Divergent framing: The public debate on migration in the Dutch parliament and media, 1995–2004

Abstract

In this article we reconstruct how the issues of migration and integration have been framed in the Dutch public debate over the last decade. We examine the patterns in both the parliamentary arena and the media and look at similarities and differences between them. On the basis of two contradictory theories, we formulate hypotheses about overlap and differences between the two arenas and diversity within them. Our results reveal incongruence in framing between them. After 9/11, however, the framing in which Islam is perceived as a threat to Western society becomes dominant in both arenas. Furthermore, we do not find any proof of the idea that the media act as a civic forum, with a high diversity of framing. Framing in parliament, instead, is far more diverse. In contrast to the hegemonic framing in the media, the Islam-as-threat frame is actively contested in the political realm.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dave Snow, Peter Mair and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Data on which this article's analyses are based are available at Rens Vliegenthart's website: http://www.rensvliegenthart.com. Authors are listed in alphabetical order and contributed equally to this article.

Notes

1. In the field of politics the country has traditionally been divided into several socio-cultural milieus. The segmentation of the country into these milieus has been called pillarisation.

2. Our left–right division is based on the coding of party manifestos (MRG project, see Budge et al. 2001). For the specific Dutch data see Pennings and Keman (2003) and Pennings (2005). In Appendix 3 we present the frames used by each individual political party.

3. Although Fortuyn became party leader of the new party, Leefbaar Nederland, in November 2001, he started to receive considerable media attention from both politicians and media after an interview with de Volkskrant on 9 February 2002, when he called Islam ‘a backward culture’ (Kleinnijenhuis et al. 2003: 41)