Active Facebook Users Prefer News Stories Framing Refugees and Immigrants as an Economic and National Problem

There has been a tendency in the media to frame refugees and
immigrants either negatively or as victims. Recent research and the
results below indicate that in a number of countries the refugee crisis
has contributed to making the media coverage of refugees and
immigrants rely more on the negative frame of ‘economisation’ (i.e.
picturing them as an economic burden). But have media users also
discovered this frame? The main result is ‘yes’: economisation news
stories about refugees and immigrants in Denmark have already been
in great demand on Facebook in the slipstream of the refugee crisis.
Repeated negative framing does, hence, reach a significant number of
Facebook and media users. The possible consequences of this for the
integration of these two groups into society are probably negative. This
raises the question of how the media ought to cover this sensitive area
– as constructive journalism, critical realism or continued negative
framing?