Portrayal of Housing Issues of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Two South African Newspapers

ABSTRACT

Newspapers are important sources of information related to the issues of refugees and asylum seekers. Seeking asylum in South Africa is challenging because of a hostile sentiment towards non-citizens. The study focused on answering the following research question: How were housing and homelessness related to asylum seekers and refugees portrayed in two South African newspapers from August 2015 to August 2017? A cross-sectional descriptive design was used. The method that was used was media content analysis. We selected South African newspaper articles reporting on refugees and asylum seekers and housing and homelessness issues. Our main findings focus on the themes that emerged from the newspapers, namely: reasons for becoming refugees or migrants, shelter issues, involvement and responsibilities of others in housing refugees, issues that impact housing, and xenophobia and housing.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugees and asylum seekers
• housing
• homelessness
• news coverage
• South Africa

Acknowledgement

The first author wishes to acknowledge and thank UNISA (University of South Africa) that invited her as visiting researcher for three months in 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of South Africa [Visiting Researcher Funding awarded to Dr S. Richte].