The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2023 Oct;62(4):1715-1732. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12652. Epub 2023 May 25.
This paper analyzes descriptions of Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Findings of previous research on news media descriptions of refugees point to problematic descriptions of refugees that downgrade their deservingness of refuge and treat refugee status as an inherent feature of fleeing individuals instead of as contingent on external circumstances. However, there is a widespread perception that Ukrainian refugees are being reported on in a more positive light. We therefore examine how news media describe these refugees. Our corpus includes English media news coverage from February 25, 2022, to March 25, 2022, the initial period of the invasion. A discursive psychological analysis of news interactions where hosts elicit information from correspondents about current ongoings with Ukrainian refugees shows that Ukrainian refugees are constructed as vulnerable, and their actions are treated as reasonable given the situation. These descriptions construct Ukrainian refugees as those who are only contingently refugees and legitimate help-giving by other parties. Our findings, therefore, highlight distinct, previously unanalyzed ways that refugees are constructed: contingent refugees. We discuss implications of our findings for understanding refugee inclusion and exclusion.
本文分析了俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后对乌克兰难民的描述。先前关于新闻媒体对难民描述的研究结果指出，对难民的描述存在问题，降低了他们获得庇护的应得程度，并将难民身份视为逃离者个人的固有特征，而不是取决于外部环境。然而，人们普遍认为，对乌克兰难民的报道更为正面。因此，我们研究了新闻媒体如何描述这些难民。我们的语料库包括 2022 年 2 月 25 日至 3 月 25 日，即入侵初期，英国媒体对难民的新闻报道。对新闻互动的话语心理学分析表明，主持人从记者那里引出关于乌克兰难民的当前情况的信息，这表明乌克兰难民被描述为脆弱的，并认为他们的行为是合理的，因为他们所处的情况。这些描述将乌克兰难民构建为那些只是偶然成为难民的人，以及其他各方提供合法帮助的对象。因此，我们的研究结果突出了以前未分析过的难民构建方式：偶然的难民。我们讨论了我们的研究结果对理解难民包容和排斥的影响。
