Shaping a Climate of Arrival: National and Local Media Representations of Refugees’ Arrival Infrastructures in the Netherlands

Abstract

Negative media representations such as framing refugees as criminals may increase concerns among the general audience about the arrival of asylum seekers. At the same time, these media representations may also create anxiety among the refugees themselves and negatively impact on their sense of belonging. In this article, we explicitly focus on media representations of arrival infrastructures for refugees and how these representations shape their climate of arrival. We zoom in on the regulatory-administrative dimension consisting of all formal structures involved in the arrival of refugees, the everyday practical dimension that refers to infrastructuring practices outside the regulatory-administrative framework related to refugees, as well as the normative-discursive dimension that consists of ideas and debates around arrival and arrival infrastructures. By taking arrival infrastructures as our centre of attention, we move beyond a refugee-centred approach. This allows us to uncover the different layers of the climate of arrival brought to light by national and local media representations as well as to nuance the rather uniform and dominant image of refugees in the media. Our findings show the responsibility of media to represent a more diverse image of refugees as well as the need for migration and media scholars to move beyond a sole focus on how refugees are represented in the media.