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This study explores the country-specific, regional and cultural differences and similarities between China and two European countries in their coverage of the European refugee issue and seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the various political interests, social values, and journalism cultures in the countries under study. It analyzed and compared 2,368 news articles in Belgian, Swedish, and Chinese newspapers from 2015 to 2017. The analysis demonstrated that Chinese newspapers put less emphasis on welcoming the refugees by politicians and citizens, but are more prone to report on Islamic religion in their coverage of the refugees than the Belgian and Swedish newspapers. The empirical evidence suggests that the differences in reporting are not only a representation of different political interests and social engagement of the three countries, but, to a large extent, a result of different journalism cultures across nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Flanders, citizens hold rather negative attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. This could be due to the news media, which depict newcomers in a rather negative way. The purpose of this study is to analyze whether there are separate media worlds at work in Flemish young people and adults and whether this results in different attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. To do so, we questioned 1,759 people aged 13 to 65 by means of an online questionnaire. Results indicate that overall news consumption increases with age, and that young people mainly use social media for their news consumption while adults still rely on traditional media. Interestingly, young adults are the most welcoming group towards immigrants and refugees. Although news media consumption seems to be related to fear of terrorism and attitudes towards newcomers to some extent, socio-demographic factors play an important role in the development of fear and negative attitudes towards newcomers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study constructs and tests the building of social capital and integration among Turkish minorities (n = 967) residing in three countries with different integration policy realities according to the Migrant Integration Policy Index for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Through online and offline surveys, the study examines the extent to which bridging and bonding social capital, the dominant language of media use, and the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents affect their degree of integration. The results show that the degree of integration increases with a sense of belonging to a faith, length of stay in Europe, exposure to European mainstream media, and through bridging with natives in the host society. Integration levels decrease, however, with the retention of Turkish citizenship. The degree of integration among the Turkish diaspora varies widely across the three countries under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the mainstream media coverage on Germany’s integration debate between 2009 and 2014, while detecting main debate actors, topics, discourses, key events and their relations to one another. Media representations of Muslims, integration, immigration, multiculturalism and creation of otherness are scrutinized, considering different political alignments of mainstream newspapers. Furthermore, the Sarrazin debate is contextualized within recent events such as right-wing populism and anti-Islamization movements. A quantitative content analysis revealed pragmatism and culturalism as the leading discourses in one-third of all left and right leaning newspapers, while integration, immigration and populist language in politics were the most discussed topics. Mainly, events and actors related to the Sarrazin debate were mentioned. We argue that the Sarrazin debate has encouraged a variety of actors to speak out in favor or against Muslims. Our findings suggest a personal network analysis combined with qualitative research, in order to identify more actors, ties and network alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has played a leadership role in the development of multiculturalism and its use in ethnic and minority television broadcasting as an integrative tool for cultural and racial constituency groups. Canada has mainly opted to emphasize private ethnic broadcasting as the means by which to integrate minorities, along with the support of the public broadcasters’ progressive initiatives. After historically differentiating and framing ethnic/multicultural research and programming initiatives in Canada, this article identifies some lessons and best practices that have emerged from this experience. Using policy analysis from a historical perspective, the authors analyse the enabling mechanisms and strengths, as well as the obstacles and failures that have been experienced in an effort to build an integrated, cohesive and transformative television system in which all members of society are recognized as having a right to both fair portrayal practices and employment opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented to the articles in this issue including articles on multiculturalism in Canadian television broadcasting, an article on public broadcasting in the Netherlands and an article on language policy in Swiss television broadcasting.

State size matters. However, small states do not only share structural peculiarities but also feature different political and historic traditions. This helps explain why the connection between smallness and media regulation is far from clear. Thus, it is suggested here to amend existing typologies of media systems with the notion of smallness, which would allow for more systematic comparative research. In addition, future research on small states needs to consider issues of Europeanization and globalization, examining the role of small states in decision-making on the supranational and international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Belgium's broadcasting history can be considered a perfect example of the overall situation in Western Europe, the country's specific cultural makeup and political shifts are also reflected in its media environment. The media system is characterized by a fairly high degree of cross-ownership, while major differences can be found in the degree of cultural protection. This article examines the stances being taken in the French- and Flemish-Speaking Communities: contextually, in terms of cross-ownership regulation; institutionally, as to the mission of the public broadcaster (pur sang or broader); and content-wise, with respect to home-grown, high identity value productions, as opposed to transnational productions from foreign players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to the issue of the journal that discusses topics such as Islamic themes on Indonesian television, the communication styles of moderate Muslim leaders, and the fashion of urban Indonesian Muslim women.

Since 2015, refugee numbers in Europe have risen to an all-time high. Despite the desperate conditions of most refugees, many European countries have been reluctant to accept them. We investigate how refugees are received in five European countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Turkey) and the perceptions of the general population on these refugees. Our data were collected through face-to-face interviews (N = 2,649) in Turkey and an online survey (N = 6,000) in Western Europe. Our findings indicate that positive socio-economic conditions are related to more positive attitudes at the country level, whereas a high number of refugees are related to more negative attitudes. On the individual level, we find that attitudes are shaped by economic class, religiosity, religious piety, and settlement conditionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the metaphoric frames in the coverage of the Euro crisis in newspapers across five EU countries. Our quantitative frame analysis identified five dominant frames: war, construction, disease, natural disaster, and game. In all five countries, the Euro crisis as war turned out to be the most prominent news frame. Such framing uses martial, aggressive language to describe the European public sphere. This finding is not without importance, as newspapers play a key role in shaping the general public’s perception of the Euro crisis and by extension the European Union’s institutional elite and its (in)ability to cope with crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Leen d'Haenens and colleagues on cross-ownership regulation, one by Thomas Steinmaurer on public broadcasting, and one by Helena Sousa and Elsa Costa e Silva on media regulation in Portugal.

Drawing on the agenda-setting and framing literature, this quantitative content analysis examines how le Figaro, the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times, and the Moscow Times covered the Syrian war before and after the chemical weapon attack of 21 August 2013. Overall, the nationalization frame was most frequent, followed by the responsibility and conflict frames. Despite the large impact of the conflict, the morality, human interest, and economic impact frames were hardly present. Although all newspapers followed a similar pattern, the Daily Telegraph was the most heavily framed. Moreover, the stories barely provided any context while discussing several solutions largely in keeping with the suggestions of the governments. These findings raise questions about the neutrality of the newspapers and their impact on public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the views of parents, children, and teachers concerning media use by Indonesian children. Survey data of parents (N = 462), children (N = 589), and teachers (N = 104) show that children see themselves as more advanced users of new media than their parents. Their perception of their media experiences is also markedly different from that of their parents, while teachers' views are comparable to those of the parents. The latter claim to have established media use rules, which children tend to view as guidelines subject to debate rather than binding instructions. There is different use of old versus new media, parents show little awareness of or involvement with newer media. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Minority integration is a highly contested topic in public debates, and assimilationist actors appear to have gained discursive ground. However, it remains difficult to accurately depict how power relations in debates change and evolve. In this study, the public debates on minority integration in Flanders and the Netherlands between 2006 and 2012 are studied to ascertain changing power relations. We use a relational method to identify clusters formed through discursive contention and study polarization in the debates as well as several aspects of discursive power between and within clusters. In the Netherlands, a pattern identified in earlier research is reproduced, whereby a unified but small cluster of assimilationists with strong discursive leaders is able to dominate the debate on integration. In Flanders, group consolidation is too low, so the clusters cannot be viewed as cohesive groups. Another difference to the Dutch debate is that the volume of opinion articles is much lower and the actors in the Flemish debate are more often foreign opinion leaders. We conclude that the assimilationists have increased their discursive power in the Dutch debate, while the anti-assimilationists have lost power. The stark contrast between the Dutch and Flemish discursive landscape highlights the need for more research on the causal mechanism behind discursive struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present a cross-national comparison of framing of the issue of the ‘Syria fighters’ in Flanders and the Netherlands. We examine this topic using inductive and deductive framing analysis and interpret the results in terms of the advocates expressing the frames and the newspapers they were published in. We argue that variation in frame use can be explained by considering the background and social identification of the frame advocates. Furthermore, the subject of the ‘Syria fighters’ is depicted as mostly relating to (Islamic) religious motives and the overall societal construction is relatively one-sided and problematized in a negative sense. This article serves as a preliminary step to a multi-level analysis of societal discourse on integration-related issues in online and offline networks, with an emphasis on Moroccan minorities in Flanders and the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]