Covering Syrian refugee women Online

Abstract

This paper explores the representation of Syrian refugee women in online news sites in Lebanon and the UK between 2014 and 2016. This paper asks, “How do different contexts influence news coverage of Syrian refugee women in the BBC-UK and The Daily Star-Lebanon”? Similar themes that emerged in the BBC and Daily Star include an emphasis on the benevolence of host-countries and security measures abroad. Home was discussed according to spatial, relational, and emotional aspects. Both news sites draw on the invisibility of identifiable refugee facial features, when cued in line. Distinctly, a women empowerment theme appeared in the Lebanese sample only. Whereas, the British news site is polarized by articles covering relocation policies to the UK. Outliers in the data include: family separations between Syrian women married to Palestinians and their un(official) return to Syria. Findings support a multi-level/modal perspective to news analysis. Especially, expanding on the multi-level approach by introducing new contexts of location, time, and space. Through reviewing news articles in national level news sites, this paper highlights dominant political actors, narratives, and policies in Lebanon and the UK.