Expanding peace journalism: a new model for analyzing media representations of immigration
Kalfeli, Naya, Christos Frangonikolopoulos, and Antonis Gardikiotis. Journalism23, no. 8 (2022): 1789-1806.
This article focuses on the impact of journalism in Greece, both in shaping mindsets and in conforming to the political orientations of different periods, focussing on the subject of immigration.
The article uses statistics to observe different variables which come into play regarding the relationship between journalism and public perceptions of migrations.
Greece has been at the heart of many migration movements, constituting a key route and gateway into Europe. Consequently, analysing the role of journalists regarding public opinion of migration is a crucial undertaking, as reporting has the potential to push people’s mindsets towards peace. The role of media is truly key in such situations, as media representation can provoke stark differences in people’s behaviours. Peace journalism enables dialogue and social debates which may have great positive influences, one of those stated by the authors being that of humanising victims – in this instance, migrants.
The article ends by identifying key variables that may influence people’s perceptions of peace processes, such as using migrants’ voices and debunking stereotypes. For instance, it was clearly shown that the level of acceptance clearly declined when journalists did not report the voices of migrant, as it reduced migrants to their status, rendering them invisible and hardly human. Lacks of migrant discourses directly led to a greater dislike or even hate towards them. That is one example of variables through which journalists influence public opinion.
The kind of knowledge acquired from such a study deserves to be given care and attention, especially in journalism.
Kalfeli, Naya, Christos Frangonikolopoulos, and Antonis Gardikiotis. “Expanding peace journalism: a new model for analyzing media representations of immigration.” Journalism23, no. 8 (2022): 1789-1806.