Naseri, Shabana

On the 15th of August 2021, after waging a twenty-year insurgency against the U.S led invasion, the fundamentalist group Taliban returned to power, and declared the establishment of the Islamic Emirate throughout Afghanistan. Where on the 24th of February, the Russian government launched an overall invasion of Ukraine, triggering one of the fastest growing refugee displacements since the Second World War in Europe. News outlets around the world have been covering the two events on a large scale, yet the tone approached by journalists in the pursuit of contextualizing them has sparked critiques since the Ukrainian refugees have been described as rather ‘civilized’ than the Afghan and Syrian refugees, having a clear reference to the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe as well. Upon arrival to Denmark in August 2021, the Afghan refugees have met asylum camps, and strict Danish refugee policies, dissimilar to the Ukrainian refugees who have encountered open borders and a welcoming nation in Denmark, and other European countries. Withal, through a critical discourse analysis, with Tajfel &amp; Turners (1997) Social Identity Theory, and Edward Said’s (1979) Orientalism theory as theoretical lenses, this study investigates how the Danish newspaper, Politiken, have portrayed the Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, to then uncover why there has been a difference in the treatment in terms of who is more deserving of protection and help. The findings reveal that, while in 2021 the Afghan refugees were portrayed as a burden and threat to the Danish society, in 2022 the Ukrainian refugees were depicted as victims of war who needed to be helped and protected. During both periods, narratives of Danish politicians were largely followed by the media. Overall, this study contributes to the existing knowledge within migration studies and could raise further debates on biases existent in the Danish media coverage, possibly leading to reassessments and reconsiderations of formermethods of covering conflicts and war around the worl

Endorsement of the Ukrainian vs. Afghan refugees

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Roskilde Universitet