Essay Sample on Immigration Coverage and Power in the United Kingdom

The immigration issue has caused divisive politics in the United Kingdom, and the debate in recent years has been highly charged on the elements about asylum seekers and refugees. The British press is usually attacked for being biased when reporting on the issues of immigration, with some of the press units describing them as “cockroaches.” The international community, such as the United Nations human rights, has claimed that the media in the United Kingdom is not acting in the right way when covering matters that are regarding immigrants. It is an indication that there is a form of hatred among the British media towards the immigrants, for it seems that they are not concerned with the plight of thousands of people who are homeless and those who lack the basics.

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It shows that there are no media regulations in the country for the issue of hate-speech seems prevalent in the media. In the last few years, there has been a rise in the number of immigrants that are seeking asylum in British soil. These movements are causing conflicts in the media sector, mainly due to the intolerant political speech, and this is triggering negative coverage of the refugees. The media is supposed to offer informed journalism, and the coverage should ensure that it avoids hate-speech and intolerance. Based on the coverage, it shows that the power lies with the media, for they have the authority to engage in divisive politics rather than work on raising information on the plight of immigrants in the United Kingdom. The fact that the international community is calling for the United Kingdom media to work on favourable journalism is an indication of the power that this sector held in society.

One of the factors that are making it a challenge for the Britain media to report on immigration is because it has emerged from a moment of intense scrutiny through the exposing of corruption, political biases, and scandals. It is an indication that news outlets hold a lot of power in society, and the migrants are not deemed to have any significance in British society. Some of the press media have been investigated for engaging in acts of bribery and phone hacking, and it has been found that there are deficiencies in the regulations of the media, and this is why they have the freedom to undertake the duties that they want.

They have been given the freedom of expression, and due to the loopholes in the law of the country, they are managing to undermine the ethical obligations that they are supposed to observe and engage in activities that are undermining the working process of the media (Smith & Deacon, 2018). These points of weakness may help to explain why the media in the United States is only reporting on the negatives of the immigration process in the country. At the point of their need, the migrants require public assistance, and people can only manage to help the refugees when they know about them. This cannot happen in a prejudiced press that only claims how the migrants are causing problems in British society and not helping it grow.

The media has a way of convincing people to engage in activities that are against their will, and this means that they can paint the immigrants as unwanted elements in the United Kingdom society. The move will lead to the public lacking interest in the refugees, and this will drive them to deny the resources that they would have provided to help these people in need. The media tends to hold a lot of power for it manages to reach the masses in a short period, and it can engage in political-partisan and other instrumental purposes with the intent to realize a given goal. The media tends to have the power to target, and it is often used by politicians that want to achieve a given goal, and this is done with the intent to ensure that they realize personal goals.

The media coverage of immigration in the United Kingdom shows that power is usually distributed amongst the powerful only. Despite the country managing to enjoy the democracy for many years, it is not the voice of every citizen that is heard, considering that the migrants are not viewed as equal citizens. Their plight is usually at the hands of the powerful individuals, such as the media, for it can be noted that in most of the instances, their livelihood is based on what the media is reporting. A reporting with negative connotations leads to the public advancing against immigration, and this is having detrimental effects on the refugees’ lives.

Immigration is a salient topic in the United Kingdom media, and in the last few years, the politicians and policymakers have been working on tightening and instituting laws that are touching on the issue of immigration to ensure that it is reduced. The public tends to get the idea on the issues pertaining to refugees from the media. The coverage of migration in the United Kingdom has changed over the years, and it incorporates the trends in peoples’ movement, geopolitics, and policy changes. When determining how power is portrayed in the country through the coverage of migration, there is a need to make a review of the language that is used in these pieces of literature.

Based on the details that the press are printing, it can be noted that there the journalists are engaging in the process of framing problems when handling a debate on migration. It shows that the media is playing a significant role in shaping the debate on immigration in the United Kingdom.

The media tends to blame the politicians for the rising cases of refugees that are joining the country, while the migrants are blamed by the media for engaging in “illegal” immigration. The media has managed to raise economic arguments that are highlighting the problems that immigration is causing the British economy calling for the need to end the movement of people. According to the United Nations, refugees are allowed to seek asylum in any country of the world, especially if they are running away from conflicts. Therefore, when the media makes these arguments that immigration to the country should be stopped, it is acting against the human rights of these people. It shows that the United Kingdom media has a lot of power that is psychologically instigated for the details that they are feeding the public always seems to be right. Therefore, even when the information printed is wrong, the public will tend to believe it is true, an indication of the power that is yielded by these institutions.

It can be noted that there is a sharp increase in the newspaper coverage of the issues pertaining to migration, especially from the time of the conservation-led team election into the government in 2010. At the time, the country introduced measures that were expected to lower the net migration. The press has over the years changed on the way that migration is reported; there is a decline in the ways that the legal status of the migrants is reported and a rise in the scale of migration, and this has led to the proposal to tighten the laws on immigration.

Over the years, the migration from Bulgaria and Romania have managed to gain access to the United Kingdom, and this seems to have touched the press in the wrong way, and they have been advocating for the cancellation of the laws that are giving these migrants access to the country’s labour market (Eberl et al., 2018). There are changes in the way that migrants are depicted, for there is a rise in the references that are made towards the escalating Syrian refugees. The migrants are powerless in this case, and they have to live according to the laws of the land that, to an extent, are influenced by the country’s press. The media is playing a great role in setting the agenda, for they are having an effect on what the readers should think about, and this shows that their influence is growing with time. The problem is that the media sometimes diverts too much attention towards the negative effects of hosting immigrants in the county is an issue of concern to the refugees. When the country was voting on Brexit, the issue of migration played a great role in the way that the citizens voted, and this is a clear testament that the media holds a lot of power and paints the migrants as the weak elements that depend on the writings in the press to learn their fate.

According to “News Coverage and Public Concern About Immigration in Britain,” the United Kingdom tends to focus more on two issues when reporting on immigration, which are the economy and education and this is making the people of this country worry about the movement of people (McLaren et al., 2017). The author notes that the mass media is successful in determining what the ordinary people think and when they are brainwashed that migration is harming their economy and quality of education, they are likely to believe that. The ability to capture the mind of a nation is a clear testament that the press holds a lot of significance while the migrants do not have any influence in a community.

Their problems can only be tackled by the human rights groups that may demand their needs to be met by the host nation based on the international law accord that these states may have signed (Van Dijk, 2012). The fact that the media in the United Kingdom is managing to feed the masses with misinformed details that are eventually termed as the truth is an indication that a lot of power is held by the institutions that have the ability to reach many people. That is why the migrants are viewed as unwanted elements in Britain, and there are regulations and policies that are passed to ensure that they are denied the chance to enter the country.

According to “Media Definitely Do Matter: Brexit, Immigration, Climate Change and Beyond,” it is clear that the media is involved in the refraction of politics and other activities that are happening in society. The press is in some instances involved in the delivery of misleading details and fake news, and this is causing widespread problems in society (Gavin, 2018). The opinions of a single journalist can cause massive chaos in a society for this can trigger widespread hatred among the people of the United Kingdom and migrants, and there is a great need to ensure that this form of power is reduced to ensure that there is democracy in society.

In conclusion, it can be noted that the coverage of immigration in the United Kingdom is biased, and the media plays a significant role in making the public think that the movement of people to the country should be stopped. The press has made the citizens think that their economy is likely to perform poorly and the quality of education to decline when they allow people to settle in the country. The distribution of power seems to lie in the higher echelon of British society for the common people in this community to have the ability to influence what is happening. The migrants always rely on the legislation passed by the state, and they are not allowed to raise the issues for a common goal to be realized. The fact that the press is used by politicians to meet their agendas is an indication that the media is one of the main components that hold a lot of power in the country. Most of the details that have been published in the media are on the negative effects of hosting immigrants in the country, and this is affecting the thinking of the United Kingdom citizens.

References

Eberl, J. M. et al (2018). The European media discourse on immigration and its effects: a literature review. Annals of the International Communication Association, 42(3), 207-223.

Gavin, N. T. (2018).‘Media Definitely Do Matter: Brexit, Immigration, Climate Change and Beyond’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20(4), pp.827-45. https://doi.org/...