Unequal Framing in Central Europe during Two Crises? How Politicians Framed Immigrants during the 2015-2016 EU Refugee Crisis and Following the Russian Aggression against Ukraine

This contribution provides comparative descriptive and explanatory analyses of the framing of immigrants by representatives of political parties in two Central and Eastern European countries. Recent research indicates that the background of immigrants matters for their framing. At the same time, there is an apparent contrast between the approach in Central and Eastern Europe evident in the mostly welcoming attitudes towards refugees from Ukraine and the rather negative public opinion towards refugees coming from the Middle East and North Africa. This apparent contrast in attitudes towards immigrants from different backgrounds provides a good laboratory to assess how framing of immigrants differed in this region during the 2015-2016 refugee crisis and in the period following the Russian aggression against Ukraine. This contribution thus comparatively looks at differences of framing of immigrants and refugees in these two periods. To distinguish itself from this focus of most framing studies, this paper makes use of Twitter accounts of political leaders in three key receiving countries of Ukrainian refugees, namely Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland. This contribution samples the Twitter profiles of all party leaders for four constructed weeks in the period covering the 2015-2016 refugee crisis as well as four weeks in the period surrounding the Russian aggression against Ukraine. After descriptively establishing the main frames, based on a content analysis regarding immigrants and refugees during these two timeframes, the paper moves on to accounting for the identified framing patterns. To do so, it employs regression analysis and postulates possible determinants at the political party and individual levels as well as contextual covariates related to the background of immigrants.