Migrant voices in migration stories

Migrant voices in migration stories

The debate on migration in the UK takes place largely within the media. Migrant Voice works to bring more migrant voices into the debate on migration because we believe that this contributes to a more accurate representation of migrants and a more factual debate. We feel that the media often lacks enough migrant voices and that it at times represents migrants inaccurately. 

During a 2014 media monitoring research project, we sought to find statistical evidence to either prove or disprove this idea. 

Read the June 2014 report here.

Our conclusions were these:

We have been surprised at the statistical evidence revealed through this study. We had a sense that migrants are underrepresented in stories about them and about migration, but the evidence of this research clearly points out their representation is lower than expected. 

Our recommendations to these media outlets to represent migrants in a more accurate way are as follows: 

• It has been our observation that the online coverage of the same news outlet may not quote the same number of migrants as they do in the broadcast news. It is possible that broadcast outlets have greater migrant representation that may not be reflected online. Our recommendation is to use at least as many migrant voices online as in the broadcast news.
• It was clear to us as readers that when migrant voices were included in stories it added greater credibility and more depth to the articles. We recommend media outlets make an effort to interview migrants for stories that affect them or are about them. For example, in stories about migrants taking British jobs or benefits tourism it would have been interesting to address these claims from an individual migrant’s perspective.
• It would be refreshing to read weekly migrants stories from a migrant’s point of view.
• We ask media outlets to cover migration stories in the same way as other issues by always including a migrant in a story about migration, such as stories relating to women, people with disabilities, etc.