by Geraint Lewis Jones

‘The IOM defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes for the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is.’ For the majority of Europe a very large issue is that of a supposed ‘migrant crisis’, and the problems associated with migrants. However how much of this is fabricated by the media to protect Europe’s sovereignty, security, and economy?

I have grown and been brought up in the United Kingdom since I was born, and for as long as I can remember, migrants have always been a bad thing in the British media. This negative perception of migrants has been etched into my brain up till my study of sociology, where I have learnt that there is a more complex story behind migrants than the one repeated by the media. I was surprised to see such a large percentage of migrants in study in the UK, about 25% as I have rarely seen mention of migrants in education. In my experience, migrants have been used mainly in political discourse to further the agenda of political parties such as UKIP. An example of this would be in the ‘Leave campaign’ for Brexit, where immigration concerned a large percentage of their policies and talked of severely reducing the number of migrants let in the country. However, in most of the propaganda, there was racial undertones used in the images to reflect migrants from mostly African and Asian countries. Race is becoming an increasing issue in all forms of media trying to push a certain agenda at you, and appears to be working (Trump’s presidential victory).

The problem with pushing race onto users is that it increases anxiety and tensions within certain communities. Race is also just a ‘social construct’ with no actual basis in biology, so it is us a society who have created our own issues by creating ‘races’. “Race may not be a biological fact, but it certainly is a social reality” (Castles, 1996) Along with race, migrants have been constructed in a certain way to force you to see them in a certain way, again to push a certain political side or agenda. Examples of constructing include the criminalisation of migrants, like fake rape news stories that have come out of Germany. Another example is the construction of migrants as threats, whether it be to society or job security. In the UK, I have grown up under a stereotype of certain types of migrants ‘stealing jobs’ from ‘hardworking’ Brits, and this is all brought about from the perception of migrants from the media based on race. Singling out certain races from migrating into countries is not a new concept, it has happened throughout history. Examples of this include in the US, where pre 1920s they operated an open door policy, but then as the 1920s progressed, they began to have a racial prejudice. They introduced quotas that only allowed a certain number of migrants from east Asian countries, whereas nearly all Europeans could enter. To me, all of this racial prejudice is misplaced and this is due to media coverage. They paint many migrants in bad light, and in many cases of a terrorist attack, they use of the word immigrant linked to the attacker increases anxiety around migration. I think not many people are educated in this area and just follow what the mainstream media preach to them, and I feel that is a large reason as to why the UK voted for Brexit in an attempt to increase our national security by having control over our border to decide who we let in.

Whilst most of Europe deals with this supposed ‘migrant crisis’ there are real crises that are occurring out in the world. Linking in with the increase use of race in describing migrants, there has been a large increase in violence and hate crime. These actions are awful and have terrible effects on society such as increased tension amongst certain communities. Examples of these include EDL protests in places like Birmingham where there is a large Muslim constituency and images of defiance go viral. As well as increased racial tension, there are huge humanitarian crisis’ occurring all over the world. For many all they see of these are appeals on television asking for donations and are rarely reported on in the media, as it doesn’t fit in with their agenda. I feel there is way too much focus on keeping out migrants from ‘undesirable’ places to keep high national security, and not enough on the real issues hitting the third world. When looking at where most of refugees are in the world, the UK is not even close to the top with Jordan and Turkey housing over five million collectively.

Is there an end to racism and selectively choosing which migrants are allowed in? I don’t think there will be until the mainstream media are collectively one and are not trying to push their agenda onto the general public. I think if they focus on the bigger picture, in terms of humanitarian crisis’ and increased racism, and stop racializing migrants from ‘undesirable’ areas, I think we will see an improvement. It is in the hand of the mainstream media to cut down on racializing migrants, as well as policy-makers in the Government to set ethical and fair quotas for migrants.

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