From Pity to Control: Regulated Humanitarianism in German Media Coverage of Refugees and Asylum

This article explores the German media coverage and humanitarian framing of the conditions of Syrian refugees in 2014. Since the onset of Syria’s uprising in March 2011, which turned into a civil war in July 2011, it is estimated that a total of 4.8 million Syrians havefled ongoing violence in their country, and more than one million have sought asylum in Europe and Germany (UNHCR 2016). In mid 2014, the scale of the humanitarian crisis became obvious when the UNHCR recognized that Syrian refugees constitute the largest number of refugees worldwide.

This study analyzes coverage of the humanitarian crisis in its transnational, national, and local dimensions, using a qualitative discourse analysis by applying Lilie Chouliaraki’s concept (2013,3) of solidarity of salvation and revolution in post-humanitarian communication to explore the humanitarian perspective in news coverage.

Drawing on the results, the article shows that although frames of solidarity of salvation and revolution are strongly present, coverage is mainly dominated by control, regulation, and migration-managementframes. These are the dominant frames on the transnational and national as well as on the local level. Finally, the findings will be discussed with the aim of making sense of their implications for humanitarianism from a theoretical perspective.