Geopolitical Analysis of Refugee Images in Tweets by Global News Agencies: An Analytical Study"

 
 
 
By mid-2024, the number of forcibly displaced persons and refugees worldwide exceeded 117.3 million. This massive number has shifted the refugee issue from a humanitarian concern to one with complex social, political, economic, and security implications at both regional and international levels. It has also become a subject of political contention reflected in Arab, local, and international media. The visual representation of refugees in the media, particularly by news agencies, plays a crucial role in creating narratives of solidarity or discrimination and shaping public understanding and attitudes towards them.
Accordingly, this study aimed to analyze the geopolitics of the geostrategic contexts of refugee images published in tweets by global news agencies on X (formerly Twitter). The study focused on analyzing the event factor as a primary element of the event and the identity spaces created by exploring the spatial turn in the sample images. It also aimed to identify the most common topics related to refugees and the contexts in which they were covered, as well as to explore who speaks about refugees (the actor) and to what extent refugees appear as key players in these coverages. This contributes to deducing the geostrategic contexts in the visual coverage of the refugee crisis by global news agencies on X.
Additionally, the study analyzed the essence of the event by examining levels of visual framing and identifying visual rhetoric strategies that highlighted the different framing of Ukrainian refugees compared to other refugees worldwide. The study also analyzed the event environment by deconstructing the geopolitical spaces (physical space, economic space, demographic-political space, diplomatic-strategic space, and cyber-electronic space), which contributed to shaping the policies of countries, especially the European Union, in dealing with the influx of refugees from the beginning to the end of the study period.
Overall, the study reached several conclusions, the most important of which is that the construction of the event factor in the refugee crisis was negative. This negativity is attributed to the emphasis on the reasons for their flight (war, conflict, persecution, poverty) with almost complete absence of climate-related causes such as natural disasters (hurricanes, storms, earthquakes, fires). The images in the study sample presented a narrative focusing on the geographic representation of the most refugee-hosting countries, which was biased towards the European Union and the United States. The study revealed that this Western propaganda contradicts the 2024 UNHCR figures, which showed that over 85% of refugees are in the Middle East and developing countries, while less than 15% are in the West.
The study also found that the focus on Ukrainian refugees in the tweets of the sampled news agencies revealed a new chapter of racism, stereotyping, and media orientalism. The study images documented the French authorities' deliberate intensification of dismantling informal camps housing hundreds of migrants in Paris, particularly in July before the Olympics, as part of a strategy aimed at "hiding poverty from the world's eyes." The analysis of the spatial turn as a primary event factor according to contemporary geopolitical theory revealed that Egypt is the only country that did not house refugees in camps or bargain with the international community for material or economic benefits in exchange for hosting them. Instead, Egypt opened housing, health, education, and employment opportunities for them, especially those coming from Syria and Sudan.
The sampled news agencies relied on long shots in 62% of the images, reinforcing the division between "us" and "them." The analysis concluded that the most common interactions in the sample images were with military, police, and coast guard personnel, supporting the framing of refugees as criminals. The images of refugees from the Middle East and South Africa in European countries focused on their crossing of the Balkan route in large numbers as strangers and unidentified individuals, alongside the dominance of images of overcrowded boats. The Russian news agency TASS focused on promoting hate speech towards refugees, especially Ukrainians. Some countries in the sample images were depicted as safe, particularly those aspiring to join the European Union (Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia). The study also revealed that Syrian refugees have faced increasing racism over the past several years.