The European Union is often perceived as a complex, intangible matter. Consequently, and due to the precarious nature of EU attitudes, mediated information is likely to play a significant role when it comes to the formation of public opinion (Page and Shapiro, 1992). Immigration; however, is a more tangible matter. People are regularly confronted with this issue in real life, which makes it less likely for media to have a great influence on related attitudes. Immigration has for decades been a topic of discussion on different levels of governance. Due to polarization on this topic, the outcome of debates on the European level has not always been successful (European Commission home affairs, 2010). Since media are expected to play a role in influencing public opinion, this paper is concerned with the following question: what is media’s role in the politicization of, and public opinion on the EU-migration issue? This paper looks to answer these questions in light of media news frames. By manipulating messages or by giving a selection of the truth, a message can have a certain impact or lead to certain interpretations (Entman, 1993). Previous research showed; however, that the significance ascribed to the issue acts as a moderator of framing effects (Lecheler, de Vreese & Slothuus, 2009), also the level of risk deducted from a news frame can induce greater levels of vote turnout (Schuck & de Vreese, 2009). Consequently, one may conclude that individual characteristics matter in the way news frames are interpreted, and in their effects. With the use of a two-wave between-subject experiment, during a two-week period in the Netherlands, the direct and moderated effects of a selection of frames are tested. The two-wave design permits to look at the moderating effect of initial characteristics on the connection between frames and public opinion.
