Information on refugees in the European Parliament’s virtual press room: a critical analysis

Abstract

This research offers a critical perspective on the news coverage by the European Parliament’s Virtual Press Room (VPR) of the refugee issue during the European migrant crisis, from 2015 to 2017. Recent social media research has focused on systematising a theoretical approach to Virtual Press Rooms (VPRs), but there is a remarkable lack of critical approaches that link news production to the institutional ideologies operating in the news industry. A content analysis is conducted on the characteristics and tone of news articles published by the VPR, followed by a comparison with the European Union’s regulatory framework and actual response to the issue. The research reveals a positive treatment in news coverage of the refugee issue, which suggests an imbalance between the EU’s institutional news policy on refugees and the weak and fractured response of European organizations when taking action on the issue.