Media Framing of Trafficking

Abstract

This article explores meaning-making processes around human trafficking, using the empirical example of the Slovene press. The analysis pinpoints how the topic appears in the media, what content emphases it receives in reporting, which aspects are dealt with and which are absent, and the implications of such framing. My reading of newspaper articles shows how trafficking appears within ‘frames’ that I label ‘criminalization’, ‘nationalization’, ‘victimization’ and ‘regularization’; together, these help to shape a specific anti-trafficking paradigm, one that depicts trafficking as a criminal issue and calls for stricter policing, saving victims and tightening borders. The frames as they appear in the Slovene press are unpacked here with the purpose of opening up space for understandings of trafficking that go beyond predominant representations.

Keywords:

• framing
• global sex trade
• human trafficking
• media
• Slovenia

Notes

Published for example in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies or in Discourse & Society.

My analysis followed Entman's (1993: 54) four-scale definition of frames, that they, first, define problems; second, define causal relations; third, produce opinions on problems and validate these opinions; and, fourth, suggest solutions. Before commencing analysis, I researched the theoretical literature and thus had already developed ideas about the inadequate framing of trafficking as a criminal–victim dichotomy and about the importance of expanding our understanding of trafficking as a phenomenon linked to migration, labour and gender.

For a recent debate on ‘reflexive framing’ in the context of gender (in)equality see Lombardo et al. (2008).

A map of centres is available at http://www.migreurop.org/rubrique266.html (accessed on 18 October 2009).

All translations from Slovenian media texts are my own.

Geographically, historically and also politically Slovenia is a constitutive part of the Balkans. After the collapse of Yugoslavia and the independence of Slovenia in 1991, nationalist political discourse detached Slovenia from the Balkans, representing it instead as a Central and Eastern European country. To avoid the connotations of Yugoslav times, this discourse also replaced the term ‘Balkans’ with two other region-related terms, that is, South-East Europe and the Western Balkans.

See Doezema (2000); Berman (2003); Kempadoo et al. (2005); Sanghera (2005); Agustín (2006).