Portrayal of Immigrants in Danish Media—A Qualitative Content Analysis
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Perspectives Underpinning the Study
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Data Collection
3.2. Qualitative Content Analysis
3.3. Ethical Considerations
4. Results
4.1. Portrayal of Immigrants
One should not have read much in the Qur’an or followed the news very much without understanding the seriousness and quickly ascertaining the debilitating reality: violence against women, honour killings and serious violations in these Muslim environments.(‘B.T. Metro’, 7 October 2019)
The claim that Muslims give birth to 3-4-5 children is not true.(‘Politiken’, 8 May 2019)
[The woman], who speaks and writes Danish and has learned it in just 11 months (…), has never received social benefits.(‘B.T. Metro’, 31 May 2019)
It has not been easy for Iamae to say goodbye to her friends, family and studies in Brazil—her country, which she loves. But because of Lasse’s illness, she needed to do it, so they could live together.(‘B.T. Metro’, 2 November 2019)
Somalis (…) are the foreign nationality most frequently convicted of pernicious crime, such as murder/attempted murder, violence and robbery.(‘B.T. Metro’, 1 June 2019)
Far too many women with non-Western backgrounds are not in the labour market.(‘B.T. Metro’, 15 June 2019)
In Denmark, it is often talked about that other cultures, other values and backgrounds can be part of the cause of violence and crime.(‘B.T. Metro’, 19 November 2019)
A good place to start is to say thank you to the many citizens of foreign descent who drive our buses, empty our garbage bins, provide care for our elderly and clean our workplaces while others are laying around and sleeping. Thank you for your efforts. Denmark would be a poorer country without you!.(‘Politiken’, 21 May 2019)
He does not buy the story that well over half of women from Arab countries are some poor people who are frozen out of a discriminatory labour market. Tesfaye’s implicit postulate is such that there is work for everyone who wants to work.(‘Politiken’, 27 January 2019)
The most obvious explanation [for their low employment rate] is that their human capital is too weak. They are too poorly educated, their language skills are too weak, they have too little experience with the Danish labour market, which is why their employment-relevant networks many times do not exist at all…when non-Western women are educated, they actually use the education to a great extent to get to work afterwards.(‘Politiken’, 26 September 2019)
I needed to reflect on my Pakistani and Danish roots, and I have learned to set my own boundaries. (…) I need to break some of the patterns that have been created through generations.(‘Politiken’, 10 February 2019)
In a Danish family, she had seen that men could also cook and set the table. And she went home to her own traditional home and demanded that the men do this. (…) Today, (…) [she] is an independent activist, speaker, consultant, moderator.(‘Politiken’, 15 February 2019)
[She] gradually changed her sceptical attitude. Now she advises her friends to send their daughters to school.(‘Politiken’, 10 February 2019)
There are foreigners that we do not want in this country, but which, unfortunately, we also cannot send home right now, because they risk being subject to the death penalty or torture in their home country.(‘Politiken’, 26 September 2019)
4.2. Issues around Immigrants and Immigration
4.2.1. Integration—Success or Failure
Studies show that an increasing number of Muslims want to break the foundations in Denmark and establish Islamic religious law instead of the constitution.(‘B.T. Metro’, 14 May 2019)
Darkened Muslim forces in Denmark play with completely different rules of game than all of us democratic and freedom-loving Danes do.(‘B.T. Metro’, 7 October 2019)
We must be able to speak openly and critically about the role of Islam in Danish society, just as we must maintain that Denmark is based on free Christian values.(‘B.T. Metro’, 30 November 2019)
The state spends 33 billion kroner a year on non-Western immigration. Read again: 33 billion—it’s a kind of (tax) kroner anyway. AN AMOUNT THAT should strictly be zero—or almost zero.(‘B.T. Metro’, 14 May 2019)
Integration must work, not just cost money. (…) [There has been] more than 15 years of the uncontrolled use of public funds for the world’s coloured integration projects.(‘Politiken’, 7 July 2019)
4.2.2. Discourse on Discrimination
If it’s not Ramadan, then it’s our clothing. And if it’s not our clothing, then it’s obviously our names. Everything about immigrants is obviously problematic.(‘B.T. Metro’, 2 February 2019)
Herning Municipality received harsh criticism from the Institute for Human Rights for illegal discrimination on the basis of ethnicity in school relocation.(‘B.T. Metro’, 29 November 2019)
There are examples of discrimination against students with foreign-sounding names like Yousef—not because the teachers are racist but because they are hard pressed. Therefore, they can better accommodate Mathias and his like.(‘Politiken’, 24 March 2019)
Native language teaching in the sense of teaching minority mother tongues has not been considered enriching for the pupils in question in the same way as [teaching] Danish as a native language.(‘Politiken’, 24 March 2019)
For decades, Danish and a narrow form of Danishness have been the norm in the education system, in which bilingualism, teaching minority mother tongues and interculturalism have had difficult circumstances.(‘Politiken’, 24 March 2019)
There is a deep concern that there are some in Denmark who seem to think that people should be expelled solely because of their faith. 28 percent of the surveyed Danes either fully or partially agree that Muslims should be sent out of Denmark.(‘B.T. Metro’, 17 November 2019)
4.3. Discourses Revealing Xenophobia
With 63,537 votes, equivalent to 1.88 percent, Stram Kurs became eligible for party support of more than 2 million kroner a year and is now continuing its anti-Muslim campaign with more resources than they had before the election.(‘Politiken’, 27 October 2019)
Just because a generation decides that now there must be a lot of coloured people, they are not entitled to it. The next generation may not agree that they should grow up in a multicultural society (…). I hope to stop the flow of migrants to Europe. The whole of Europe will be transformed into a shithole because those people cannot contribute or fit culturally with us.(‘Politiken’, 19 May 2019)
25,000 people came on the Syrian wave that should be thrown home. They have no right to be here, and we have nothing to use them for.(‘Politiken’, 19 May 2019)
Denmark is in a desperate situation where the Danes are being exterminated. It’s because of immigration, and it doesn’t matter if it’s from Arab, Asian or Eastern European countries.(‘Politiken’, 19 May 2019)
Discourses around Danish Immigration Policy
The minister will use ‘all the tools we have available’ to reduce the number of people ‘on tolerated stay’. They have long been a rock in the shoes of the minister at all times in the field, and now the stone seems to have become larger.(‘Politiken’, 26 September 2019)
The strategy is to cripple the freedom of movement of the convicts and—despite international conventions—give them such intolerable conditions that they move [out of the country].(‘Politiken’, 3 February 2019)
4.4. Voices Presented and General Tone Used
5. Discussion
5.1. Portrayal of Immigrants
5.2. Issues around Immigrants and Immigration Described by the Media
5.2.1. About Integration
5.2.2. About the Discourse on Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia
5.3. Whose Voices Were Heard?
5.4. Media Discourses’ Potential Effects on Migrants and Immigration
5.5. Limitations
5.6. Strengths and Future Recommendations
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Appendix A.1. B.T. (Berlinske Tidene)
Appendix A.2. Politiken
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Cengiz, P.-M.; Eklund Karlsson, L. Portrayal of Immigrants in Danish Media—A Qualitative Content Analysis. Societies 2021, 11, 45. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11020045
Cengiz P-M, Eklund Karlsson L. Portrayal of Immigrants in Danish Media—A Qualitative Content Analysis. Societies. 2021; 11(2):45. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11020045
Chicago/Turabian StyleCengiz, Paula-Manuela, and Leena Eklund Karlsson. 2021. "Portrayal of Immigrants in Danish Media—A Qualitative Content Analysis" Societies 11, no. 2: 45. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11020045