300. Name: Sara Kezia Katarina Heinone Title: Door or Shield? Borders and Refugees in Global News Discourses (the Cases of Al Jazeera English and BBC News) Institution: University of Helsinki Country: Finland Date: 2021 Language: Finnish Abstract: This study examines news discourses produced by Al Jazeera English and BBC News channels on the situation of refugees across the Mediterranean. The research is based on the EU’s border policy, which has been controversial and highly mediated both in Europe and globally. This study provides a critical assessment of the debate on refugees in the Mediterranean and seeks to understand how their situation is represented and structured in global news discourses. Based on data analysis, a key representation of the refugee “problem” involves the improvement of border control mechanisms. Seeing refugees as a problem for the countries of destination and the importance of border protection against this phenomenon focused the debate among Europeans and the discourse in global media on security issues. The study finds that both the Al Jazeera and the BBC news discourses and the representations of refugees are quite similar with minor differences in the way they are packaged and presented. The voice of the refugees and asylum seekers remain largely unheard of in the global media since they are only portrayed as victims or threat to European security.
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