REFUGEE CRISIS REPRESENTATION ON GERMAN ONLINE PRESS: THE CASE OF AYLAN KURDI

This paper is focused in examining the digital news representation of Syrian refugee crisis and the conformation of the reader’s opinions in Germany. Data collection will be addressed on reviewing German online news and the reader’s comments related with one remarkable event during the actual migration crisis in Europe: The note about the child Aylan or Alan Kurdi, that drowned in the coast of Turkey in September 02 of 2015. The main aim of this paper is to understand the role of media crisis representation on the opinions of German people. How does media shape public reactions in pro and against helping refugees? And what kind of actions could the European authorities undertake to protect the human rights of refugees and to diminish hate discourse online.

Refugee crisis representation on German online press: the case of Aylan Kurdi

I. Context
The recent Syrian and African migration phenomena represents one of the most important migration crisis since the end of the World War II, in fact, there is not a single European country that is beyond the effects of this event.This emergency has been triggered by some complex and diverse factors, like the profound political changes in North Africa englobed under the title of "Arabic Spring" that eroded traditional authoritarian governments in several countries as in the case of Egypt and Libya, but as a tangential effect it has caused economic depression and social instability, the recent emergence of the terrorist group named as The Islamic State (IS) and the restless civil war in Syria that has forced millions of people to escape in weak and dangerous ships to search asylum in Europe.During this crisis, important and sad events have drastically changed the strategies and public consideration concerning refugees: the considerable increment of casualties in between migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, especially the terrible deceased of about 500 African migrants in the coast of Lampedusa Island in Italy on October of 2013.Additionally, the terrorist attacks in Paris (2015), Brussels (2016) and Barcelona (2017) have increased hostility toward Muslim religion and the Arabic culture and, particularly, against Syrian migrants who are accused of being terrorists that cross the borders dressed up as refugees.Migration problems and economic crisis have stimulated the resurgent of nationalism, xenophobic and anti-migration views along the continent, especially in France and Germany1 .The triumph of Marine Le Pen was particularly remarkable in the city of Paris, and the rising of far-right politicians like Frauke Petry and political parties as PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes) in Germany, that have gained political sympathies using an anti-migration agenda2 .
Surprisingly not, many far-right anti-migrant activists do not even consider themselves as racist or xenophobic, they claim that most of their arguments against the entrance of refugees stand on economic and security basics.However, a deeper analysis of their discourse clearly shows how these arguments are settled on traditional racist and xenophobic stereotypes 3 .Actually, these traditional and unresolved problems, xenophobia and migration, combined with other factors like terrorism and the huge migration flows, are boosting a bigger and more dangerous situation: by now far-right political parties and their sympathizers are seeking to establish more rigid and complex migration mechanisms inside the European Union, not only when people try to enter to the European Union, but inside the Schengen Zone, they are looking to David Ramírez Plascencia establish more sever boundary controls or as in the case of Great Britain, to encourage the exit from the Union.Many of these new anti-migration parties are not only against African or Syrian migration, but also against the inner existence of open flows of individuals and goods.Most of them, as in the case of counties in the Balkans and East Europe, are not happy with current migration policies commanded from Strasburg.So many politicians have been gathering popular discontent and trying to impost novel measures to provincialize and stretch borders4 .These actions could not only affect economic activities like tourism, but can also be taken to the extremes, it could be an important barrier that could compromise the very existence of the Schengen space, one of the most important and symbolic achievements of the European Union since its establishment.In the case of activism pro-migration, along with the problem of dealing with a more adverse panorama, non-profits organizations that pursue a more humanitarian treatment toward Syrians and Africans although they do not always share the same political agenda with the people they are trying to help.A long these years, there have been important discrepancies in between their goals.Many support and welcome the refugees and deplore how European authorities are dealing with the problem, but at the same time, they consider the situation as a consequence of globalization and liberalism policies around the world, they search for a wider solution that is almost unreachable.On the contrary, Syrian migrants are focused mainly in arriving to Europe, to normalize their situation and to get a job5 , these kinds of discrepancies are not helping much when trying to solve the entire situation and finding a proper mechanism that could guarantee for one side, the protection of human rights, and for the other, the homeland security.By now, with the agreement between Ankara and the European Union in March of 2016, the possibility to guarantee a fair treatment to asylum seekers looks compromised.

II. Theoretical considerations
Migration is a stressing and complex phenomenon that has several outcomes and impacts, one them is xenophobia.Research about anti-minority discourse in media is, of course, not new 6 .There are some well examples of how media, particularly printed and online press, could be an important source not only to understand how broadcasting companies display, tacitly or not, racist discourse.Like how online press uses certain vocabulary to stimulate Refugee crisis representation on German online press: the case of Aylan Kurdi the reader's opinions into a determinate direction 7 .Concerning Syrian migrants and the use of stereotypes, a recent inquire states how social media discourse, like Twitter communications, tends to use certain visual composition when depicting migrants in order to create a particular and unidirectional conception, like when a newspaper inclines to portrait aisled Syrian men without the presence of children or women 8 .The use of traditional stereotypes for threatening one religion and ethnic group is not unusual.We can go back far in time and search inside the works of William Shakespeare or the folklore tales of Brother Grimm concerning Jewish portraits as symbols of treachery and avarice.Many authoritarians' regimens have used these portraits to motivate the community angry against marginal groups and minorities, this was the case in animosity against Gypsies, homosexuals and the Jewish during the Second World War, or more recently with racism in South Africa 9 .In present days, in the context of migration crisis and the generalized use of social media and mobile devices, the diffusion of old-style imaginary in the form of visual and textual memes through the Internet has become an important tool to spread mainly two kinds of discourses: One of them created to get support and relief for refugees.The other one to praise migratory controls and deportation of people.As it has happened historically, when an economic or war crisis emerges in a certain place, radicalism began spreading in between public opinion.In the case of Europe, as the economic crisis of 2008 started affecting welfare and employment, people are more reticent to accept refugees 10 .
The use of specific words as instruments to discriminate is a common practice in public administration.As a particular study has asserted the use of "innocuous" words in certain contexts have served to establish segregation and, at the end, to affect a particular group 11 .So is the case when a photo of male Syrians migrants is used to deplore terrorism, or when economic argumentations are used for praising nationalism and condemning foreigners.Regarding the United Kingdom asylum seeker policies, the use of the word "genuine asylum-seeker" is not an empty phrase, but a form to give "free pass" to functionaries to judge, under unclear parameters, who is a "genuine" and who is an "untruthful" asylum seeker 12 .This of course could lead to David Ramírez Plascencia arbitrary decision based on subjectivities.This is the problem when dealing with an open terminology, it could be used, and is used, to discriminate.When a newspaper declares, "there is many economic migrants in between Syrians".This information is prejudiced, because the media does not provide further evidences to support this affirmation, and "trickily" opens the door to misunderstanding, confusion and ambiguities.Many people who read the information could imply that almost all migrants are not really in danger in their countries and they are looking only to take advantage of public welfare.
Because the ubiquitous of information technologies in between actual migration phenomena, it is not strange that one of the most important channels to study racism and xenophobic discourse stands on information generated in virtual spaces, especially in social media.In terms of this work discourse will refer to interconnected ideas that spread using diverse media, like the radio, television, Internet, and so on13 .Ideological discourse embraces communications that flows around media to transmit an identity message to a wide public14 .The term identity is always related with the consideration that some groups share a common imaginary and share same goals as a group 15 .This article focused on working with discourse, and more specific with discourse in digital media 16 .Discourse in digital media diverges from traditional one, the radio or television, due to the fact that it could embrace all conventional channels, in a simple website it is possible to post audio, video, text and photographs, having an interactive dialogue with many people and accessing to several multimedia resources at the same time.So in the case of digital discourse we could mention the following characteristics: a) it could be synchronous and asynchronous, b) it is flexible and scalable, c) it is more accessible, people can view and share information from computers and mobile devices, d) it could potentially reach thousands of people around the world in a matter of seconds, e) information could be shared using many platforms and formats, from textual to video and so on, and f) people can access info almost freely and without charge.
But as it happens in other media, there is an inner inclination in news media to influence the preferences and opinions of their public, sometimes editorials use arguments to normalize a certain discourse, displaying its version as the unique and possible report of a deeper and complex phenomenon 17 .This is generally a consequence of an action to control and to dominate public Refugee crisis representation on German online press: the case of Aylan Kurdi discourse 18 .When studying the implication of racist discourse concerning migratory phenomena, there is more than just the use of words and graphics.There are so many archetypical symbols and meanings associated with the particular use of one word.In the case of this paper, the analysis will be focused on finding how the portrait of information about migration crisis in German online news impacts the interpretation and comments in between the readers.Concerning news, this paper agrees with some views that it is important to review headlines as an important place were authors try to assert crucial points not only to catch the reader's attention but to express a partial line in respect to a specific event 19 .One of the most important destinations of Syrian migration is Germany, a country that traditionally has had confronting and diverse opinions concerning minorities 20 .Consequently, on one side, the country has one of the most well planned and organized refugee asylum system, contrary to other Europeans countries 21 .But in the other hand, there is an important tradition of racism and anti-Semitist thinking, especially in the east of the country.The analysis of material has been achieved in three important phases: a) The first move was related with selecting one relevant event, b) after that, two of the top newspapers in Germany were selected to find the specific notes c) then information was selected, categorized and analyzed.
Concerning the first stage, (a) selecting the note, one representative event was chosen: the note of the drown child Alan Kurdi or Aylan Kurdi, in the coast of Turkey in September 02, 2015.This was selected due to the fact that this terrible dead gave an emblematic "face" to the problem and has had a deep impact around the world.b) On the second stage, two main German newspapers were selected in between the most significant and broadcasted22 : Die Welt23 , owned by Springer Group, editorial line: centre-right; Süddeutsche Zeitung24 , owned by Verlag Group, editorial line: centre-left.In order to select a specific report, two conditions were required (1) It must be fully accessible to all without the need of a subscription, and (2) It had to be able to post commentaries about the news.All information and comments were consulted directly on German language and translated into English by the author.The extracts from the news and comments were transcript as they appeared originally on the platform.

III. Methodology and Data Analysis
The case of Alan Kurdi or Aylan Kurdi was chosen mainly because its wide impact through different media around the world, and due to the fact that it has served as a symbol of the casualties triggered by the crisis during the years.Aylan Kurdi was found dead in the coast of Turkey on September 2, 2015.In the same incident died his brother Galip of 5 years old and his mother Rehan too.Unfortunately, the history of Aylan was just one among many cases of people trying to escape from war and famine in Africa and The Middle East.What is illustrative about his history is how it became a viral spread along the traditional and digital media, and even reached presidents and famous music bands like U2.In order to explore Aylan's history portrait in German media and its influence in public debate one note and its correspondent commentaries where carefully reviewed.When reviewing German newspapers online it is noticeable that there is a lot of participation and exchange between the readers.In the case of the two newspapers revised, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt, this engagement is evident.In order to select one note about the incident, it has to be open to all readers without fee and people could be able to post commentaries and to debate inside the platform.To post information, it was mandatory in both newspapers to have a profile in at least one of the following social media: Facebook, Disqus, Twitter, or Google.This requirement, in fact, not only guarantees that people can easily access into the media, but they can, under certain parameters, share their opinions on the proper social media platform.Taking a look to the news headlines and summaries (See table 1), there is one significant fact: Die Süddeutsche Zeitung has a separated place to post comments about the news.Under these parameters, the main headline clear and unintentional refers to the case of Aylan, "Aylan Kurdi, drei Jahre alt, ertrunken im Mittelmeers" (Aylan Kurdi, 3 years old, drowned in The Mediterranean Sea), but when people want to comment about the news, and browse to the next site to post a comment about the news, there is another different headline and summary, that asks about "Welche Schuld trägt Deutschland an der Flüchtlingskrise?" (What blame for Germany at the refugee crisis ?).In this case, the media is trying to channel all Aylan Kurdi case´s impressions into a moral guilty fact.This action of segregating the debate from the main note and to another site, and to publish another headline and summary in the commentaries section has two main purposes: to vanish the impact of the little boy history, and to instigate defensiveness in readers (See table 2).This is clearly distinguished when observing commentaries like the next one "We provide one of the most stupid immigration systems.Anyone may join us, regardless of whether he does fit or not into our system of values".In this argumentation, it is easy to find a xenophobic signal on the word "our values", this phrase tries, as ideological though does, simplify a more complex social Refugee crisis representation on German online press: the case of Aylan Kurdi situation.Other comments are written with the purpose of finding a responsible for the situation "With their words of welcome and the very generous benefits for asylum seekers in Europe, the German government and German media share responsibility of the large flow of refugees to Europe".This comment is inspired without doubt in the summary posted by the media in the commentaries Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán referred to the refugee crisis as German problem.The Federal Republic had Syrians invited to the dinner table.After the controversial border fence, he announces new measures against asylum seekers.This is how the tragedy of a young migrant and his family is suited into an excuse to praise for further and harder actions versus migrants.In the case of Die Welt, the platform allowed to post commentaries in the same place where the news is published.But concerning the death of Aylan, Die Welt established a debate not about the event, but around the moral pertinence of showing or not the photo of the body of Aylan laying on the Turkish coast, "Ein totes Kind.Soll man es zeigen?"(The death of a child.Should we show it?).Once again, as in case of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the event evolved into a German moral dilemma, not about the casualty itself.In between the commentaries related with the debate about publishing or not the photo, there were some significant opinions about how the action of socializing that photo was an act of exploitation "Solche Bilder werden auch gerne instrumentalisiert, um Mitleid und Betroffenheit zu erwecken" (Such images are also gladly exploited to arouse pity and dismay), or in another reader's commentary, the photo is an action of manipulation by politicians, "In Muslimischen Ländern sieht man solche Bilder jeden Tag, warum wird das jetzt auf einmal weltweit gezeigt?Wir werden manipuliert je nachdem wie es Politikern dient" (In Muslim countries we see such pictures every day, why is this now shown to the world?We are manipulated depending on how it serves politicians).One more time the composition of information in the news took the debate far from the event into a more controversial and exposure discussion.
Regarding commentaries pro-migrants or that support the actions of helping migrants is remarkable that many of them tend not to suggest a possible solution to relief the situation or to express a specific action to improve refugee conditions on camps, but to manifest their discontent with international authorities, the capitalism or against global warming!"Wir bekommen eine Ahnung, welche Zuwanderung uns erwartet, wenn es der Weltgemeinschaft nicht gelingt, die drängendsten globalen Probleme zu lösen, wie z.B.Erderwärmung" (We get a clue of which kind of immigration awaits us if the international community does not succeed in solving the most urgent global problems, such as global warming), "Heil dem Kapital!! Und möge es sich vermehren.Es ist nur ein Zeichen unserer Zeit, dass Menschen nichts mehr wert sind und nur noch als Humankapital bezeichnet werden" (Hail to the capital!!And it may multiply.It is just a sign of the time in where people are worthless and referred only as David Ramírez Plascencia human capital).Both comments mirror how public concern could sometimes mislead the main point and, unintentionally, affect the same interest they are trying to help.However, there are some other comments that were related directly with the causes and possible solutions of the migration crisis, as the next one, "Ich war vor Kurzem im Krankenhaus, meine Hauptkrankenschwester war Bosnierin, die meisten anderen Pflegekräfte und auch Teile der Ärzteschaft keine Deutschen.Mit allen war ich sehr zufrieden.Deutschland wird mittelund langfristig auch von diesen Flüchtlingen sehr profitieren" (I was recently in the hospital, my main nurse was Bosnian, most other nurses and also part of the medical staff were not German.With all I was very pleased.Germany, in the mid and long term, benefits from these refugees).Some others linked migration crisis with economic disaster, as in the case of many refugees that fled their homeland because scarcity originated from war and political instability, nonetheless, at the end, they appeal to a moral point to support their arguments, as in the next one "Deren Wirtschaft wird bewusst zerstört.Ja, WIR sind verantwortlich für das Elend" (Their economy is deliberately destroyed.Yes, WE are responsible for the misery).

Conclusions
As it was possible to observe in the German news and user's commentaries, the way of how information is displayed not only conditions public reactions, but it could transform real events into ambiguous and controversial points, and to let the door open to further divisive interpretations.In the case of news readers, many of them do not even consider themselves as racist, but as the analysis of commentaries states, it is possible to indirectly express the same ideological points against a particular minority.Expressions like "they do not share our values" or assuming that almost all refugees are not in real danger and just want to enjoy free welfare are used towards Syrian or African migrants.But even in the case of people that really want to aid migrants, to blame "capitalism" or "global warming" is an action that only deludes the main point and takes the discussion to a place that will produce difficult concrete plans to solve the migrants' situation.
Considering the role of media in the construction of public opinion about controversial topics, a more ethical and compromised media is required, the action of providing information is not enough.When informing around controversial subjects like migration, it is important not to fall in uncertainty and to avoid public responsibility by framing and trivializing the main topic of the events.However, to maintain and protect media integrity is not only an isolate task but a social shared pursuit by all.In the chasing of this mission, European authorities must protect the human rights of Syrian and African refugees, and to clearly separate refugees from terrorists, and free speech from