Public Opinion, Media and the Politics of Migration

Seminar Series Hilary 2011
Seminar Room, Pauling Centre, 58a Banbury Road, Oxford

Convened by: Scott Blinder and Rob McNeil

As migration to the UK has increased in number over the past decade or more, it has become a highly salient, heavily contested political issue as well. Migration as an “issue” is now a focal point for British public opinion, media coverage, and political debate. This term’s seminar examines the relationships among these elements.

We will examine how migration is represented in the media, and how media consumption can in turn construct the migrant experience as well. We will examine how various segments of the British public understand migration as a political issue, and how migration may be in turn transforming British politics. We will also take revealing looks at how migration policy and migration-related media coverage are generated, from both insiders’ and outsiders’ perspectives.

Seminars

20 January

The politics of migration in the UK: Catering to a public of (at least) two minds

Scott Blinder, COMPAS/Migration Observatory, Oxford University

27 January

Between strategic nostalgia and banal nomadism: Arab diaspora watching satellite and digital television across Europe

Myria Georgiou, LSE

03 February

Immigration and Political Trust in Europe

Lauren McLaren, Nottingham University

10 February

UK Immigration Policy and the Political Functions of Research

Christina Boswell, Edinburgh University

17 February

UK Public Opinion on Migration: Trends and Interpretations

Pamela Bremner, Ipsos-MORI

24 February

Making the News - how the production and placement of news items affects the way we understand them

Chair: David Walker, Chairman of the Media Advisory Board for The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. Formerly of The Guardian, the Economic and Social Research Council

Media Panel:

Dr Samir Shah OBE, Chief Executive, Juniper Communications, former Head of Political Programming and Current Affairs at the BBC; Non-executive director of the BBC (2007-2010) and Chair of the Runnymede Trust (1999-2009).

Hugh Pinney, Vice President, News and Sport, Getty Images.

Bill Lodge, Senior Production Journalist, the Daily Telegraph.