part of) aggregations and/or statistics while in stories and photos they sometimes symbolize particular qualities, emotions, people, and/or phenomena. Finally, UNHCR frequently represents forcibly displaced people in press releases as active “doers”. However, corresponding with the previous representations, these material processes often imply rather negative and desperate connotations (e.g. conducting drastic coping and/or survival strategies). For example, “Last year, the number of people risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean on smugglers’ boats rose dramatically” (ibid., February 12).

More generally, these representations of forcibly displaced people as passive, suffering, voiceless beneficiaries indicate, corresponding with the above-mentioned discursive devices, the prevalence of “negative” pity-based representation strategies in UNHCR's press releases. UNHCR seeks to gain news media coverage and build news agendas by using crisis and emergency discourses in its press releases. Likewise, while acknowledging refugee organizations’ need to gain news media coverage and to report truthfully about the gravity of (often very dire) humanitarian situations, UNHCR should consider whether, how, and to what extent it can mitigate or avoid the dehumanizing implications of these representations.

In news stories, photos, and videos, however, forcibly displaced people are, coinciding with more personalized focuses, generally more diversely and nuanced represented, including through both “negative” and “positive” pity-based representation strategies. First, forcibly displaced people are more represented as active “doers” of “positive” material processes, including fleeing and seeking and/or finding safety, shelter, asylum, work, healthcare and/or education, and contributing positively to host societies (Figure 2). Likewise, contrasting press releases, forcibly displaced people are repeatedly presented in news stories and videos as speakers, who mainly talk about their pre-, intra-, and/or post-conflict lives (e.g. living conditions, flight[s] and underlying reasons, profession[s], activities, plans, and aspirations), indicating their agency and relative access to these media genres (ibid.).

Furthermore, they are frequently presented as subjects of both negative and positive mental processes, providing insights into their feelings and/or state of mind (mainly affection-oriented, such as, being distressed, desperate, hopeful, grateful, resilient; sometimes cognition-focused, such as thinking, studying; less perception-directed). These representations often humanize and can generate empathy, but frequently also imply some passivity. Furthermore, forcibly displaced people are regularly presented as subjects of behavioral processes (e.g. looking, posing, smiling, Figures 1, 3, and 6), which does not suggest strong agency, and mainly in photos and videos but never in press releases. Finally, the photo captions contextualize the pictures, including, reflecting their strategic nature, UNHCR's involvement (Figure 6) and typically represent more active roles than those visually displayed.

More generally, these representations of forcibly displaced people as more empowered individual doers, speakers and/or thinkers demonstrate, coinciding with the aforementioned discursive devices, the presence of both “negative” and “positive” pity-based representation strategies in UNHCR's news stories, photos and videos. UNHCR tries to engage audiences for the theme of forced migration through these media genres. Consequently, it uses more in-depth, individualized representations through which it seeks to facilitate identification and relatability. Consequently, the representations of forcibly displaced people in UNHCR's news stories, photos and videos are more layered and humane than in its press releases.

Relative audiovisual closeness

In photos and videos, angles of interaction and proximity with the represented people influence audience engagement, including relative power relations and degrees of association (Hansen and Machin, 2019). We find that UNHCR generally brings audiences relatively close to the represented people, particularly through the angles of interaction used. This is consistent with the previously commonly identified discursive strategies, which, corresponding with the general purpose of UNHCR's photos and videos, are mainly aimed at engaging the general public through generating identification and relatability, and encouraging solidarity. However, considering the distances and gazes used, UNHCR does not portray forcibly displaced people very closely, presumably to avoid discomfort.

First, regarding vertical angles, we identify that UNHCR usually represents forcibly displaced people from the same or similar levels, often implying equality, ordinariness, and/or closeness, and facilitating sympathy (Figures 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6).

UNHCR sometimes uses bird's eye views, as they, coinciding with the dominant “negative” pity-based representation strategies, repeatedly suggest low(er) statuses, physically weak(er) positions, and/or limited agency and/or empowerment (Figure 4). However, frog's eye views are barely used, and interacting with other devices frequently does not suggest their assumed meanings. Generally, UNHCR seems to use these perspectives for strategic reasons, as they commonly reinforce the news story's dominant representations and/or imply conscious production practices (often similar level as little children, lying or sitting people, in Figures 5 and 6), practical reasons (e.g. accessibility, visibility) and/or contextual reasons (e.g. height differences between settings, people, positions, and/or objects).

Regarding horizontal angles, we found that UNHCR mostly uses front views, particularly in photos, facilitating more audience involvement (Figures 1, 4, 5, and 6). Side views are also routinely used, particularly in videos, which, especially from a distance, imply detachment, objectivity, broader scene observations, and/or sometimes anonymity. However, we also identified close side views, often suggesting togetherness, closeness, and/or shared positions (Figure 2). Furthermore, rear views are sometimes used in photos to move audiences more into represented persons’ perspectives and/or to guarantee anonymity (Figure 3), but rarely in videos.

Further, based on Bowen’s (2018) frame size categorization, we observe that UNHCR mainly uses medium shots, particularly in photos (Figures 3 and 6), and long shots, especially in videos. Furthermore, UNHCR frequently uses medium-long shots (Figure 1) and medium close-ups (Figures 4 and 5). These shots imply, to varying degrees, connotations situated between intimacy, closeness, approachability, and/or genuineness, facilitating empathy, and impersonality, distance, isolation, and/or loneliness. Additionally, in videos, the protagonists and their relatives are mostly displayed through both closer and longer shots, while other forcibly displaced people (especially babies and children as ideal victims, supra) are mainly briefly displayed through longer shots or closer shots.

Finally, examining gaze, we mainly observe “offer images” (Figures 2–5), which provide information for scrutiny and consideration. The represented people predominantly watch other (visible) people, objects, and/or settings or sometimes look off-frame, usually suggesting thoughtfulness (Figure 5). They look about equally often up or down off-frame, which, especially if reinforced through other aspects (e.g. facial expression, pose, action, body, setting, represented role, and context), can suggest positive thoughts, empowerment, and/or agency, or rather negative or introspective thoughts, vulnerability, low energy and/or low status, respectively (Figure 4). Occasionally, one or more people look directly at the audience, particularly the main characters (Figures 1 and 6) and/or (weak) children. These “demand images” generate imaginary, symbolic relationships and moral demands, especially if reinforced by the above-mentioned aspects.

Argumentation strategies

Corresponding with literature, we analyzed validity claims of normative rightness (i.e. linked to practical and/or ethical norms) and truth (i.e. related to knowledge, degree of certainty, and theoretical insights) (Reisigl and Wodak, 2016). We observed them more in press releases than in news stories and (obviously) rarely in the (audio)visual media genres.

Pity-and irony-based solidarity discourses

The results suggest that UNHCR generates and perpetuates pity-based solidarity and political actions toward its beneficiaries (e.g. forcibly displaced people, their host states, and/or host communities) through interconnected reporting verb-inspired argumentation strategies (see Caldas-Coulthard, 1994). These discourses are mostly voiced by high-ranked employees and affiliated celebrities, presumably to enhance modality, and are aimed at (potential) donors and/or partners (e.g. the international community, states, citizens, civil society, or private sector actors).

Specifically, UNHCR often expresses and/or calls for solidarity toward its beneficiaries, sometimes contextualizing its public communication (e.g. centering national security, integration, common pasts of displacement), and/or emphasizing the crisis's magnitude, contributing to crisis and emergency discourses. For example, “Guterres emphasized that this crisis can be mitigated if the international community steps up efforts to alleviate the suffering of the refugees” (UNHCR, 2015, January 14).

Furthermore, actors are thanked and/or praised for their solidarity and/or political actions, which is sometimes further legitimized through (grateful) testimonials of forcibly displaced people (cf. the importance of accountability, Jacobsen and Sandvik, 2018). Moreover, UNHCR warns and/or fears for and/or condemns (the consequences of) a lack of solidarity, and/or negative political actions toward its beneficiaries. Mirroring culprits (supra), UNHCR rarely explicitly addresses actors involved in the Syrian conflict, again contrasting with its treatment of the Central African conflict.

Furthermore, UNHCR applies various neoliberal post-humanitarian (mainly Western) Self-oriented solidarity discourses, mostly voiced by high-ranked employees and affiliated celebrities and directed at citizens. More concretely, celebrities commonly discuss crises and/or call for solidarity through personalized, testimonialized frames, centering their emotional (e.g. experiences and perceptions) and/or professional connections (e.g. track record, current activities) to the subject, to indirectly involve broader audiences: “[Angelina Jolie]: ‘It is shocking to see how the humanitarian situation in Iraq has deteriorated since my last visit’” (UNHCR, 2015, January 25).

Moreover, UNHCR frequently tries to embed the subject directly into audiences’ (e.g. citizens, policy-makers) personal environments through individualized frames (e.g. addressing directly, encouraging self-reflection). For example: “Think of your own life. Think of what that would mean” (ibid., June 20). Relatedly, UNHCR calls for solidarity via individualized frames, responding to audiences’ individual responsibilities, needs, and opportunities “to do good.”

Finally, confirming the literature, humanitarian self-reliance and resilience discourses promoting (extraordinary) refugee entrepreneurialism are used, especially for the forcibly displaced people involved in the Syrian crisis. Forcibly displaced people are framed as (pro)active, creative, and inventive, being closer to “whiteness” and more acceptable for Western audiences and donors (supra). In these ways, UNHCR responds to various mainstream news media conventions, affecting forcibly displaced people's, broader crises’ and humanitarianism's imagery.

Multi-layered cross-interest persuasion

Refining cross-issue persuasion, we found that UNHCR attempts to persuade states to engage in protection through responsibility-sharing, such as financial and humanitarian assistance and sometimes legal avenues, while rarely suggesting asylum. This is achieved through linking up to states’ (perceived) interests in various commonly (e.g. human rights, humanitarianism, development, economy, and trade, peace-building) and newly identified issue areas (e.g. education, labor, health, societal stability, diplomacy, integration). For example, “We must protect them and invest in them. (…) They are the potential for the rebuilding and restabilization of countries” (ibid., June 20).

By mainly persuading “Northern” states to engage in regional assistance but rarely to provide asylum, UNHCR largely responds to the “North-South impasse,” endorsing “Northern” states’ interests in regional containment and, more generally, migration management. However, UNHCR risks contributing to eroding essential refugee law principles (cf. the “right to seek asylum”). Connected therewith, it also links state contributions in protection to, extending the literature, states’ (perceived) interests in migration management (e.g. fairness, balance, efficiency, manageability, safety, order, self-reliance), common humanity (e.g. solidarity, empathy, reciprocity), and multiculturalist (e.g. tolerance, diversity) principles and values. For example, “The relocation scheme (…) is an important first step towards a comprehensive approach for the management of refugee flows into Europe based on the principles of solidarity and responsibility-sharing” (ibid., November 4). Hence, we propose broadening the concept of “cross-issue persuasion” to “cross-interest persuasion,” emphasizing the argumentation strategy's political realist nature.

We also observed various argumentation strategies involving different degrees of explicitness. First, UNHCR sometimes mentions the crisis and/or (perceived) state interests without (explicitly) linking them to protection but emphasizing the situation's severity. Second, UNHCR regularly links protection to (perceived) state interests without (explicitly) calling for protection but enabling the opportunity to do so. Third, protection is linked to (perceived) state interests, and states are explicitly called upon to provide (more) protection.

Finally, the presented connections and benefits can be rather direct (e.g. linking protection to human rights improvements in “Southern” host states or economic benefits for “Northern” states) or rather indirect (e.g. linking protection to limiting international implications resulting from host states’ affected economy, societal stability, and/or security).

Conclusion

This study examined UNHCR's public communication strategies toward the Syrian and Central African crises. We generally observe a mixed picture involving mainly media genre and crisis-specific differences and commonalities, extending and nuancing earlier research.

First, consistent with previous research (Johnson, 2011b; Ongenaert and Joye, 2019), UNHCR predominantly represents forcibly displaced people through interrelated “negative” pity-based discursive strategies, mainly in its press releases and often in its news. UNHCR largely portrays forcibly displaced people as anonymized, passive, victimized, and/or voiceless masses, which potentially has dehumanizing effects and reproduces humanitarian savior logics alongside hierarchies of deservingness. These portrayals are related to broader crisis and emergency discourses that emphasize the severity of humanitarian situations that can have negative long-term implications (supra).

Second, in contrast to previous studies, this article shows the importance of media genre- and crisis-related differences. Specifically, forcibly displaced people are generally represented more in-depth and diversely in UNHCR's stories and (audio)visual media genres, both through “negative” and “positive” pity-based representation strategies. They are represented as more active, empowered individual doers, speakers, and/or thinkers. Furthermore, both the “negative” and “positive” pity-based textual representation strategies are frequently reinforced, but sometimes also weakened or contrasted by (audio)visual discursive devices, generally implying relative closeness with the represented people. Representation differences thus relate to media logic variations and often reflect and respond to political and private-sector discourses, facilitating agenda-building opportunities. Additionally, we found relevant crisis-related differences in discursively approaching actors involved in the examined crises, indicating the importance of context-specific communication and sensitivities.

Third, this article identifies various argumentation strategies, particularly validity claims of normative rightness and truth in UNHCR's (mainly textual) public communication. We discovered that UNHCR primarily uses various interwoven reporting verb-based argumentation techniques (cf. Caldas-Coulthard, 1994) to stimulate and sustain pity-based solidarity and political acts, and voices various neoliberal post-humanitarian (mainly Western) Self-oriented solidarity discourses. Furthermore, extending and refining cross-issue persuasion literature (Betts, 2009; Ongenaert and Joye, 2019), we observed that UNHCR seeks to induce governments to participate in protection by linking it to states’ (perceived) interests in various issue areas as well as principles and values. Hence, we proposed the more comprehensive term “cross-interest persuasion.”

To our knowledge, this is the first article that demonstrates that UNHCR discursively reflects, reproduces, responds to, and, at least indirectly, legitimizes, normalizes and/or maintains certain forced migration discourses of news media, political and private sector actors, current dominant migration management paradigms, and related broader trends (increasing neoliberalization and political realism). However, we should also consider the shaping influence of broader institutional, social, political and economic contexts and trends. By applying a comparative-synchronic MCDA, this study shows the importance of and calls for further critical comparative humanitarian communication research, particularly on the largely unexplored production and reception dimensions and their interactions. Given our dataset's magnitude and our research method's time-consuming nature, we had to focus on one (key) year, 2015 and one (key) actor, UNHCR. Nevertheless, further research should adopt inter-organizational and/or historical-diachronic perspectives in which both discursive and contextual evolutions are examined (Carvalho, 2008). Furthermore, since they play increasingly important roles within the IRR, private sector actors’ forced migration discourses urgently require further investigation.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, the editorial board, and our colleagues at the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies (CIMS, Ghent University) for their constructive feedback, UNHCR for the obtained permission to publish the photos and the screenshot of a video in this article, and the production editor for the further editing.

Data Availability Statement

This study's analysis documents are, given the involved vulnerable population groups and the theme's sensitive nature, available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (grant number 1145220N).

Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) statement

David Ongenaert: Conceptualization (lead), Methodology (lead), Formal analysis (lead), Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Funding acquisition (equal). Stijn Joye: Conceptualization (supporting), Methodology (supporting), Formal analysis (supporting), Writing – review and editing (equal), Supervision (equal), Project administration, Funding acquisition (equal). David Machin: Conceptualization (supporting), Methodology (supporting), Formal analysis (supporting), Writing – review and editing (equal), Supervision (equal).

ORCID iD

David Ongenaert

Notes

References

Aleinikoff

Zamore

(2019) The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime. Stanford: SUP.

Al-Ghazzi

(2019) An archetypal digital witness: The child figure and the media conflict over Syria. International Journal of Communication 13: 3225–3243.

Alter

Meunier

(2009) The politics of international regime complexity. Perspectives on Politics 7(1): 13–24.

Amores

Arcila-Calderón

González-de-Garay

(2020) The gendered representation of refugees using visual frames in the main Western European media. Gender Issues 37(4): 291–314.

Andersson

(2014) Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland: UCP.

Barnett

(2002) Global governance and the evolution of the international refugee regime. International Journal of Refugee Law 14(2&3): 238–262.

Benton

Glennie

(2016) Digital Humanitarianism: How Tech Entrepreneurs are Supporting Refugee Integration. Washington, DC: MPI.

Bergman Rosamond

Gregoratti

(2020) Neoliberal turns in global humanitarian governance. Journal of Humanitarian Affairs 2(3): 14–24.

Betts

(2009) Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime. Ithaca: CUP.

10.

Betts

(2010) The refugee regime complex. Refugee Survey Quarterly 29(1): 12–37.

11.

Betts

Loescher

Milner

(2012) The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

12.

Bowen

(2018) Grammar of the Shot, 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.

13.

Caldas-Coulthard

(1994) On reporting reporting: The representation of speech in factual and factional narratives. In: Coulthard

(ed) Advances in Written Text Analysis. London: Routledge, pp.295–308.

14.

Carvalho

(2008) Media(ted) discourse and society. Journalism Studies 9(2): 161–177.

15.

Chimni

(2000) Globalization, humanitarianism and the erosion of refugee protection. Journal of Refugee Studies 13(3): 243–263.

16.

Chouliaraki

(2012) Between pity and irony. In: Moore

Gross

Threadgold

(eds) Migrations and the Media. New York: Peter Lang, pp.13–32.

17.

Chouliaraki

(2013) The Ironic Spectator. Cambridge: Polity Press.

18.

Cottle

Nolan

(2007) Global humanitarianism and the changing aid-media field. Journalism Studies 8(6): 862–878.

19.

Crane

(2020) The politics of development and humanitarianism in EU externalization. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 38(1): 20–39.

20.

Crawley

Skleparis

(2018) Refugees, migrants, neither, both: Categorical fetishism and the politics of bounding in Europe’s “migration crisis”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44(1): 48–64.

21.

Crisp

(1999) Who has Counted the Refugees? UNHCR and the Politics of Numbers. Geneva: UNHCR.

22.

Crisp

(2005) A new asylum paradigm? Globalisation, migration and the uncertain future of the international refugee regime. St Antony’s International Review 1(1): 39–53.

23.

De Haas

Miller

Castles

(2020) The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, 6th ed. London: Red Globe Press.

24.

d’Haenens

Joris

(2020) Representational strategies on migration from a multi-stakeholder perspective. In: Smets

Leurs

Georgiou

Witteborn

Gajjala

(eds) The Sage Handbook of Media and Migration. London: Sage, pp.437–450.

25.

Dijkzeul

Moke

(2005) Public communication strategies of international humanitarian organizations. International Review of the Red Cross 87(860): 673–691.

26.

Easton-Calabria

Omata

(2018) Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of “self-reliance” for refugees. Third World Quarterly 39(8): 1458–1474.

27.

Eberl

, et al. (2018) The European media discourse on immigration and its effects. Annals of the International Communication Association 42(3): 207–223.

28.

Fairclough

(1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.

29.

Fransen

de Haas

(2019) The Volume and Geography of Forced Migration. Oxford: IMI.

30.

Geiger

Pécoud

(2010) The politics of international migration management. In: Geiger

Pécoud

(eds) The Politics of International Migration Management. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.1–20.

31.

Georgiou

Zaborowski

(2017) Media Coverage of the “Refugee Crisis”: A Cross-European Perspective. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

32.

Godin

Doná

(2016) “Refugee voices,” new social media and politics of representation. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 32(1): 60–71.

33.

Green

(2018) Advocacy. In: Allen

Macdonald

Radice

(eds) Humanitarianism: A Dictionary of Concepts. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.16–29.

34.

Gürsel

(2017) The emergence of the enterprising refugee discourse and differential inclusion in Turkey’s changing migration politics. movements. Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies 3(2): 133–146.

35.

Halliday

MAK

Matthiessen

CMIM

(2014) Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th ed. New York: Routledge.

36.

Hammerstad

(2014) The Rise and Decline of a Global Security Actor. Oxford: OUP.

37.

Hansen

Machin

(2019) Media and Communication Research Methods. 2nd ed. London: RGP.

38.

Höijer

(2004) The discourse of global compassion. Media, Culture & Society 26(4): 513–531.

39.

Jacobsen

Sandvik

(2018) UNHCR And the pursuit of international protection: Accountability through technology? Third World Quarterly 39(8): 1508–1524.

40.

Johnson

(2011a) The urban precariat, neoliberalization, and the soft power of humanitarian design. Journal of Developing Societies 27(3–4): 445–475.

41.

Johnson

(2011b) Click to donate: Visual images, constructing victims and imagining the female refugee. Third World Quarterly 32(6): 1015–1037.

42.

Joye

Maeseele

(2022: in press) Critical discourse analysis: the articulation of power and ideology in texts. In: Stevens

(ed) Handbook of qualitative data-analysis. London: Sage.

43.

Kim

Kiousis

(2012) The role of affect in agenda building for public relations. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 89(4): 657–676.

44.

Kleres

(2018) Emotions in the crisis. In: della Porta

(ed) Solidarity Mobilizations in the “Refugee Crisis”. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.209–242.

45.

Krause

Schmidt

(2020) Refugees as actors? Critical reflections on global refugee policies on self-reliance and resilience. Journal of Refugee Studies 33(1): 22–41.

46.

Krzyżanowski

Triandafyllidou

Wodak

(2018) The mediatization and the politicization of the “refugee crisis” in Europe. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 16(1–2): 1–14.

47.

Kuyper

(2014) Global democratization and international regime complexity. European Journal of International Relations 20(3): 620–646.

48.

Kyriakidou

(2019) The audience of distant suffering and the question of (in)action. In: Paulmann

(ed) Humanitarianism & Media. Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp.281–298.

49.

Machin

Mayr

(2012) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. London: Sage.

50.

McCombs

Valenzuela

(2021) Setting the Agenda, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.

51.

McGinnis

(1986) Issue linkage and the evolution of international cooperation. Journal of Conflict Resolution 30(1): 141–170.

52.

Maxwell

Gelsdorf

(2019) Understanding the Humanitarian World. London: Routledge.

53.

Nikunen

(2019) Media Solidarities: Emotions, Power and Justice in the Digital Age. London: Sage.

54.

Ongenaert

Joye

(in review) (Un)seen, (un)heard, (un)known? A quantitative content analysis of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies for the Syrian and Central African crises (2015-2018)

. Submitted to Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

55.

Ongenaert

Joye

Ihlen

(in review) Manufacturing humanitarian imagery. Explaining Norwegian Refugee Council’s public communication strategies towards the Syrian and Central African crises. Submitted to Media, Culture & Society.

56.

Ongenaert

(2019) Refugee organizations’ public communication. Conceptualising and exploring new avenues for an underdeveloped research subject. Media and Communication 7(2): 195–206.

57.

Ongenaert

Joye

(2019) Selling displaced people? A multi-method study of the public communication strategies of international refugee organisations. Disasters 43(3): 478−508.

58.

Pantti

Ojala

(2019) Caught between sympathy and suspicion: Journalistic perceptions and practices of telling asylum seekers’ personal stories. Media, Culture & Society 41(8): 1031–1047.

59.

Pascucci

(2019) Refugees in the IT sector: Young Syrians’ economic subjectivities and familial lives in Jordan. Geographical Review 109(4): 580–597.

60.

Pasquier

Villeneuve

J-P

(2018) Marketing Management and Communications in the Public Sector, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

61.

Plambech

Henriksen

Chemlali

(2021) Victims or heroines? Images of women migrants in global migration. Available at: www.diis.dk/en/node/24825 (accessed 10 December 2021).

62.

Powers

(2018) NGOs as Newsmakers: The Changing Landscape of International News. Chicester: CUP.

63.

Pupavac

(2008) Refugee advocacy, traumatic representations and political disenchantment. Government and Opposition 43(2): 270–292.

64.

Reich

(2011) Source credibility as a journalistic work tool. In: Franklin

Carlson

(eds) Journalists, Sources, and Credibility. New York: Routledge, pp.19–36.

65.

Reisigl

Wodak

(2016) The discourse-historical approach (DHA). In: Wodak

Meyer

(eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 3rd ed. London: Sage, pp.23–61.

66.

Richardson

(2007) Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

67.

Richey

(2018) Conceptualizing “everyday humanitarianism”. New Political Science 40(4): 625–639.

68.

Richey

Ponte

(2011) Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World. London: UMP.

69.

Rodriguez

(2016) Communicating global inequalities: How LGBTI asylum-specific NGOs use social media as public relations. Public Relations Review 42(2): 322–332.

70.

Silverstone

(2007) Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity Press.

71.

Sökefeld

(2017) Between humanitarian and political realism. NUST Journal of International Peace and Stability 1(1): 72–85.

72.

Turner

(2020) “#Refugees can be entrepreneurs too!” Humanitarianism, race, and the marketing of Syrian refugees. Review of International Studies 46(1): 137–155.

73.

UNHCR (n.d.) Refugee data finder. Available at: www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=yiO92Z (accessed 10 December 2021).

74.

UNHCR (2015, January 7). Refugees caught in heavy snow as storms lash Lebanon and Jordan. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/1/54ad5ee49/refugees-caught-heavy-snow-storms-lash-lebanon-jordan.html#:∼:text=GENEVA%2C%20January%207%20(UNHCR),lashing%20rain%20to%20the%20region (accessed April 22, 2022).

75.

UNHCR (2015, January 9). Winter storms bring more hardship to refugees in Jordan’s Za’atari camp. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/1/54affcf59/winter-storms-bring-hardship-refugees-jordans-zaatari-camp.html#:∼:text=Qatar%20(%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A)-,Winter%20storms%20bring%20more%20hardship%20to%20refugees%20in%20Jordan's%20Za,under%20the%20weight%20of%20snow (accessed April 22, 2022).

76.

UNHCR (2015, January 14). UNHCR study shows rapid deterioration in living conditions of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2015/1/54b635b49/unhcr-study-shows-rapid-deterioration-living-conditions-syrian-refugees.html (accessed April 22, 2022).

77.

UNHCR (2015, January 25). UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie visits Iraq, calls for international leadership to end suffering. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/1/54c5244d6/unhcr-special-envoy-angelina-jolie-visits-iraq-calls-international-leadership.html (accessed April 22, 2022).

78.

UNHCR (2015, January 29). Saving lives at the river’s edge. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2015/1/56ec1e80e/saving-lives-at-the-rivers-edge.html (accessed April 22, 2022).

79.

UNHCR (2015, February 2). Syrians face desperation and danger trying to reach Greece. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/2/54cf99286/syrians-face-desperation-danger-trying-reach-greece.html#:∼:text=Each%20refugee%20has%20a%20different,children%20and%20a%20double%20amputee (accessed April 22, 2022).

80.

UNHCR (2015, March 12). Refugees endure worsening conditions as Syria’s conflict enters 5th year. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2015/3/5501506a6/refugees-endure-worsening-conditions-syrias-conflict-enters-5th-year.html (accessed April 22, 2022).

81.

UNHCR (2015, March 15). The inventors of Azraq. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2015/3/56ec1e8757/the-inventors-of-azraq.html#:∼:text=Facing%20an%20uncertain%20future%20after,toy%20plane%20made%20of%20insulation (accessed April 22, 2022).

82.

UNHCR (2015, May 3). Survivors in Bangui seek a way forward. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2015/5/56ec1e901a/survivors-in-bangui-seek-a-way-forward.html (accessed April 22, 2022).

83.

UNHCR (2015, June 25). Funding shortage leaves Syrian refugees in danger of missing vital support. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/6/558acbbc6/funding-shortage-leaves-syrian-refugees-danger-missing-vital-support.html (accessed April 22, 2022).

84.

UNHCR (2016) Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2015. Report, Geneva: UNHCR.

85.

UNHCR (2021) Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2020. Report, Geneva: UNHCR.

86.

Van Dijk

(1991) Racism and the Press. London: Routledge.

87.

Van Leuven

Joye

(2014) Civil society organizations at the gates? A gatekeeping study of news making efforts by NGOs and government institutions. The International Journal of Press/Politics 19(2): 160–180.

88.

Van Leuven

Deprez

Joye

Ongenaert

(2018) How Do Flemish Politicians Talk about Migration? A Study on the Political Framing of Migration in Belgium 2016-2018. Ghent: Center for Journalism Studies (CJS).

89.

Wickramaararchchi

Burns

(2017) Local newspaper reporting humanitarian migrants’ settlement experience in an Australian country town. Rural Society 26(2): 125–142.

90.

Yukich

(2013) Constructing the model immigrant. Social Problems 60(3): 302–320.