The framing of RASIM on social media: How Belgian politicians represent Refugees, ASylum seekers and IMmigrants on Twitter

Details

Supervisors

Cougnon, Louise-Amélie ; Dubois Elizabeth

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en communication multilingue, à finalité spécialisée: langues des affaires

Abstract

Like elsewhere in Europe, the “migration crisis” is a social and political topic of great interest in Belgium. Reaching its peak in 2015, migration flows have often been associated with the country's problems of violence and economic struggle. Divided by linguistic, cultural, and political differences, the north and the south of the country do not have the same attitudes and political expectations towards migration. The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to observe how Belgian politicians address migration-related discussions and represent RASIM (Refugees, ASylum seekers, and IMmigrants) on Twitter. This study seeks to identify the representations of RASIM conveyed by Belgian politicians on Twitter and assess the differences in migration-related discourses between Walloon and Flemish politicians. A second intention of this study is to examine the differences between the representations of men, women, elderly, and children RASIM, in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of Belgian politicians’ discourses. Finally, the evolution of the frequency of migration-related tweets and RASIM representations during the 5 years under study, and around specific events is observed. This Master’s thesis looks at a total of 1,499 tweets posted by Walloon and Flemish politicians between 2015 and 2020. Mendelsohn and colleagues’ (2021) frame analysis approach is adopted to manually analyze the tweets. Then, findings are discussed using descriptive statistical analysis. The results show that RASIM are either framed as victims (of economic and social suffering, inequalities, political hardships) or as threats (to the security and the national identity of the country), without any distinction in gender or age. Their representations did fluctuate in time and around specific events. Walloon politicians tended to represent RASIM as victims, while Flemish politicians tended to represent them as threats.