Search

When incivility between opposing political parties in the institutional arena escalates to the level of physical violence involving party militants, individuals who witness the shocking images through the media can be expected to react emotionally. But how do citizens who affectively identify with one of the clashing sides experience such an incident? Known mechanisms of polarization suggest that partisans would grow further distant in their interpretation of events, and consequently increase their animosity towards the out-group. A rare opportunity to study such a dynamic through a natural experiment, in fact demonstrates the opposite: after a right-wing mob in North Macedonia stormed the Parliament and attacked left-wing MPs, right-wing supporters' hostile attitudes towards the opposing camp subsided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does European identity manifest itself outside the European Union? How does it come to being, and what is the role of the immigration phenomenon capturing the continent in this dynamic? To examine the different meanings of Europeanism held by citizens of EU candidate states, and the routes through which they are acquired in the context of the 'European migrant crisis,' I draw from media effects theory, conducting a survey experiment whose factorial design combines the most common frames in immigration coverage (valence and episodic/thematic frames). Using the Republic of North Macedonia as a case study, this analysis finds evidence that the feeling of belonging to Europe among non-EU nationals are contingent on media exposure, and that emotions are the mechanism which mediates the relationship between news frames and identification adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representations of immigrants in media are considered a major factor in shaping immigration attitudes. In the context of the migrant crisis in Europe, we analyze how news content about the migrant crisis is framed by media in Greece and Macedonia, two neighboring countries on the Balkan migrant route. By using framing theory as analytical framework, this study applies Benson's (2013) paradigmatic "security/threat" and "humanitarian/victim" frame dichotomy in migration coverage to the concept of issue framing. The content analysis of six print media outlets in both countries (N = 660) investigates the variety of subframes and framing devices within the scope of the two overarching frames, finding dominant portrayals of refugees as illegal trespassers, potential terrorists and social burdens in both countries. However, positive depictions of migrants are more common in Greece, which we attribute to the absence of ideological consensus and differences between the countries' political and media systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]