Media Framing of Integration in Belgian Newspapers

ABSTRACT

I deconstruct the distinctive facets of mediated framing of integration through a textual analysis of Flemish newspapers. Using Entman’s framing theory, I identified four primary integration frames: Fortress Europe, Streamlined Labour, Solipsistic Representation, and Competing Integration Frames. Specifically, I describe the ambivalence of media framing, which intertextually borrows from dominant representation of (im)migrants. The papers simultaneously frame integration as an assimilative social contract to be agreed to by (im)migrants and as a responsibility of the host society to integrate (im)migrants. Counter-framing, present in all four media frames, is critical to both dismantling systemic marginalization and ameliorating processes of integration.