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The drowning-refugee effect: media salience and xenophobic attitudes

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  • Silvia De Poli
  • Niklas Jakobsson
  • Simone Schüller

Abstract

We study whether salient media coverage of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean affects individual xenophobic attitudes. We combine a randomized survey experiment – a variant of the classic ‘trolley dilemma’ – that implicitly elicits individual attitudes towards foreigners, with variation in interview timing, and find that such issue salience significantly decreases xenophobic attitudes by 2.2 percentage points. Our results thus support the idea that exposure to news describing immigrants as victims (instead of a threat) can significantly affect public opinion and mitigate bias against immigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia De Poli & Niklas Jakobsson & Simone Schüller, 2017. "The drowning-refugee effect: media salience and xenophobic attitudes," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(16), pages 1167-1172, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:24:y:2017:i:16:p:1167-1172
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2016.1262513
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    Cited by:

    1. Claudio Deiana & Gianluca Mazzarella & Elena Claudia Meroni & Luca Tiozzo Pezzoli, 2023. "The unexpected influencer: Pope Francis and European perceptions of the recent refugee crisis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 75-95.
    2. Anna Brosius & Erika J van Elsas & Claes H de Vreese, 2019. "How media shape political trust: News coverage of immigration and its effects on trust in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 447-467, September.
    3. Alessandro Sola, 2018. "The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany: Concerns about Immigration and Populism," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 966, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Heizler (Cohen), Odelia & Israeli, Osnat, 2024. "Does a Tragic Event Affect Different Aspects of Attitudes toward Immigration?," IZA Discussion Papers 16802, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Heizler, Odelia & Israeli, Osnat, 2021. "The identifiable victim effect and public opinion toward immigration; a natural experiment study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).

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