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1 Introduction
A divided Europe? Solidarity contestation in the public domain
Of the many crises that Europe faces today, the so-called ârefugee crisisâ is the one that has had a profound impact on public debates about solidarity, reinvigorating contestations and divisions within and between European member countries (Krastev, 2017b). Since 2015, huge fault lines have opened up across the European Union about the question of how this âcrisisâ should be handled and what the responsibility of European countries and populations is in regard to the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance. While most research has focused on migration movements and policy and security implications, there has been little sustained and comparative analysis of how public attitudes towards refugees and humanitarian dispositions are shaped within the public sphere by political news coverage of the âcrisisâ (AgustĂn and JĂžrgensen, 2018; Barlai et al., 2017). Sociological research in the field of communication studies, in turn, has mainly focused on the representation of refugees in the media, but less on how discourses and contestations of solidarity in European receiving countries inform, through the media, policy responses and public attitudes towards refugees (Eberl et al., 2018).
This volume, composed of results from comparative media analyses about transnational solidarity contestation in the public sphere in response to the so-called ârefugee crisisâ, aims to provide systematic empirical data and theoretical reflections about public contestations, and thus propose answers to the vital, yet understudied question of the role of the media in contesting (promoting or rejecting) solidarity towards refugees. To enhance such an understanding, we propose a public sphere framework of solidarity contestation. The public sphere is conceptualised as a place of political struggle (Cinalli and Giugni, 2013a, 2016a; Della Porta and Caiani, 2009; Koopmans et al., 2005), but at the same time, as a space where the boundaries of solidarity are defined (Calhoun, 2002; Enjolras, 2017). We argue that such solidarity contestations in the public sphere are not solely about the standing of Europeans vis-Ă -vis refugees and migrants more broadly. They are also about a broader notion of European solidarity among the member states and among the people of Europe in dealing with the âcrisisâ, e.g., in terms of shared responsibilities and activities of mutual assistance in sheltering refugees. In analysing the ârefugee crisisâ as a media event, we learn as much about the conditions necessary to construct solidarity towards âothersâ (the refugees) as we learn about the way we grant solidarity among âusâ as Europeans.
Additionally, we argue that an accurate understanding of solidarity contestations has to do justice to the complexity of mass mediated public debates by addressing the relations between news coverage and citizensâ comments. In fact, the mass media provide an important arena of public contentions that is highly patterned by news coverage routines and journalistic practices, thus privileging representatives of corporate actors (e.g., public authorities, interest groups, scientific communities). However, online media have conquered the public sphere, and this means that news audiences and consumers have become part and parcel of the media system and mass mediated public contentions. The analysis of public debates about solidarity with refugees has to acknowledge this structural transformation of public contentions by focusing on both the way public claims makers define and assess solidarity within the news, and how citizens who read and comment on these news delineate what solidarity with refugees means to them. The added-value of this dual approach is not only tied to the empirical insights of two interlocked arenas of solidarity contestation: claims-making by public, mainly organised actors vs. commenting by readers and media consumers; this approach also enables us to learn more about the relations between two distinct forms of public contestations that both have an effect on the way solidarity with refugees is shaped, promoted or eroded in the various countries.
Analysing public responses to the mass arrival of refugees in the European Union from a comparative media perspective is timely and will allow us to better understand why member states have reacted in very different, and often contradictory ways to the challenges of migration, humanitarian aid and political integration. The main aim was to survey mass mediated public debates in very different national backgrounds â including the south, north, east and west of Europe â in order to systematically map differences in the perception and reception of refugees, and link them to differences in respective public debates across Europe. Altogether, this will allow us to explain not only the variety of public responses, but also to address broader questions about the role of the media in their treatment of refugees and the respect of human rights, especially at a time when media are considered to be responsible for spreading anti-migrant sentiments. Our book thus also contributes to the current discussion about the responsibility and accountability of journalism in important ways (Gemi et al., 2013; Wahl-Jorgensen et al., 2016; Waisbord, 2013).
What is more, the so-called ârefugee crisisâ is the one that has had a profound impact on the self-understanding of the European Union (EU) as a community of values based on the respect of human rights and global solidarity. For a long time in history, Europe has been a promoter of values that are held to be universally valid. In this tradition, the EU has also been built on a set of fundamental values such as ârespect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rightsâ (Art. 2 Treaty on European Union). These values are meant to unite all member states. It is the goal of the European Union to defend and promote them both in its internal and external action. As we will argue, beyond the lack of solidarity, the events that led to the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016 stand for a clash of solidarities within and across established member states, a clash about our moral and legal obligations towards refugees and migrants, as well as a clash in our relationships among our members, and with regard to the moral foundations of our community of states and citizens (Krastev, 2017a and b).
Raising such normative questions requires, however, a stock-taking exercise to unveil a large array of variations in the public sphere, especially in terms of how the news media actually cover humanitarian crises, inform about the needs of those affected by them and involve readers and audiences in normative debates.
The European field of solidarity contestation
Our analyses shall help to develop a better understanding of the constitutive role of (mass) media communication in the construction or erosion of solidarity in modern society. We wish to raise awareness of the central contribution of the mass media in channelling contestation of solidarity among citizens across time and space. Solidarity in modern society can no longer rely solely on face-to face encounters of intimate relationships, such as the family, but needs to be built on the mediated relationships among distant people who begin to negotiate responsibilities between each other. In historical terms, the construction of solidarity relationships among distant people unfolded as part of the nation-building process (Rokkan, 1999; StrÄth, 2017) and was strongly attached to the idea of solidarity among citizens sharing equal (civic, political and social) rights (Banting and Kymlicka, 2017). The establishment of a public sphere, primarily by means of mass media, played a crucial role in promoting national identities and a sense of national solidarity. This role has not lost power, given that feelings of belongingness and claims for solidarity among co-nationals are constantly reproduced and reaffirmed in the public sphere. The mass media are still held responsible for strengthening bonds of national solidarity among members of a political community (Waisbord, 2004).
However, the mass media cannot be reduced to a functional instrument in the promotion and stabilisation of national solidarity, given that the mass media have fuelled public debates that have qualified, and in part even contested, national solidarities in the name of international, humanitarian or cosmopolitan visions. Public debates within the mass media are thus shaped by particularistic and universalistic notions of solidarity. On the one hand, mass media systems are structured primarily along national divisions, impacting on patterns of news coverage and public discourse. Scholarly writing has provided ample evidence on the ways mass media contribute to the reproduction of national identities (Calabrese and Burke, 1992), and how news coverage of national and international events is driven by national media systems, interests and sensitivities (Aalberg et al., 2013; Van Dijk, 1988). This affects the mass mediaâs approach in addressing solidarity within and beyond the nation-state, because relations with co-nationals are dealt with differently than those towards distant others. According to Walzer (1994), solidarity relationships as established within a membership community of equals are described as thick or reciprocal, whereas the support that is granted to distant strangers is often reduced to forms of charity in a thin and non-reciprocal relationship of inequality.
Additionally, solidarity with distant âothersâ is subjected to a strong sense of conditionality, given that support depends on the assumed neediness, deservingness or proximity of potential recipients (Van Oorschot, 2000, 2006). Non-members of a national community might thus not apply or even discredit themselves as legitimate targets of support. This limits the readiness of the mass media to extend thick conceptions of solidarity to Europeans and European member states, as evidenced by public debates during the Great Recession. Since 2008, the economic crisis has placed fiscal solidarity on top of the policy agenda. However, news coverage in member states has emphasised conflicts between different governments about the necessary measures to combat the (budgetary, economic, and social) consequences of the crisis (De Wilde et al., 2013), in part questioning the legitimacy of the Greek governmentsâ claims for European assistance (Mylonas, 2012; Papathanassopoulos, 2015). Conditionality seems to be even stronger in regard to non-Europeans, as the experience of public debates during the so-called ârefugee crisisâ of 2015 and 2016 showed. While the mass media were initially quite receptive to public solidarity towards the needs of refugees, this momentum was overlaid by public debates stressing risks (security issues, integration problems, social costs, cultural menaces), and qualifying deservingness publicly (Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017).
The mass media tend to reproduce national solidarity, because the latter is firmly institutionalised by the modern nation-state in terms of constitutional rights, policies and public oratories. However, public debates within the mass media are not exclusively constrained to particularistic solidarities. On the other hand, there is evidence that the mass media provide a voice to transnational, cosmopolitan or universalistic notions of solidarity. The mass media raise questions of global solidarity and justice towards non-nationals. Through the coverage of distant suffering, they confront audiences with their moral responsibility to provide assistance to strangers (Kyriakidou, 2009, 2015; Nash, 2008), even if these debates are marked and guided by national agendas and interests. The notion of global solidarity is therefore not only an abstract normative and legalistic principle. Following Tönniesâ (2002) distinction between community and society, it is also linked to different forms of sociation, and here in particular it is tied to the expansive logic of solidarity relationships within modern society as an association of strangers. The transition from solidarity, as enshrined in the private relationships of kinship, to solidarity as a public relationship among strangers underlies the social struggles for an expansion of rights, citizenship and equality. This contraposition of thick and thin, communal and associational forms of solidarity is more often than not also associated with liberal-cosmopolitan and exclusive communitarian values (BrĂ€ndle et al., 2019), and is a constant source of public contentions.
The mass media thus play an ambivalent role in public debates about (transnational) solidarity. This book aims to shed more light on this ambivalence by focusing on solidarity contestations in regard to the so-called ârefugee crisisâ. The empirical and theoretical analyses will be devoted to a number of questions. What are the main topics, ideas and beliefs associated with solidarity with refugees? Which actors are involved in these debates and who can be considered as promoting and questioning solidarity towards refugees? How do these contentions develop across time, and what are the main drivers of public contention? How are citizensâ comments related to claims-making within the news coverage, and can we speak of dissociated or integrated public debates? What role do the mass media play in the construction of antagonistic visions of solidarity, and are they receptive to discourses about transnational solidarity?
The book also aims to map the public solidarity contestations in a number of European countries and wishes to advance our knowledge about the patterns, drivers and implications of these solidarity contentions. Additionally, it wishes to assess whether the needs and concerns of the others can be communicated in such a way as to formulate reciprocal commitments between strangers. It is here that we wish to contribute an original theory of the public sphere and the media as open spaces for solidarity contestation through which our moral responsibilities towards others are negotiated nationally, at a European level, and globally.
The empirical data and theoretical reflections presented in this book emanate from a research project funded by the European Union under the Research and Innovation Programme, Horizon 2020. The project was devoted to the analysis of âTransnational Solidarity at Times of Crisisâ (TransSol, available at www.transsol.eu), and was conducted in eight European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). These countries are representative of the broader European landscape, displaying very different attitudes with regard to the question of transnational solidarity and whether hospitality should be granted to the incoming refugees. TransSOL followed a multidimensional approach and was interested in forms, drivers and implications of (transnational) solidarity at the level of individual citizens (Lahusen and Grasso, 2018), the organised civil society (Lahusen et al., 2021), public policies (Federico and Lahusen, 2018) and the public sphere. The focus on the public sphere was motivated by the assumption that solidarity is a social value, political concept and legal principle that is discursively constructed in public contentions. And this means that individual, organised and institutional forms of (social, political and legal) solidarity are highly dependent on public justifications and/or susceptible to public criticism. In this sense, this book complements previous publications of the project, highlighting the prominent role of the mass media in shaping national and transnational solidarity.
TransSol is also original in the way it deals with variations of public spheres by combining a news media claims-making analysis with a social media reception analysis. On the one hand, comparative insights on solidarity contestation are gained through standard claims-making analysis of a number of variables such as main contestants, issues, attitudes towards refugees, forms of actions, polarisations, degrees of Europeanisation, justifications and ascriptions of responsibility. On the other hand, TransSOL innovates through an exploratory user reception analysis and inductive coding of citizensâ attitudes towards refugees expressed on social media (Facebook). This latter analysis offers promising results on the dynamics of social media contestation, and in particular, the expression of pro- and anti-refugee sentiments by citizens-users, and the way such sentiments are translated into political mobilisation in support and/or rejection of solidarity.
Outline of the book
Given the expected differences in terms of public responses to the mass arrival of refugees, this volume has four main objectives. First, we identify the extent to which acts of solidarity towards refugees were granted public awareness in national public spheres and what claims on behalf of or against hospitality towards refugees were made, and by whom. Secondly, we reconstruct the dynamics of solidarity contestation in the public sphere in terms of competing interests and interpretations between EU-member states, their main lines of division and allegiances. Thirdly, we examine the discursive construction of European solidarity in terms of its underlying conceptions, ideas and norms that drive public debate, and how such different notions of solidarity are used in contestations between various allegiances (e.g., proponents and opponents of humanitarian solidarity, of national exclusive notions of solidarity, or of populism and xenophobia). Fourthly, we trace the different dynamics of media-driven solidarity contestation from the perspective of public claims makers in the media who make it into the news, as well as from the perspective of citizens who read and comment on the news.
The chapters of this volume contribute to these objectives by providing theoretical and empirical insights into the dynamics and structures of solidarity contestations in eight European countries. Our journey starts with a conceptual and theoretical reflection of the role of the mass media in public debates about solidarity. In this theoretical chapter, we argue that European integration has expanded the field of solidarity contestation and opened up the spaces of media communication through which we define our moral responsibilities towards others. The expanded space of solidarity contestation is European, but at the same time is open towards the global and segmented towards the national. We argue therefore that our empirical analyses require an approach that examines the European field of solidarity contestations in its relationships to alternative national or transnational (global) notions of solidarity. Media contestations of refugees and migrants suggest a tension between exclusive nationalist notions of solidarity that are often defended by populist...
