A community structure analysis (exploring variations in community/national demographics linked to differences in reporting on critical issues) compared cross-national coverage of cross-border transit migration through Mediterranean and Central European countries in leading newspapers, one per country, in 16 countries, analyzing all articles of 250 words or more from 10/01/14 to 11/01/15. The resulting 238 total articles were coded for “prominence” and “direction” (“government responsibility,” “society responsibility” — including foreign aid, or “balanced/neutral” coverage) and combined into composite “media vector” scores for each newspaper (range 0.1132 to -0.2785, a total range of .3917). A majority of 12 of 16 (75%) of media vectors reflected societal responsibility of transit migration, with the minority (4 of 16, or 25%) registering government responsibility.
Pearson correlations revealed the strength of three significant national demographic indicators, two of the three associated with coverage emphasizing government responsibility for transit migration. Crop production index (r= .423, p= .051), a measure of agricultural/economic vulnerability, was linked to coverage emphasizing government responsibility for transit migration. In contrast, another vulnerability measure, global peace index, was associated with more media emphasis on societal responsibility for transit migration (r= -.466, r =.050).
One measure of privilege, females in the workforce (r= .426, p= .05), was also linked to government responsibility for transit migration. A regression analysis revealed the strength of a nation’s crop production index (21.2% of the variance), females in the workforce (22.2%) and corruption score (9.8%) all connected to coverage emphasizing government responsibility, collectively accounting for 53.1% of the variance.
Contrary to conventional assumptions that media typically act as “guard dogs” reinforcing the interests of political and economic elites, systematic research on demographically linked variations in transit migration coverage reveal that media can “mirror” the interests of a society’s most “vulnerable” inhabitants
