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Migration and the media. Perspective of specialized journalists in Spain

Abstract:

In a context in which migration has a relevant media presence, and given the existing agreement in the profession and the academia about the deficiencies of the media coverage of migration, we seek to dig into the media discourse from the perspective of its producers: the specialized journalists. We conducted 33 interviews with Spanish journalists specialized in migration. Using an automatic and manual content analysis, we observed that the interviewees see in journalism about migration an abundance of stereotypes, a lack of depth and an absence of the migrants' voices. This diagnosis agrees with the one of previous works that analyze the media content, but the article adds possible improvement alternatives, such a greater attention to the use of language and a greater use of first-hand human sources.