The Influence of Media on Immigration Issues in the UK Society

This essay examines the role of media in shaping public perception and discourse surrounding immigration issues in the UK. It analyzes news articles from various publications, including The Guardian, Sky News, and Amnesty International UK, to understand how different media outlets represent immigration, asylum, and the impact of Brexit. The essay discusses the influence of media ownership, potential biases, and the creation of folk devils, along with exploring audience theories and their impact on shaping public opinion. It also addresses the potential negative impact of biased media on academic research and the importance of unbiased reporting for accurate understanding and analysis of complex social issues like immigration. The conclusion emphasizes the crucial role of media in influencing audience perspectives and the need for responsible and unbiased reporting.

Role of media on the
issue of immigration in
the UK

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAINBODY....................................................................................................................................3
Documentary analysis:................................................................................................................3
Discussion:..................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The role of media has become crucial part of our life and has made us dependent in order
to attain news relative to various topics. The media functions as a tool in order to effectively
transfer information, concepts along with ideas to the readers, listeners and viewers. The primary
role of media is to be unbiased in effectively informing and educating people on issues. The
following essay will consists of news articles that are oriented towards aspects such as how
immigration has become Britain's most toxic political issues along with the influence of Brexit
on the issues of illegal migration. In addition to its will consist of new articles highlighting
immigration and asylum in the UK. The following essay will include bibliographic information
of the articles along with information such as the owner of new publication, their aim along with
how the article is represented. Furthermore, it will also include if the article is biased in any form
and if it is suitable for academic study. The essay will also highlight the ownership and control
debate along with how groups and events are represented. Moreover, it will focus on how
audience can shape media and vis versa.
MAINBODY
Documentary analysis:
According to Rachel Shabi, immigration became Britain's most toxic political issue
along with widespread across the media. This created the problem relative to the arrival of
immigrants in large number and impacted the way immigrants were depicted, described along
with debated over. The article further analyses that what if the whole narrative was wrong and
perhaps the issues of immigration itself was such a defining issues that political parties along
with journalist focused on discussing it and its political implementation. The article highlights
that although the issues of immigration is inevitable it has become damaging in derailing politics.
The owner of this publication is Scott Trust Limited which is a British company that owns
Guardian Media group. The publication is aimed at educating peoples especially of the middle
class about various issues through their extensive network of sources. The article presented by
the publication is highly detailed and consists of information that is relevant as well as credited
through facts and statements of government officials. The publication effectively highlights
major issues related to the topic in an optimal manner along with being structures in-respect of
its format. In addition to this, the publication is non biased and elaborates on the issues and its

impact along with the influence of politics on immigration. The article is highly suitable for
academic study as it contains vital details bout the issue of immigration along with
understanding of how politics influence issues in society. This makes it reliable as well as a
effective source of information when conducting academic research on the topic on
immigration in UK(How immigration became Britain’s most toxic political issue).
According to Megan Baynes, a record number of migrants have crossed the English
channel from France in 2021. This has effectively proven that UK immigration policy are no
longer tied to EU rules. The article further highlights how UK's boarder post Brexit have
acknowledged that their ability to dealt with various aspects of illegal migration has taken a
huge impact resulting in loss of abilities along with arrangement that came with EU membership.
The articles also focuses upon the difficulty of deporting illegal migrates due to the situation of
COVID – 19 pandemic along with issues in arranging failed supplicates of asylum. The article
published is owned by Sky Group limited which is a British media and telecommunication
conglomerate and has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria,
Switzerland and Italy. The publication is aim at informing people for issues trough issue of
trusted news along with sources. The publication takes on challenges to highlight issues in the
society and provide clarity to its viewers. The article presented by the publication is well
informed on the issues of immigration and the influence of Brexit for the particular topic. In
addition to this. The publication has included vast data along with interview of government
officials relative to the topic of immigration and how Brexit has played a crucial part in
rendering the government ineffective while handling the issues of mass immigration.
Furthermore, the article is not biased towards the issues of immigration and is rather oriented
towards solving the issues through effective means. This makes the article well suited to conduct
academic studies as it will provide an individual with information that is well organised and
structured for effective understanding (Has Brexit made dealing with illegal migration more
difficult?).
According to Amnesty International UK, the current immigration system in United
Kingdom was established in the year of 1973 along with current nationality system being
established in 1983. the article highlights that creation of both systems took place during the
times of racisms and injustice which is known today as the Windrush scandal. The article
further states that the UK's membership and its free movement rights have ended along with the

failing systems being exposed even more. This increases the overall responsibility of Home
Office while the systems remain the same. The article pays emphasis that these systems can only
function effectively if they secure dignity and rights of people in a different way than the current
situation. The article is published by Amnesty International, UK which is a worldwide human
rights organization supported by over 10 million members. The publication is aimed towards
highlighting human rights issues through their independent news and articles. In addition to
this, the publication is independent for any political ideology and economic interest along with
religion. The published article is favourable towards the rights of immigrants and how they
requires better treatment through introduction on a new systems that will be more effective in
resolving the issues of immigration along with the rights of people. The article produced by the
publication isn't suitable for extensive academic research as it focused on primary points of the
issues rather than proving a large amount of data that can be included in academic studies. This
doesn't not reduce the overall credibility of the article but makes in insufficient to conduct
proper analysis which is essential for optimal academic research ( Citizenship, immigration and
asylum in the UK).
Discussion:
It is analysed form thee above articles that the ownership of the publication play an
essential role in influencing people. The publication have a massive control over how people
preserve news and the information they retain. The current trend in media has changed as it is
focused on establishing control over what people think rather than providing information that
will allows people to develop their on perspective relative to various issues (Baldwin., 2018). In
addition to this, although the above mentioned articles are oriented towards public interest
various news publication have adopted the trend of setting a specific narrative that will help their
organisation or political agenda (Bastian., 2019). In recent times the publications have focused
on attaining absolute control over debate of various issues and establishing a specific narrative
that will influence people rather than providing information that can solve issues in society. The
above articles are a perfect example of what media should be, which is being unbiased and not
being influenced by any agenda that is related to politics and religion (Connelly, Fox, Schmidt
and Goebel. eds., 2019). This ensure that people are able to form their perspective relative to
issues without being influenced by a specify narrative. In addition to this, it allows people to look
at a broader spectrum and gain information in an uninfluenced manner.

It can also be analysed form the above articles that media has a vital role in establishing
narrative that can result in developing folk devils. The media has a great power to influence the
issues of immigration as a folk devil through inferring issues in the county being placed upon
them (Bhatia, Poynting, and Tufail. eds., 2018). This can be observed in the article published by
The Guardian where the publication is able to effectively elaborated on how some media
organisation which are influenced by politics utilized the issues of immigration to spread mass
panic within the citizens of UK. This allows media to influence people and change their
mentality. This makes the news article published by Amnesty international ideal for people as
the publication is not influenced by any political ties. This ensure elimination of moral panic
among people and provide them with actual information (Hier., 2020). Moreover, the panic set
by media is influenced through politics or other elements create disharmony in the society
leading to riots, public outrage along with damage of property. Furthermore, it fuels negative
aspect in individuals that can lead to establishment folk devils.
The media is also responsible in shaping how their audience thinks as well as reacts to
the news published by them. This has a great impact on how their audience perceives
information and react to it. The above articles are focused on the topic related to the issues of
immigration within UK. This topic is highly influenced and shaped by the media in order to set
a specify narrative (Fisher., 2018). Although the above articles and their publication have
focused on being neutral rather than influencing the perspective of their audience there are
various other media outlets that have focused on utilizing various audience theories such as
passive audience theory which forces the audience to accept and believe all the messages that
media provides (Fisher., 2018). This makes the audience to not question the issues presented
but rather following blindly what is being delivered to them through media. In addition to this,
one of the most popular audience theory utilized by media has been the “Magic Bullet” of
“Hypodermic Needle Theory” which works by directly influencing the audience and is a result
of mass media. The theory suggests on media to inject its message straight in the passive
audience which is easy to influence. The audience theory also help audience shape the media as
they are oriented towards gathering information form the publication on a regular based,
developing a systems where audience is influenced and long for more such information due to
the factor of trust in media (Martin., 2018).

The various analysed issues in modern media has a negative impact on academic studies
and research as well. The establishment of false narrative my media develops a bias academic
research relative to false claims especially to sensitive issues such as immigration. This further
has a negative influence on individuals who are conducting academic study as through
influenced news developed by media the individuals knowingly or unknowingly develop a false
perception relative to the topic (Kraidy., 2018). In addition to this, influenced media help in
giving rise to the concept of burned of evidence. This makes it difficult to conduct optimal
academic study and further results in a chain reaction of influenced infraction being distributed
within society. It is analysed that the above articles relative to the issues of immigration are not
biased and contain valuable data that will be effective in conducting academic research. The
articles will allows in the development of accurate perception of individuals which is essential in
ensuring that correct and appropriate information is utilized in order to conduct academic
research (ZHILAVSKAYA, I.V. and IVANOVA., 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it has been concluded that, media plays a crucial in influencing
their audience relative to their perspective and how they react. This further fuels in a system
which works on both the audiences as well as media shaping themselves. In addition to this
media also works on establishing folk devils along with morals panic within their audience. This
is a direct impact on ownership and control over debate of various publications. These
publications can be influenced by elements such as politics or have a religious agenda as well. It
was concluded for the essay that the articles present held on to integrity as well as ethics of
media when publishing articles on the issues of immigration in UK. The articles presents are
effective in providing what they are intend to do, which is unbiased information consisting of
facts rather than vague statements that are not supported by credible information. Furthermore,
the articles do not focus on utilising any form of audience theory but rather state facts in order to
let their audience develop their own perspective. It was further concluded that the articles are a
suitable example of information that can be utilized in academic research and study.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals:
Baldwin, T., 2018. Ctrl Alt Delete: How politics and the media crashed our democracy. Oxford
University Press.
Connelly, M., Fox, J., Schmidt, U. and Goebel, S. eds., 2019. Propaganda and conflict: War,
media and shaping the twentieth century. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Bhatia, M., Poynting, S. and Tufail, W. eds., 2018. Media, crime and racism. Springer.
Hier, S. P., 2020. Moral Panics. SAGE Publications Limited.
Fisher, C., 2018. News sources and journalist/source interaction. In Oxford Research
Encyclopedia of Communication.
Martin, G., 2018. Crime, media and culture. Routledge.
Kraidy, M. M., 2018. Global media studies: A critical agenda. Journal of Communication, 68(2).
pp.337-346.
ZHILAVSKAYA, I.V. and IVANOVA, T.V., 2018. The Total Media Theory: the Experience of
Justification. Astra Salvensis, (12).
Fisher, C., 2018. What is meant by ‘trust’in news media?. In Trust in media and journalism (pp.
19-38). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Bastian, M., 2019. Media and accountability in Latin America: Framework, conditions,
instruments. In Media and Accountability in Latin America (pp. 453-493). Springer VS,
Wiesbaden.
Online:
How immigration became Britain’s most toxic political issue,2019[Online]Available
through<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/15/how-immigration-became-britains-
most-toxic-political-issue/>
Has Brexit made dealing with illegal migration more difficult?,2021[Online]Available
through<https://news.sky.com/story/has-brexit-made-the-uk-more-attractive-for-illegal-
migration-12477985/>
Citizenship, immigration and asylum in the UK,2021[Online]Available
through<https://www.amnesty.org.uk/citizenship-immigration-and-asylum-uk?
utm_source=google&utm_medium=grant&utm_campaign=BRD_AWA_GEN_dynamic-search-
ads&utm_content=>