The Battle for the Public Perception

Abstract for project: The sudden increase in immigrants crossing the EU external borders in 2015 kicked off a political debate about the causes, consequences, and solutions to the following refugee crisis. The public perception of immigration being a major issue increased accordingly throughout the member states, even though some countries were only slightly affected. This study analyses newspaper content from eight EU countries from 2012- 2017 and combines ten waves of Eurobarometer surveys with information on the changes in asylum seekers, media agenda and framing of the immigration issue. The results suggest that both the media’s agenda and framing played a significant role in constructing the public perception of the immigration issue and preference for additional measures. Further, investigating the moderating effect of positioning on the left-right political spectrum reveals polarisation effects as citizens of the right-wing became increasingly more likely to support additional measures relative to the centre and left-wing citizens