Prague Multicultural Centre 2006

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• Prague Multicultural Centre 2006

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Discrimination and the Media project

• www.migraceonline.cz
• media images of certain socially, politically and
  culturally marginalized groups refugees,
  Muslims, Roma
• 4 analyses for UNHCR
• Martina Kríková Dynamic image of refugees in
  the media

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Dynamic images of refugees in the media

• Media analysis identification of the contexts
  in which refugees are written about
  identification of characteristics constituting
  the image of a refugee
• The public does not have direct experience of
  refugees
• Follow-up to the analysis by T. Bitrich and P.
  Klvacová How (not) to write about refugees from
  2001 comparison after five years

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Methodology

• One-year period (5/05 5/06)
• 4 daily newspapers MFD, LN, HN, Právo
• Articles containing keywords refugee, immigrant,
  asylum

• Over 3,000 articles
• Irrelevant articles discarded
• Resultant group 236 articles

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Comparison of selected daily newspapers

• Share in the overall refugee agenda
• HN 17 articles, LN 21 articles, Právo 83
  articles, MFD 115 articles
• Ratio of regional to national reports
• HN 017, LN 615, Právo 4637, MFD
  10312, total 15581
• Share of reports and comments

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Themes

• Six thematic areas in part based on the
  original structure, in part new themes
• Refugee camp
• Migration and journeying
• Asylum and immigration policy and confusion of
  terms
• Activities of nongovernmental organizations
• Refugees not detained in camps
• Roma migration

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1. Refugee camp

• Source of potential difficulties
• Example survey in Rapotice, Trebíc region,
  whether the municipality should be the site of a
  prison
• I would be more concerned about a refugee camp,
  where people would be free to move around. With a
  prison, they would be behind bars, and if anyone
  escaped they would probably run in the other
  direction, Radka Filípková, a clerk, told Právo.
  Michaela Matouková, a young mother on maternity
  leave, also argued that a prison would be safer
  than a refugee facility. - Právo, 8 September
  2005, Vysocina Region
• The claims raised in the articles are not
  scrutinized or placed in context
• Refugees in the role of objects
• Example transportation as part if a plan to
  close some camps
• We have to transfer detained foreigners to
  other places around the country by the end of
  November. This will be followed by stocktaking
  and the handover of the property. The facility
  will be closing for good on 31 December, says
  Pikule. - MFD, 3 November 2005, Plzensko Region

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2. Migration and journeying

• Largest category represented (64) mainly Právo
  and MFD
• Refugees materialize at the border and then
  silently disappear there are no clear motives,
  the illegality is stressed
• Modern technology, refugees are objects that can
  be discovered with devices
• The mobile X-ray machine can check lorries and
  containers not only for drugs, but also for any
  goods and other contraband. For example, three
  crates in a van, used by people-smugglers to
  ferry nine Asians into Germany, could have been a
  human grave. Customs officers discovered the
  human cargo at the start of November. They upset
  the refugees' plans, but they may also have saved
  their lives. None of the doctors we asked was
  prepared to claim that this form of
  transportation would have been completely safe
  had the refugees not been caught. We are ready
  to go anywhere in the country with a days
  notice. The actually scanning procedure takes a
  few minutes, said Novácek. He says the unique
  equipment is used practically non-stop. -
  Právo, 20 December 2005, national
• There is no broader context about why refugees
  behave in this way

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3. Asylum and immigration policy and confusion of
terms

• Lack of uniformity in the use of terminology
  refugee, immigrant, asylum seeker
• The government has decided to become more
  vigorous in tackling the influx into the Czech
  Republic of immigrants from Eastern Europe. It
  will work with nongovernmental organizations to
  set up information offices (for example in
  Moldova, Armenia and the Ukraine) which have been
  set the task of deterring potential immigrants
  from travelling to the Czech Republic, said the
  interior minister Frantiek Bublan, yesterday. He
  claims that the government strategy is mainly
  aimed against potential illegal immigrants legal
  immigrants are welcome in the Czech Republic if
  they want to work. HN 14 December 2005
• Mainly technical reports (amendments to laws,
  asylum procedure) refugees feature in the text
  only in the context of the adopted measures that
  relate to them
• Seeds of critical reflection comments, analysis

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4. Activities of nongovernmental organizations

• A change compared to the last analysis NGOs
  often cited as a source
• Paradox readers learn that refugees paint, act,
  and cook national dishes, but do not learn about
  their lives and problems
• However, NGOs have added new elements and
  problems to the media agenda
• Example Slovo 21 makes it possible for Czech
  and foreign families to invite each other to
  lunch
• However, so far there has hardly been a rush to
  sit at the same table. I have many friends among
  Czech people and we get on well. I quite like
  this idea too. But the people here are hesitant
  because the lunch is meant to be filmed by the
  television cameras and living in an asylum centre
  is not exactly the nicest place, explains
  17-year-old Ruslan Karimzade from Afghanistan in
  commendable Czech. According to the organizer,
  foreign nationals are also reticent about
  profiling themselves because they have had
  negative experiences of the Czech authorities
  while waiting for asylum. - MFD, 4 May 2006,
  Pardubicko Region

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5. Refugees not placed in a camp

• Human stories (18)
• Minimum representation in the previous analysis,
  now the number is rising
• Portraits of individual refugees, usually to add
  a final touch to a phenomenon (slave labour, a
  rise in the number of Muslims,) reports
• Refugees in these texts are the ones carrying the
  plot, they are active, they express themselves
• Twelve years ago, the Ukrainian political refugee
  Alexandr Kozlov brought his wife Natalie to the
  Prague maternity home U Apolináre. It will cost
  you a hundred and fifty thousand crowns, the
  price for all foreigners, they told him. I
  dont have that much money, Kozlov told them.
  Then you will give birth and settle the debt
  after, the obstetricians countered. While his
  wife was giving birth to their son Sasha, Kozlov,
  a graduate in sculpture, rough-hewed granite
  blocks in a 12-hour shifts. Five crowns per
  block. He went to sleep at night with his
  blistered hands soaked in oil. HN, 18 November
  2005
• Crime (12)
• A small number, due to the nature of the daily
  newspapers (only Právo has a Black Chronicle)
• These articles reinforce prejudices example a
  police officers statement left unanalysed
• We are definitely suffering from the fact that a
  lot of people here have lost their jobs. North
  Bohemias proximity to the border has played a
  role. Many refugees make their way across the
  region, says Teplices chief of police, Petr
  Sytar. - MFD, 18 July 2005, national

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6. Roma migration

• 9 articles on the immigration wave of Slovak
  Roma, mainly HN
• Very detailed description of the whole phenomenon
  (their reasons for leaving, the milieu of the
  original Roma communities) reasons
  geographical and social proximity, the
  predictability of the event
• They are making their way here as a result of
  Slovak social reform, says the interior minister
  Frantiek Bublan. The minister has a report
  claiming that all the asylum-seekers are from
  Koice, from the Roma estate Luník IX and from
  the ghetto in Vodárenská Street. Some of them
  have lost the roof over the heads in demolition
  programmes, others have been forced from their
  temporary shelters in the basements of high-rise
  apartment blocks. They view asylum in the Czech
  Republic as a temporary refuge in a precarious
  situation. On the Luník estate they would
  disconnect the power and the water in the winter.
  People are living there in unbelievable
  conditions, says Roman Kritof from the
  International Migration Organization, according
  to whom Slovakia is solving its social problems
  at the expense of its neighbours. - HN, 19 July
  2005

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Conclusion

• There has been no major change in the way
  refugees are regarded
• Slight improvement
• Greater thematic and genre-based diversity
  compared to the previous analysis
• The number of articles giving a voice to the
  refugees is rising
• Greater willingness among journalists to
  scrutinize the information presented
• The theme of asylum has become more domesticated
  cultivation of media output
• The same problems remain
• External perspectives of the view of refugees
• Too much reliance on the press releases of
  institutions
• Lack of context

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PRAGUE MULTICULTURAL CENTRE Vodickova 36 (Palác
Lucerna) 116 02 Praha 1tel./fax [phone]
345 e-mail migrace_at_mkc.cz www.mkc.cz www.migrace
online.cz