Journalists covering migration and forced displacement might want to reach migrants and refugees arriving in their country, as well as diasporic communities living in their country. It is thus important to know about the media used by migrants and refugees as well as members of ethnic communities. In recent years, some academic surveys have explored the media use of migrants on the move, refugees, and asylum seekers in the wake of the so-called refugee crisis. These studies have mainly concluded that social media are an important source of information for refugees. In a survey of around 2500 migrants from 37 countries living in refugee camps and other locations for asylum-related migrants, a majority reported that social media makes their asylum-related life easier. Connectivity through mobile phones is considered crucial for many refugees and migrants: according to a study conducted in two Ugandan camps, more than 90 % of refugees had access to a mobile device. A survey of 400 refugees in Germany found that media usage patterns of migrants differed depending on their regional origin, pointing towards a digital divide between different countries of origin. However, with regard to African migrants, research has concluded that it is not mainly media from the countries of origin that migrants use to inform themselves about migration-related issues, but rather interpersonal communication, which takes place, for example, on social media. This is due to a lack of in-depth news coverage of migration in many countries of origin. The dependence on social media and interpersonal communication has, amongst other factors, raised concerns about misinformation and misperceptions regarding news and knowledge about migration-related issues.

In this vein, major media outlets have launched specialized online services tailored to the needs of refugees, asylum seekers and other rather newly arrived migrants in recent years. Examples are WDRforyou by German public service broadcaster WDR, and InfoMigrants, a joint service of the Italian Ansa news agency and the German and French international broadcasters DW and France Médias Monde. These platforms maintain specific social media services. Another example is the now discontinued News That Moves, which sought to address misinformation and rumours spreading across the refugee community in Greece.

Regarding members of diaspora communities – i.e., people who are no longer on the move and including second or subsequent generations of immigrants – a study by Hepp, Bozdag and Suna distinguishes between three different types of migrant media users: (1) origin-oriented migrants frequently use media from their countries or regions of origin. (2) Ethno-oriented migrants, by contrast, foster a dual identity. While retaining communicative relations with their country of origin, they also use media from their new country of residence. Finally, (3) world-oriented migrants move beyond the national level of both their region of origin and their host country, and consume a wide variety of international media, whether connected to their ethnic community or not. Reaching migrants, refugees, and ethnic minority communities through the means of mass media is thus highly context specific.

Sociologists distinguish between push and pull factors of migration and forced displacement. Push factors are those conditions, developments, and circumstances which drive people away from home. Pull factors are those conditions, developments, and circumstances which incentivize people to choose specific destination countries. Together, they form the reasons and motives why people decide or are forced to go on the move. These factors may be related to a variety of cultural, economic, ethnic, gender-related, political, religious, and social situations. Push factors include war and (ethnic) conflict as well as political oppression and human rights abuses, but also ongoing political instability, which, in turn, influences economic instability and inequality as two additional key drivers of migration. Inadequate public infrastructure such as limited access to and/or quality of education, health care, and other public services also lead to migration, alongside high crime rates. Population growth is sometimes described as the “unstoppable force” of migration. Yet, population growth may not be a push factor in itself, but rather the conditions created when high population density is accompanied by dire economic conditions and political instability. These conditions include, for example, an increase in the unemployment rate. Natural disasters are another key push factor. Increasingly, scholars, journalists and activists have focused on environmental disruptions and climate change as driving factors of migration. Gender-related push factors include political oppression because of gender or sexual orientation, but also gender-related inequalities in the labour market or educational sector.

Amongst the pull factors are greater wealth and better living conditions, lower risk of natural hazards and environmental disruptions, opportunities for personal economic betterment and employment, but also peace and respect for and adherence to human rights and freedom of religion. Moreover, communication may be regarded as a key pull factor: in an increasingly globalized media environment, the mass media, but also social media and interpersonal communication may increase incentives for people to leave for a certain destination, easily conveying a message of the advantages and attractiveness of that place. It is rarely a single factor that makes people leave their homes or a single incentive that pulls them particular destinations. Rather, a combination of different push and pull factors fits most biographies of migrants and refugees. Therefore, it is often difficult to isolate the role and importance of separate context factors. The blend of factors may also lead to difficulties in distinguishing who is a migrant and who is a refugee. For example, a refugee who left his home due to political oppression may need to resettle again away from the first destination because of unemployment or economic hardship. Further, a migrant may leave his country of origin for the sake of economic betterment, while escaping political oppression or armed conflict might also be amongst his key motives. 

 

 

 

The term geographies of migration captures the main flows of global migrants and refugees. Migration flows, according to the UN, relate to the number of migrants entering (immigrants) or leaving (emigrants) a given country during a given period of time. Technical language often omits the word “home country”. Because people do not always have a home, the term “current country of residence” was introduced to better capture the complexities of global migration flows. To migrants, “home” may ultimately mean more than one country. In this context, the terms country of origin, country of transit, and country of destination are particularly relevant. According to the Asylum and Migration Glossary 6.0 developed by the European Migration Network, the country of origin refers to the country of nationality, or, for stateless persons, of former habitual residence. However, the term is sometimes also used for the country of residence of a person at the moment they decide or are forced to go on the move, regardless of whether it is their country of nationality. On their way to their final destination, international migrants and refugees might pass through one or several countries of transit. During that time, migrants and refugees are often particularly vulnerable. They live in a situation between emigration from their country of origin, searching for ways and means in transit countries and resettlement in the country of destination, or are forced to return to their country of origin (readmission). Transit migration is open-ended, it is legal or irregular and can – but does not have to – lead to successful resettlement. The distinction between countries of transit and countries of destination is, though, not always clear-cut. A migrant might stay in a country of transit for long periods of time, applying for an entry visa to or employment in their desired destination, raising questions of whether their country of transit has already become a destination itself.

Despite the fact that migration is a global phenomenon, the lion’s share of international migration movements involves only a limited set of countries. Data on worldwide migration movements are, amongst other sources, available at the Migration Data Portal. The example of Russia illustrates that a country may be both a country of destination and a country of origin for international migrants: in 2020, Russia was not only the fourth-largest country of destination, hosting an immigrant population of about 12 million people, but also the third-largest country of origin, with an emigrant population of about 11 million in 2020. Other countries, such as Morocco, fulfil the criteria for all three classifications of states: there is a large Moroccan emigrant population living in European states such as France. Morocco, on the other hand, is also a major transit land for migrants and refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to Europe. At the same time, it has become a major country of destination for many sub-Saharan migrants.

It has often been argued that increasing development cooperation and foreign aid can reduce push factors and, in turn, reduce migration. As policymakers in many Western countries feel pressured to fight the causes of migration and forced displacement, foreign investment in major countries of origin has been praised as a powerful tool, and a “solution” to reduce the inflow of migrants.

Yet, research paints a more ambiguous picture, because economic development is more likely to increase, rather than decrease, migration. Some studies have demonstrated that the number of emigrants initially increases alongside economic growth, decreasing only once the country has reached a relatively high Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thus, studies there is a positive correlation between increasing development and increasing migration, particularly during the early stages of economic growth. This effect is known as the migration hump.

This tendency reflects the fact that the very poorest countries are often not the most common countries of origin, as poverty inhibits people’s capacity to move. Similarly, it is usually not the poorest who decide to leave their country, but rather those who have acquired the means to migrate, which may not only include financial means, but also some level of education. Increasing rural-to-urban migration within countries that have started an economic growth process leads to international migration in the long run. Increasing wealth results in not only greater incomes, but also more educational opportunities, and may thus increase both individual aspirations and capacities to leave the country for personal betterment. Yet, other studies have warned against interpreting a simplified causal relationship between economic development and increased migration, pointing towards other, more complex context factors at play that may explain why migration increases or decreases. While the “migration hump” phenomenon may hold true for some countries, it may not represent a universal mechanism by which development necessarily creates more migration.

Foreign reportingis a type of journalistic reporting that covers events and developments abroad, as opposed to the coverage of domestic issues. The terms foreign coverage, international reporting and international coverage are often used interchangeably. Such reporting may include a vast range of issues, such as politics, economics, culture, or sports. Yet, research has often highlighted the focus on war, conflict, and catastrophes in foreign coverage, pointing towards a perceived preponderance of negativity in the way international news are reported.

National systems of foreign reporting function within their own structures. While one might typically think of foreign correspondents as the protagonists of disseminating international news, structures of foreign coverage are much more diverse, including major international news agencies, foreign reporting conducted from news desks in the respective domestic country, or by reporters sent abroad just to cover a certain event or development. Recently, discourses in research and professional ethics have also shed light on the role played by so-called fixers or stringers. These are locals, often journalists themselves, who help international reporters to gather their stories.

Boundaries between national and international issues though seem to be blurring nowadays; the Europeanization of politics and economics within EU member states and the impact of climate change just being two examples of many. Consequently, it is hard to distinguish between what is to be termed domestic news and what is to be coined international news, especially if we understand both categories to be distinct news genres.

Despite such globalizing developments, international reporting is often accused of still being rooted in and furthering bias and stereotypes about foreign countries and a perceived world order. Likewise, the domestication of foreign news has raised criticism. Another frequent claim is that foreign coverage tends to follow the stance of national governments on foreign policy, neglecting the watchdog function of journalism in this field.

This has led to criticism on geographies of news, defined as the major news flows among countries or world regions, such as between the Global North and the Global South. It also has sparked calls for a global journalism, understood as a means to overcome national bias and provincialism in foreign coverage by pointing out global interdependencies across cultures. Cross-border journalism is often referred to as another means to tackle national bias and to innovate how international news is reported.

Structures of foreign reporting relate to the human resources and infrastructure necessary to maintain a system of foreign reporting. In general, upholding structures of foreign reporting is deemed costly, especially when compared to the investment necessary for domestic news.

Foreign correspondents, which are based abroad permanently, play an important role within these structures. However, many outlets have been facing shrinking budgets for news bureaus abroad, meaning that only a few organizations can afford to maintain large networks of stationed correspondents, especially if these are permanent employees sent abroad for longer periods of time.

Freelance correspondents serving several media outlets at a time partly fill this gap. Moreover, major news agencies play an important role in the dissemination of international news. These have news bureaus in many countries and include Western agencies such as the Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and Agence France Presse (AFP), but also the Chinese agency Xinhua. Agencies are particularly important when it comes to reports on countries and regions which are at the margins of geographies of news. Moreover, they are dominant sources of foreign reporting in countries where newsrooms cannot afford to hire their own correspondents, whether permanently employed or freelance.

Reporters who are temporarily deployed to a certain area are another crucial element within the structures of foreign reporting. Such “special envoys” may typically cover war and conflict zones, but also travel to report on natural disasters or major political events such as global summits, elections abroad, or protest movements. This type of foreign reporting is sometimes referred to as “parachute journalism”. The reporters conducting it are, in a slightly pejorative sense, called “parachutists”, as they presumably travel to a foreign country lacking knowledge of the situation on the ground and are badly prepared, relying on local fixers and reproducing bias and stereotypes rather than adding to a more nuanced international coverage.

This assumption has met with criticism, as such reporters may have travelled to a given country or world region several times before, and can also have significant expertise in a certain world region. Another argument goes that parachute journalism is indeed better than no on the ground coverage at all.

Yet, the collaboration with local journalists, e.g. through cross-border journalism,is regarded as a means to supplement or even replace the work conducted by “parachutists”. The role played by fixers within the human resource structures of international reporting has gained increasing attention in recent years.

However, a considerable share of foreign reporting is conducted by editors based in domestic newsrooms. Arguably, recent technological innovations have facilitated this model of foreign reporting, as a great deal of information from both domestic and international sources is instantly available through the Internet. This may include information made available by citizens on social media, for instance, turning amateur reports into another element of foreign reporting structures. All in all, a diverse set of journalists and contributors in different roles make up systems of foreign reporting.

Foreign reporting commonly depends on the support of local aides assisting international journalists while working on the ground, thus “fixing” their stories. Fixers contribute to reporting as translators and drivers, or guide foreign correspondents through the country. However, they also often serve as door-openers to potential interviewees and sources of reporting for foreign correspondents or “parachutists”. They arrange interviews and help international journalists to better understand local contexts, and develop story ideas together with them. Fixers are often, but not necessarily, journalists themselves, who might already have investigated stories for local media similar to those they help international media to cover.

In the context of international reporting, the term “stringer” is sometimes used in a rather interchangeable way, even though the distinction often made is that fixers, unlike stringers, do not themselves produce stories independently, despite their crucial role in the logistics of newsgathering. Others, though, argue that these roles have become more blurred, and fixers increasingly take on the tasks of international reporters due to shrinking budgets for international reporting, or growing security concerns related to the safety and wellbeing of foreign reporters in war and conflict zones.

Especially, international reporters who are not permanent envoys to a certain country often lack the networks of contacts, language skills, and background knowledge necessary to conduct research on their own. Fixers have been a crucial element within the structures of foreign reporting for decades, but have not attracted much interest within studies of international communication and the professional debates among international reporters. However, since the 2000s scholars and practitioners alike have increasingly problematized the role of fixers within the human resource structures of international reporting. One focus of attention has been the lack of safety for fixers, who may be even less protected than international reporters when covering sensitive issues, as well as their precarious working conditions.

It is commonly complained that fixers are rarely credited for their work, despite being co-creators of journalistic stories through their indispensable help. The journalist-fixer relationship has often been described as one of unequal power, mirroring the cleavages in international (news media) power settings and discrepancies in geographies of news. Even the term “fixer” itself has become disputed due to its assumed pejorative connotations, with “local freelancers” or “local producers” being preferred by some to better capture their often far-reaching contribution. Yet, it has also been stressed that fixers are not necessarily victims of how global news is reported, but they do have agency in shaping the stories told to international audiences. Research has also pointed towards a growing professionalism and sense of entrepreneurship among fixers.

In this regard, collaboration with local journalists through more cross-cultural means of international reporting such as cross-border journalism has gained increasing attention, as a way to acknowledge the local perspective these contributors can bring to an informed and contextualized international reporting.

The term “geographies of news” refers to the transnational flows of media coverage. As attention is a rare good, not all world regions and countries obtain an equal share of global news coverage. Geographies of news are thus embodied in a set of context factors for media attention – low or high – given to a certain world region or country. Of course, these factors vary significantly based on the national and regional contexts of a given country.

As a general rule, the degree of permanence of media coverage of a certain country or world region is highly dependent on proximities. Simply put, the “closer” the country, the more attention. Of course, these could be geographic proximities in the sense that events in a geographically nearer location commonly spark more interest than even the same types of events in far-flung places. However, it is evident that in a state with, let’s say, eight neighbouring countries, not each of them will get an equal share of attention within foreign reporting. This is where other proximities such as political proximity come into play. A foreign country believed to belong to the same political camp, or conversely perceived as a political adversary, or, more broadly, a country which is a crucial actor in international power settings, such as China or the U.S., will get more attention than states perceived as less influential. Political proximity may beat geographic proximity in many cases, as for example the U.S. receives much more attention from the media in several European countries compared to other states geographically closer by. Another factor is cultural proximity, meaning that the media report more frequently about countries to which its national audiences have strong cultural ties, be it through a shared language, history, religion, or other cultural links. Also, economic proximity is considered an important factor.

Media outlets usually establish news bureaus in locations which are believed to have a high proximity of any kind to the respective country. It is typically major international news agencies only that emphasize being broadly represented across the globe, even in locations that are remote in terms of news geographies. International news flows are thus highly dependent on media-external factors such as global power settings, the foreign affairs agendas of national governments, or historical relations. At the same time, international news flows recursively influence these settings, as transnational actors and national governments alike shape their strategies based on relevant foreign news agendas, and media users may internalize the proximities represented within international coverage. In a way, news media coverage “maps” the world. These impacts of global news flows have been at the heart of attempts to create a more “equal” foreign reporting no longer neglecting many parts of the world, such as the New World Information and Communication Order movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

Of course, proximity is only one of manifold factors which define which international events, people, or processes journalists deem newsworthy. Natural disasters, for example, frequently make the headlines even if they occur in countries usually underrepresented. Consequently, geographies of news models are well-suited to explain why certain states and regions constantly receive a high degree of attention, while others are in the news only now and then, and still others are almost never represented. Domestication of foreign news might be regarded as a means to create even closer proximity.

 

Journalism research defines domestication as a tendency in foreign reporting to frame international news by applying a domestic lens and national logic. Events and processes abroad are connected to or embedded in national contexts. Journalists “domesticate” news from abroad by giving voice to domestic actors, referring to events in their own country, or demonstrating the relevance of the international event for national interests and actors. The logic at work is that this will make news from abroad more appealing and comprehensible to domestic audiences. In that sense, domestication is a technique to reduce the complexity of international or global phenomena: Audiences are presented with frames they are already familiar with and that are considered relevant for them. By domesticating the news, journalists “translate” and interpret what is happening abroad, thereby reproducing reality, and creating certain images of foreign countries and international developments. Not only audiences, but also the journalists covering the news, may struggle to fully understand the relevant national logics, cultural and other contextual factors behind events and processes abroad. Events and processes taking place abroad that are easier to domesticate are thus generally considered as more newsworthy compared to events or processes that are more difficult to embed in the domestic context.

Domestication has received widespread criticism, for example as a factor contributing to bias and stereotypes in international news. However, domestication is also considered helpful in that it assists national audiences to better comprehend events and processes abroad: Connecting the international with the national or local may ultimately foster increased understanding of developments abroad and highlight the relevance of foreign news. By contrast, the opposite view has also been raised – domestication may turn foreign news into a factor countervailing rather than furthering globalization, as it perpetuates national imageries. However, in the age of globalization, it may be difficult or even impossible to distinguish between “national” and “international” news. The domestication concept has also met criticism due to its emphasis on journalistic agency at the expense of other actors contributing to the travelling of ideas and concepts in an interconnected world. Further, a dichotomy of “domestic” and “foreign” may fall short of explaining many events and processes. This has led to calls to enhance a more cosmopolitan approach to reporting the news, as signified by concepts such as Global Journalism. Yet, the categories of “domestic” and “foreign” have remained firmly embedded in the contents and structures of foreign reporting. Innovative approaches such as cross-border journalism can thus be seen as a means to promote reporting that is firmly embedded in both national and international contexts at the same time. 

Global journalism is a framework that emphasizes ways of reporting the news that move beyond the simple dichotomy of “domestic” and “foreign” coverage. As globalization processes have blurred boundaries and connected distant places and people, news stories related to issues such as climate change, migration, pandemics, or international economic inequalities often imply – or, from a normative perspective, should increasingly imply – an international or global outlook.

Swedish media scholar Peter Berglez describes global journalism as a news style that portrays relations between (geographically distant) places, peoples, and their actions, paying tribute to the complexities of globalization and reconnecting events and processes that are considered separate in “conventional” foreign reporting. According to Berglez, a global outlook focuses on commonalities and interrelations between practices, processes, and problems in different parts of the world. News stories that fall into this category therefore focus on processes and practices that occur simultaneously in separate places worldwide, reflect the complex interplay of domestic, foreign, and global powers, and represent identities across national and continental borders. In this understanding, “global journalism” comes close to glocalization, i.e., an understanding of globalization as not mere internationalization, but rather a complex interplay between international and local/national events and processes. Further, global journalism may be seen as a concept closely connected to visions of a “global public sphere” that connects well-informed citizens of the world rather than serving only national audiences.

While several studies have found evidence of an increasingly “global” journalism, others demonstrate that domestic/foreign categories remain firmly embedded in news reporting. The research also challenges the importance of (geographical, cultural and political) proximity for foreign reporting and instead highlights the ongoing importance of opportunities to “domesticate” news stories. Moreover, most news media continue to target national audiences, and are bound to logics inherent to national media systems, further complicating more transnational ways of covering the news and truly globalizing media. Expectations that journalism will fully embrace a “global” approach have thus been considered unrealistic. However, if one considers global journalism as a news style that enriches, rather than substitutes for, “conventional” foreign coverage, it may be considered a valuable concept addressing some of the shortcomings related to reporting international news, such as ethnocentrism, bias and stereotypes or unequal global news flows. In this sense, “global journalism” and “foreign reporting” are not opposites, but complementary approaches.

Cross-border collaboration of journalists or promoting cosmopolitan views amongst journalists may be ways of facilitating global journalism. Also, collaborative investigative journalism projects such as the Panama Papers or Paradise Papers, addressing issues such as global tax evasion and corruption, may be seen as a form of reporting that transcends “national” categories.