Framing Syrian refugees: Examining news framing effects on attitudes toward refugee admissions and anti-immigrant sentiment

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of exposure to news frames on attitudes toward Syrian refugee admissions and anti-immigrant sentiment. Findings show that framing Syrian refugees, ranging from benefits, victims to a security threat did invoke changes of attitudes toward admitting Syrian refugees. Participants reading a benefit frame story expressed more favorable opinions on accepting Syrian refugees than participants in the threat frame condition. In contrast to the extant literature, arguing victim frame enhances positive attitudes, the findings suggested that participants, who were exposed to a victim frame story yielded stronger anti-immigrant sentiment than participants who read a threat frame story. These findings advance scholarship on media framing of refugees and its effect on anti-immigrant sentiment and have important refugee admission policy and advocacy implications.

Keywords

victimization Syrian refugees anti-immigrant sentiment

The debate over admitting Syrian refugees to the United States has become a long, contentious political issue. Since President Donald Trump took office, the number of Syrian refugees who have been admitted to the United States has fallen dramatically (Pew Research Center, 2018). The maximum number of refugees allowed into the United States continues to decline, in particular after President Trump signed an executive order on January 27, 2018, to suspend refugee admissions for 120 days. According to the U.S. Department of State, the government resettled 15,479 Syrian refugees in 2016 during the last year of the Obama administration, while under the Trump administration, only 3,024 Syrian refugees were admitted in 2017, simply 41 in 2018, and 631 in 2019. In the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, there has been an increased resistance against Syrian refugees amid suspicions of Islamist terrorists disguising themselves as refugees to enter Europe (Abbas, 2019). The majority of Republican voters consider refugee admissions as a major threat to American national security (Smith, 2016). Meanwhile, the pandemic and related federal responses deeply disrupted the U.S. immigration system (Alvarez, 2020). For instance, the Trump administration used the coronavirus crisis as a pretext to prevent refugees from seeking and receiving humanitarian protection in the United States (Miroff et al., 2020).

Framing theory is often used in research on media coverage of refugees (Gonzalez O’Brien et al., 2019; Nassar, 2020a), and studies find evidence of a negative bias in media representation of refugees (Lawlor & Tolley, 2017; Oskooii et al., 2018; Ramasubramanian & Miles, 2018). A frame is an emphasis characterized in news reports, and it provides many modes of presentation in a positive or negative manner (de Vreese, 2002) for journalists to reduce the complexity of an issue and make it accessible to general audiences (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007).

This study extends framing effect research by assessing the influence of exposure to refugee news on viewers’ attitudes and anti-immigrant sentiment. The analysis indicates that exposure to a benefit frame of refugees leads to favorable opinions over admission policy, but framing refugees as innocent victims brings about stronger anti-immigrant sentiment than exposure to a threat frame. The study discusses the implications of findings for refugee policies by addressing how policymakers advocate and garner public support for refugee admissions and resettlement policy.

Public Opinion on Refugees

Just like many other western countries, the United States has witnessed a turbulent debate on the extent to which refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and immigrants¹ could be part of American society (Morey, 2018; Parrott et al., 2019; Shaffer et al., 2020). While the number of U.S. refugees from Syria dropped considerably during the Trump administration (Narea, 2020), Americans have mixed attitudes toward the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States (Nassar, 2020a). In 2015, 60% of Americans oppose plans for the U.S to take in Syrian refugees (Jones, 2015), and in 2018, 51% of Americans believe the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country (Hartig, 2018). Other studies show that in light of the Paris attacks, public views on Syrian refugees have transitioned from humanitarian sympathy to national security anxiety (McElvein, 2016), and the public tended to be more receptive of refugees when welcoming policies were enacted and when refugees were already resettled in the United States (Sana, 2021).

Refugees are often simply treated as a subset of immigrants under the assumption that citizens’ attitudes toward both groups of foreigners are similar, but Abdelaaty and Steele (2022) find macrolevel factors influence attitudes toward refugees while immigrants are more likely related to microlevel economic concerns. Hopkins (2010) contends public opinion on accepting refugees and immigrants often differs depending on whether citizens see diversity as beneficial for their country. An apt example is that Americans prefer Syrian refugees to be female, high-skilled, English-speaking, Christian and integrated into the U.S. labor and the culture markets (Adida et al., 2019), which broadly aligns with preferences for immigrants (Nassar, 2020b). Partisanship, ideology, cultural values and beliefs about the impact are major factors in shaping public support for refugees and immigrants (Abdelaaty & Steele, 2022; Brosius et al., 2019; Hainmueller & Hopkins, 2014). Political knowledge also shapes attitudes toward sanctuary cities, Oskooii et al. (2018) find Democrats lacking knowledge are less equipped to make connections and therefore become less likely to support sanctuary policies.

Framing Theory

Framing is defined as “schemata of interpretation” (Goffman, 1974), which individuals can employ to identify, perceive, classify and interpret issues, events and topics in a meaningful way. To frame is to emphasize the salience of certain aspects of a topic (Entman, 1993). In this way, certain features, evaluations and policy orientations are highlighted (Busby et al., 2018; Lecheler & de Vreese, 2012). The framing process provides an “interpretative package” for average citizens to make sense of social, political and economic issues (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). Framing is very useful in examining the effects of news coverage of social and political issues that are composed of different features and interpretations (Chong & Druckman, 2007a; Scheufele, 1999). A frame can influence individuals’ perception and evaluation of issues by selecting and emphasizing certain attributes (Entman, 1993; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). Specifically, exposure to frames plays a vital role in affecting individuals to form preferences (Busby et al., 2018; Cacciatore et al., 2016). The study of preference formation in framing research is called emphasis framing which refers to presentations that differ on several content features, and people make different judgments depending on which aspect of the issue is particularly emphasized by the media. Equivalence framing considers presentations differ lightly in substantive content but is tied to alterations in the presentation of information (Cacciatore et al., 2016; Scheufele & Iyengar, 2012).

The framing process is influenced by the complex and dynamic interplay among politicians, journalists, news organizations and social factors. The major premise of framing theory is that an issue can be interpreted by various perspectives and thus can be organized as having meanings for different values and considerations (Chong & Druckman, 2007b). Framing effects usually occur when (often small) changes in the presentation of an issue or an event generate (sometimes large) alterations of opinion (Chong & Druckman, 2007b; Druckman, 2001). By defining an issue by emphasizing either positive or negative information, framing advocates for one particular position and may influence the recipients’ preferences (Busby et al., 2018; Kananovich & Young, 2019).

News Framing of Refugees and Its Effects

Framing the Syrian refugee crisis has been the primary focus of scholarship on how news media cover Syrian refugee issues across various media outlets (Kovář, 2020; Lawlor & Tolley, 2017; Ramasubramanian & Miles, 2018). Previous scholarly work on media representation of refugees indicated a few key frames have been persistent over time and across countries, establishing a portrayal of refugees as innocent victims, invaders or threats to the physical, economic and cultural well-being of the host country (Douai et al., 2021; Gemi et al., 2013; Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017; Klocker & Dunn, 2003; Van Gorp, 2005). Specifically, U.K. news coverage focused on both concerns of refugees’ integration into British culture (Cooper, Blumell & Bunce, 2021), threat (Gray & Franck, 2019) and victimization frames (Abbas, 2019; Blumell et al., 2020). Certain Australian regional newspapers represented refugees with positivity (Cooper et al., 2017), but Lippi et al. (2020) find Australian news depicted refugees as either a threat or as victims. Similarly, Canadian media coverage of refugees is negative and framed as security threats (Lawlor & Tolley, 2017).

News coverage of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugee issues has historically been negative (Cooper et al., 2017; Grimm & Andsager, 2011; Haynes et al., 2016). Extensive studies show that news framing of refugee issues is dominated by an intruder frame or a security-threat frame (Berry et al., 2016; Bleiker et al., 2013; Kovář, 2020). By employing such frames, refugees are increasingly depicted in terms of a security narrative, namely either as a physical, cultural or economic threat or as a threat to national and border security (Bozdag & Smets, 2017; Eberl et al., 2018; Ramasubramanian & Miles, 2018). Such frames or narratives often associate immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers to crime, economic strain, public disorder and terrorism (Benson, 2013; Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017; McKay et al., 2011; Schlueter & Davidov, 2011). During the Trump administration, the rhetoric on refugees has emphasized the risk of terrorism threat (Hodwitz & Tracy, 2019). The executive orders on immigration and refugees signed by President Trump reinforce the negative view of refugees as a threat to national security (Ferwerda et al., 2017; Hodwitz & Tracy, 2019; Savage, 2017).

A security threat or intruder framing of refugees can result in a negative interpretation of the story. In a study examining individuals’ exposure to news framing refugees as victims, intruders and a mix of both frames, Van Gorp and colleagues (2009) find that interpretation of news story was less positive in the intruder frame compared with other conditions. Moreover, consuming such negativity frames are prone to cultivate negative emotions (Lecheler et al., 2015), dehumanize refugees and asylum seekers (Bleiker et al., 2013), produce anti-immigrant sentiment (Van Klingeren et al., 2015), elicit harmful behavior and influence public support for immigration policy (Seate & Mastro, 2017).

Focusing on the plight of refugees, the victimization frame often portrays refugees as innocent and passive victims, who seek help in democratic nations due to persecution in their home country or circumstances that are beyond their capabilities (Esses et al., 2013; Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017; Ramasubramanian & Miles, 2018). By reporting the background, motivations and living conditions of refugees on the move (KhosraviNik, 2009), the victim frame is linked to the human-interest frame because it usually adopts an emotional angle to personalize and dramatize the refugee story (Steimel, 2010). However, framing refugees as victims may also imply derogatory sense, especially when media describe asylum seekers as despairing migrants who are solely relied on humanitarian assistance in democratic countries (Chouliaraki, 2012).

Prior studies showed there were inconsistent findings of the effects of victimization frames on attitudes toward immigrants (Bos et al., 2016; Parrott et al., 2019; Van Gorp et al., 2009). Victimizing people is a technique used by journalists to portray refugees as people worthy of help (Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017). Because refugees are forced to leave their country, the international news coverage generally describes them as people living in crowded refugee camps, where mothers and children are often portrayed as helpless and desperate (Gray & Franck, 2019). Van Gorp et al. (2009) examined how news framing of asylum seekers affected individuals’ interpretation of the photograph and find participants exposed to the victim frame have positively interpreted the photograph than participants exposed to competing frames. When refugees were framed as victims rather than threats, participants became less likely to express xenophobic attitudes toward them (De Poli et al., 2017). Similarly, Parrott and colleagues (2019) suggest the human-interest frame increased positive attitudes toward immigrants and refugees. By contrast, Bos et al. (2016) find the victimization frame exerts a negative effect on Dutch citizens’ attitudes toward immigrants.

While previous studies on news framing of refugees most often focus on negative reporting, there is very limited research on the positive impact of refugees when it comes to news framing of refugees and asylum seekers. Igartua and Cheng (2009) examine the socio-cognitive effects of news frames on migration. They exposed participants to either a security threat frame or an economic benefit frame, and findings suggest news story discussing the positive economic benefit of migration produces more positive comments among participants (Igartua & Cheng, 2009). Viewed in this way, journalists who reported refugee issues by employing a negative tone or negative frames may consciously or unconsciously imitate and strengthen the dominant negative representations of refugees in contemporary debates (Eberl et al., 2018). Given the mixed findings of media framing on attitudes toward refugees, therefore, this study poses a research question about the impact of different frames on the support of Syrian refugee admissions.

RQ1:What is the impact of the news frames (benefit frame, victim frame and threat frame) on attitudes toward Syrian refugee admissions?

Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

Within the context of immigration, how news media frame and inform the audience about refugees and immigrants could generate different image representations. For instance, news media frame immigrants in a negative manner, and such a negative frame linking newcomers to criminals would foster audiences to generate negative attitudes toward immigrants (Debrael et al., 2021). Rather, positive frames associate immigration with economic progress and describe the economic contributions of immigrants, which would activate positive attitudes toward immigrants among individuals (Igartua et al., 2005). Similarly, public perceptions of Syrian refugees may also be influenced by the information given in the media and by the way (positive vs. negative) it is framed. Ferwerda, Flynn and Horiuchi’s (2017) study on refugee resettlement shows that threatening media frames play a key role in shaping public opposition to resettlement, while positive frames did little to boost support for the resettlement program. Nevertheless, de Vreese et al. (2011) found that exposure to positive framing of the accession of Turkey increased more positive attitudes than negative framing.

Although the debate over the admission of Syrian refugees, along with thousands of asylum seekers over the U.S. border has fed the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment, most of the American public’s perception of the impact that immigrants have on the country remains positive (Jones, 2019). Research on anti-immigrant sentiment suggests that when immigrant groups grow rapidly, sentiment and prejudice against that group will also grow (Blumer, 1958). When society encounters an external shock, such as an economic recession or large numbers of asylum seekers, anti-immigration sentiment will flourish (Lubbers & Scheepers, 2001; Sniderman et al., 2002). Political elites are then able to employ popular anti-immigrant sentiment to cultivate constituencies supporting restrictive or hostile policies toward immigrant minorities (Turner & Sharry, 2012). Specifically, by tapping into the related anti-immigrant sentiment, the Trump administration has shaped a vision of “America First” that portrays newcomers as threatening to the American identity (Heyer, 2018).

Extant studies have tested many factors that influence anti-immigrant sentiment from situational factors (Esses et al., 2005), ideologies (Fasel et al., 2013), the perceived size of the immigrant population (Hooghe & de Vroome, 2015; Papademetriou & Banulescu-Bogdan, 2016) to emotions (Seate & Mastro, 2017) and rarely examines how news frames influence anti-immigrant sentiment. In the context of exposure to news coverage of refugees, public attitudes about immigration are important because they are likely to influence public policy and affect individuals’ daily behavior (Esses et al., 2002). The present research studies the impact of news media on attitudes toward refugee admissions in the context of President Trump who declared a national emergency to fund his promised wall at the United States–Mexico border (Rampton & Morgan, 2019), and the wall symbolizes anti-immigrant sentiment (Semotiuk, 2019). Therefore, this study also examines the effects of news frames on anti-immigrant sentiment. The second research question is proposed:

RQ2:What is the impact of the news frames (benefit frame, victim frame and threat frame) on anti-immigrant sentiment?

Methodology

Sample

To investigate the two research questions proposed above, an online experiment embedded within a Qualtrics questionnaire was conducted between February 4 and February 14, 2019, during a period when President Trump signed the bill to avoid a shutdown and declared a national emergency to obtain funding for the border wall. During this same period, the debate over the wall and border security has become even more heated.

To be eligible to participate, individuals need to reside in the United States and be at least 18 years old. A total of 604 participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were compensated with small monetary incentives for their participation. Forty-three of these were excluded because they either dropped out before completing the survey or were excluded for straight-lining behavior (answering all questions with the same response). The final sample included 561 participants.

The sample had an average age of 34.23 (SD = 10.48), was 62.2% male, and identified as slightly Democratic on a 1 to 7 scale ranging from “strong Democrat” to “strong Republican” (M = 3.55, SD = 2.19). Racially, the sample was comprised of 68.8% who identified as Caucasian, 13% as Asian, 10% as black or African American, and 8.2% as another race. On 11-item scales, participants indicated they were slightly politically interested (M = 7.37, SD = 2.15) and paid above-average attention to news about Syrian refugees (M = 5.80, SD = 3.14). A total of 91.1% of participants were born in the United States and 36% had at least one family member who migrated into the United States.

Stimuli

A single-factor, post-test only, between-subjects experimental design with a control group and random assignment were used to test the effects of news frames. A news article about Syrian refugee admissions into the United States was manipulated by keeping the lead paragraph constant and only altering the headline and other parts of the article, which ensured high comparability of the stimulus material with a focused framing manipulation. Each manipulated paragraph was of similar length, contained at least one official quote,² and followed the same template (see Appendix A).

The benefit frame manipulation argued that welcoming Syrian refugees would bring many benefits to the United States, such as economic growth, cultural diversity, innovation and providing labor. The victim frame condition described Syrian refugees as the most helpless and passive victims who severely suffered from the Syrian conflicts. The threat frame considered an admission of Syrian refugees made Americans vulnerable to terrorist attacks and posed a threat to U.S. national security.

Procedure

After reading the consent and agreeing to participate, participants first answered some questions to inquire when reading news in the past week, how much attention they paid to the following issues from 0 = No attention to 10 = Full attention: Syrian refugees (M = 5.8, SD = 3.143), migrant caravans (M = 5.83, SD = 3.127), the border wall (M = 7.16, SD = 2.934), U.S. immigration (M = 6.84, SD = 2.987), and the 2019 government shutdown (M = 7.44, SD = 2.848). Then questions about their warmth of the welcome toward refugees and immigrants were asked.

Next, participants were asked to read a news article about the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States. A randomly assigned subset of participants (N = 142) was exposed to a benefit frame condition, 148 participants were exposed to a victim frame condition, and 130 participants were exposed to a threat frame condition, while participants in the control group (N = 141) encountered no stimuli.

Next questions measuring attitudes toward refugee admissions and anti-immigrant sentiment were displayed on subsequent pages. Additional questions on participants’ political knowledge were asked. Before debriefing, participants self-reported demographic information, including age, gender, education level, political ideology, birth country, income and so on.

Measures

The first focal dependent variable, attitudes toward Syrian refugees’ admissions, was adapted from Parrott et al. (2019) and measured using two items. Participants were asked their opinion on (1) the United States has a responsibility to accept Syrian refugees and (2) a possible admission of Syrian refugees will have a positive impact on the country from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly support (M = 4.65, SD = 1.69, Cronbach’s α = .914). The second dependent variable in this study was anti-immigrant sentiment, which was measured with eight items modified from previous studies (de Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2005; Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2010; Hooghe & de Vroome, 2015). Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement on 7-point Likert-type scales with the following statements such as “Immigration undermines U.S. labor market,” “Immigration hurts U.S. economy,” “Immigrants threaten the American way of life,” “Immigration is a cause of crime,” and “Immigration contributes positively to culture (reverse code),” and so on, (M = 3.71, SD = 1.55, Cronbach’s α = .92).

The first control variable, political knowledge, was measured with seven factual multiple-choice civics questions, which were modified from previous studies (Stoycheff, 2016). Correct answers were coded as 1 and summed into a 0 to 7 scale (M = 4.39, SD = 1.94). The second control variable was political ideology, which was measured on 7-point scales from 1 = very conservative to 7 = very liberal (M = 3.55, SD = 2.19). The last control variable was warmth of the welcome toward refugees and immigrants, which was adapted from Fussell (2014) and measured with five items on a 7-point Likert-type scale. A sample item read: “I welcome Syrian refugees to live in my community or neighborhoods,” (Cronbach’s α = .86, M = 4.50, SD = 1.474).

Manipulation Check

The success of the frame manipulation was checked by asking participants “what amount of information regarding (1) economic benefit, (2) security threat, (3) victim issues, has been discussed in the news article from 1 = little to 5 = a lot.” A series of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA; using post hoc comparisons) showed significant differences among the three groups.³

Results

To ensure random assignment accounted for all meaningful differences among the experimental conditions, a series of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-tests were conducted and revealed no significant differences among the conditions in terms of participants’ background characteristics.

To answer the two research questions (RQ1 & RQ2), a two-way multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted on attitudes toward refugee admissions and anti-immigrant sentiment after controlling for political ideology, political knowledge and warmth of the welcome. Because the study examines how different news frames influence attitudes toward Syrian refugees and anti-immigrant sentiment, three control variables may affect responses. Therefore, controlling participants’ political ideology, political knowledge and warmth of the welcome as three covariates is needed. The results indicate the covariates of political ideology, political knowledge and warmth of the welcome were significant in affecting dependent measures.⁴

RQ1 asked what the impact of news frames is on attitudes toward refugee admissions. The main effect of news frames is statistically significant, Wilks’ Lambda = .964, F (6, 1072) = 3.33, p = .003, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .018.

To investigate the effect of each news frame on attitudes, the study conducted a univariate analysis. The results showed news frames affected attitudes toward admissions, F (3, 537) = 3.081, p = .027, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .017. The Bonferroni post hoc tests showed participants who read a benefit frame (M = 4.840) expressed more favorable opinions on admissions than participants being exposed to a threat frame (M = 4.509), p = .043, as shown in Figure 1

RQ2 asked what the impact of news frames is on anti-immigrant sentiment. The main effect of news frames is statistically significant, Wilks’ Lambda = .964, F (6, 1,072) = 3.33, p = .003, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .018.

To investigate the impact of each frame on anti-immigrant sentiment, the study conducted a univariate analysis. The results showed news frames affected anti-immigrant sentiment, F (3, 537) = 3.853, p = .006, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .023. The Bonferroni post hoc tests showed participants who read a victim frame (M = 3.889) expressed higher levels of anti-immigrant sentiment than participants being exposed to a threat frame (M = 3.510), p = .008, as shown in Figure 2.

Discussion

The news media provide important sources of information for the public about refugees. While warmth of the welcome, political ideology and knowledge may affect individuals’ attitudes toward refugees, individual judgments of refugee issues are greatly influenced by media frames (Nassar, 2020a; Parrott et al., 2019). This study sheds new light on extant framing research by focusing on the variation of frames rather than testing the two-sided frames in prior research (de Vreese et al., 2011; Kananovich & Young, 2019; Liu, 2021). While framing Syrian refugees, ranging from benefits, victims to a security threat, did invoke changes of attitudes toward admitting Syrian refugees, this difference is not significant across all the conditions.

The results indicated participants who read a news article that framed Syrian refugees as economic and cultural benefits to the United States were more likely to agree that the United States should accept Syrian refugees than participants in the threat frame condition which portrayed Syrian refugees as a national security threat to America. This finding is consistent with prior media framing research on public opinion, which indicates the positive framing of issues in terms of benefit can lead to more favorable evaluative judgments than negative framing (de Vreese et al., 2011; Kananovich & Young, 2019; Schuck & de Vreese, 2006; Liu, 2021).

If Syrian refugees are presented as a security threat, individuals conveyed less support toward admission policy than it was framed as a benefit. The rationale behind this is that mass media provide important information for people’s perception of others (Schlueter & Davidov, 2011), and the security threat framing of refugees activates stereotypical attitudes or anti-minority attitudes (Allport, 1954; Blumer, 1958). This can further initiate the perception of increased threat and lead to less support for refugees. This is important because the media plays a vital role in shaping public opinion and public policy surrounding the Syrian refugee crisis. The manner that media choose to frame refugee issues may ultimately affect audiences’ political attitudes, party preferences, as well as support for immigration policy (Burscher et al., 2015; Eberl et al., 2018). The study further reveals that how media represents Syrian refugees influences audiences’ consideration of a media message. Specifically, a positive framing of refugees (e.g., economic benefits brought from refugees) can lead to a positive perception of migrant groups (Lecheler et al., 2015) and may drive more favorable attitudes among citizens to support refugee admissions.

However, given the reality that refugees or asylum seekers are often framed as either security, economic, cultural or criminal threats to the host country and thus portrayed in a greatly negative way, such unfavorable representation of refugees might not only result in activation of stereotypical evaluations of migrant groups (Schemer, 2012) but also eventually undermine potential policy efforts regarding long-term integration of migrants and refugees (Grobet, 2014; Staglianó, 2014). Furthermore, if the audience is repeatedly exposed to negative framing of refugees as time progressed, this effect might be strengthened, and thus, may subtly affect audiences’ perceptions of political candidates’ stance and even their future voting behavior (Eberl et al., 2018).

One notable finding in this study is the negative impact of the victimization frame on anti-immigrant sentiment. Specifically, the study suggested that participants, who were exposed to a victim frame story describing refugees as vulnerable innocent victims, yielded more negative attitudes toward immigrants than participants who read a threat frame story. While this finding is contrary to a wealth of studies showing human-interest or victim framing of immigrants and refugees enhances positive attitudes (De Poli et al., 2017; Parrott et al., 2019; Van Gorp et al., 2009), it is in line with Bos et al. (2016) that the victimization frame has a negative impact on attitudes. This finding underscores that the victimization frames of refugees elicited more negative attitudes toward immigrants than the threat frames. Fasel et al. (2013) claimed that ideological climate influences anti-immigrant attitudes, particularly when direct contact with immigrants is rare. The contextual level may provide important insights into understanding why victim framing of Syrian refugees leads to more negative attitudes toward immigrants.

A possible explanation is that the study was conducted when President Trump declared a national emergency on the border with Mexico and continued to attack migrant caravans as criminals (Lovato, 2018), which might enhance anti-immigrant sentiment and even further polarized national conversations on refugees and migrants. Syrian refugee issues are predominantly portrayed as negative in media coverage and discussed in negative terms by political elites (Raghavan et al., 2017). Therefore, people have got accustomed to negative messages and developed a sense of fatigue with polarized public debate on refugees and migrants (Hawkins et al., 2018); hence, any divergence of public discourse may be more noticeable and has a bigger impact on people’s attitudes (Van Klingeren et al., 2015). Future studies can build on this and extend the finding by taking into consideration the political timing and exploring the long-term effects of victimization frames on opinions and attitudes toward immigrants.

Furthermore, the portrayal of refugees as victims is a very dominant media frame in prior studies (Chouliaraki & Zaborowski, 2017; Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017; Heidenreich et al., 2019; Van Gorp, 2005), but victimization representation prevents refugees from being seen as full-fledged individuals and implies that their legitimacy can only be recognized with proof of suffering, which in turn leads to refugees feeling inferior, and it becomes difficult for refugees to show their capabilities and resilience (Smets et al., 2019). The stereotypes embedded in this victim presentation influence social representations and practices (Machillot, 2012), as this study shows it connects to anti-immigrant sentiment. Thus, more realistic media representations are needed to portray refugees as legitimate and dignified individuals. Otherwise, refugees are reduced to particular types of suffering, which may strengthen anti-immigrant sentiment.

These negative effects of victimization frames have significant implications for national politics, policies and journalism practices. Debates on refugees and immigration often invoke “nativist sentiments toward members of new immigrant groups” (Johnson, 1996, p.265), and the victim frame in the study is found to generate more negative attitudes toward immigrants. As President Joe Biden is committed to raising the number of refugees resettled in the United States (Renshaw, 2021), policymakers need to define and promote admission policies to increase knowledge, generate positive media coverage as well as garner support among less informed people. While there are structural constraints and difficulties to change the dominant image of the refugee-victim being perpetuated by mainstream media (Ongenaert & Joye, 2019; Pantti & Ojala, 2019; Vandevoordt, 2017), using correct, humane and reflexive representations of refugees, which focused on issues fundamental to their experienced well-being may lead to more nuanced representations (Smets et al., 2019). Therefore, it is necessary to raise awareness among journalists, media educators, policymakers and public opinion about the impacts of those frames of refugees and adopt alternatives to current image portrayal.

The study also reveals that individuals’ attitudes and anti-immigrant sentiment are also shaped by their warmth of the welcome, political knowledge and ideology. This finding adds more evidence to prior studies on refugees and migrant groups (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009; Fasel et al., 2013; Oskooii et al., 2018; Van Klingeren et al., 2015) and is consistent with existing research on political knowledge, which states those lacking political knowledge can misalign their preferences and policy-specific support (Converse, 1962; Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Zaller, 1992). Prior research suggests people who possess accurate knowledge about political events and information are better equipped to support policies and to insulate themselves from being persuaded by political messages that are conflict with their predispositions (Zaller, 1992). By contrast, when encountering political messages, less-knowledgeable people are vulnerable to misinformation and become more likely to support a given issue that counters their normative commitments (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). Future research can focus on how misinformation and fake news foster anti-immigrant sentiment and mislead public perceptions of refugees and immigrants. With refugees being particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, more research is needed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public opinion and support regarding refugees and immigrants by tackling misinformation that claims refugees and migrants play a role in spreading the virus.

The study extends past research on media framing of refugees and its effect on anti-immigrant sentiment by examining the variations of these frames. Deviating from existing research, the study underscores the negative effects of victim frames. This study provides significant implications for enacting refugee policies and suggests that political elites who advocate for refugee admissions face a stronger challenge to garner public support for their agenda. Increasing security threat narratives of Syrian refugees have been shown to exacerbate negative attitudes toward the policy on refugees’ admissions and the portrayal of refugees as innocent victims further elicited stronger anti-immigrant sentiment, which may benefit those who oppose these resettlement policies and encourage them to undermine the efforts to resettle refugees.

Limitations

Despite these significant findings, it is important to interpret these results by acknowledging the methodological limitations. First, this study utilized a nonprobability sample based on an online panel from Amazon’s MTurk, which limits its generalization. However, prior research shows that MTurk participants are diverse and can be as valid as data collected via alternative methods (Casler et al., 2013; Sheehan, 2018). Second, this study investigating framing effects primarily depends on legacy media. Future research needs to pay more attention to exploring how dynamics between mainstream news media and social media may influence public debate on refugees (Pöyhtäri, et al., 2019). As the use of social media in the context of diaspora engagement and refugee crisis becomes more important (Emmer et al., 2020; Sajir & Aouragh, 2019), future research can examine the impact of social media on immigration attitudes. By incorporating social media in future framing effects studies, researchers will be better to understand the effects of media framing of refugees on public opinion and support for immigration policy.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-nrj-10.1177_07395329221077251 – Supplemental material for Framing Syrian refugees: Examining news framing effects on attitudes toward refugee admissions and anti-immigrant sentiment

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-nrj-10.1177_07395329221077251 for Framing Syrian refugees: Examining news framing effects on attitudes toward refugee admissions and anti-immigrant sentiment by Juan Liu in Newspaper Research Journal

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Juan Liu

Notes

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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