Description
Although the government had adopted a very receptive stance during the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, Portugal continues to present low numbers of forced migrations that are not beyond two thousand asylum requesters per year (Oliveira, 2022). The news media coverage of this ‘crisis’ revealed a Portuguese gaze towards the world in which the framing of Portugal’s solicitude in counter position with the uncompromised stance of other European countries rested in a colonial legacy (Cunha, 2017). Nevertheless, we observe a drift from this (self)celebratory coverage to one more stigmatizing towards the ‘others’ of the nation when an outbreak of infections among asylum seekers occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the seeming differences between the frames of both occurrences – the welcome of refugees and asylum seekers between 2015 and 2016, and the outbreak of infections among the latter in 2020 – we will demonstrate how the coverage of the topic of migrations, in general, is guided by a coloniality of migration (Rodríguez, 2018). From a framing analysis of pieces published by the influential newspapers Diário de Notícias and Expresso, and the tabloid Correio da Manhã, we will discuss how the tendency to frame the news in a way that culturally resonates with the audience may provide fertile terrain for populism and propaganda phenomena. In the Portuguese context, forced migrations frames end up – even unintentionally – endorsing propaganda discourses questioning the legitimacy of some asylum claims.| Period | 5 Jan 2023 |
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| Event title | 3rd Lisbon Winter School for the study of communication |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | PortugalShow on map |
Keywords
- media framing, forced migrations, propaganda, coloniality of migration