MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

by SOPHIE SICKERT and HANNAH KLOS

August 2020

The way that a newspaper chooses to represent information can have far-reaching consequences. Editorial decisions and word choice reflect prevalent opinions while simultaneously influencing how readers perceive the information they are presented with. The boat people crisis was no exception. An analysis of two dailies, The Globe and Mail and The New York Times, between 1975 and 1995 shows how representations of the refugee crisis varied across different publications and how these descriptions changed over time. While The New York Times strongly advocated for the protection of refugees, The Globe and Mail chose to give a more even exposure to opinions both for and against refugee resettlement.

Changing Perceptions

Refugee crises nowadays attract the attention of media across the globe. Researchers have studied how representations vary from one media outlet to another and have analysed how reporting impacts refugee protection.1 The Southeast Asian refugee crisis of the late 1970s has not, however, been subject to such an analysis. This is an important oversight. It was during this crisis that the international community first began debating the authenticity of refugee status.2 Our research project examined when and how two different newspapers used specific words, such as refugee, boat people, and migrant, to describe the displaced population. We focused our analysis on The Globe and Mail and The New York Times because both are daily newspapers and both have a reputation for covering international issues in a serious manner. By analyzing the papers over a period of twenty years, we also observed how their representations evolved over time. Our analysis shows that asylum seekers were portrayed in three distinct ways between 1975 and 1995: as refugees fleeing violence, as victims of a crisis at sea, or as opportunistic migrants. The two newspapers also adopted different publishing strategies. The New York Times consistently supported refugee aid, whereas The Globe and Mail opted not to take a definitive stance on the issue.

Methodology

This project began with the recognition that the words used to describe displaced populations carry specific connotations. That is to say that they express different dynamics of displacement. A newspaper’s word choice is therefore representative of the opinions of its writers, its editors, and its readership. When we compared the three terms that were most commonly used to describe Indochinese asylum seekers, refugee, boat people, and migrant, the differences in connotations became clear.

In the Merriam-Webster, a refugee is defined as “a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution” in his country of origin.3 This term highlights the fact that the person is in danger. The word refugee also refers to the definition included in the 1951 Convention related to the status of refugees. Following this definition, the term refugee applied to anyone who left their country of nationality due to a “well-founded fear of being persecuted”.4 When newspapers used this term to describe people leaving Indochina, they implied that asylum seekers were being persecuted in their home country and that they deserved to be protected.

The term boat people emerged in 1976 in reference to the people fleeing the Indochinese peninsula by sea.5 It is simply defined as “refugees fleeing by boat.”6 It referred directly to a second humanitarian crisis which began in the late 1970s. People were faced with new threats precisely because they left their country under dangerous circumstances. This term allowed news outlets to make a distinction between people leaving by land or by boat. Additionally, it provided a convenient alternative for publishers who wanted to avoid explicitly recognizing the displaced population’s refugee status. 

Lastly, the word migrant is different from both refugee and boat people in that it ignores both the context and the means of departure. A migrant is a person who “moves regularly in order to find work especially in harvesting crops” or an “animal that shifts from one habitat to another.”7 By using this term, newspapers acknowledged that some people did not believe that the displaced population faced danger either in the context of their departure or during the actual process of fleeing.

To find out how newspapers were using these terms, we performed a quantitative and qualitative analysis on The New York Times and The Globe and Mail. Using the newspapers’ databases, we recorded all the hits for each term between 1975-1995, identifying the titles, the authors, the dates, and the types of newspaper items (editorials, letters to the editor, articles, advertising) in a new database. 

This database allowed us to compare the two newspapers and identify common trends in the use of the terms refugee, boat people, and migrant. We then analyzed the contents of the articles to understand their meaning, tone and the political position they associated with the use of these words. This rhetorical analysis revealed each newspapers’ main editorial line. Despite editorial differences, the coverage of both newspapers revolved around three periods, each marked by the emergence of a new way of portraying the refugee crisis. First they focused on the flight of war victims, then on the distress of those fleeing by boat, and finally on the possibility that people were profiteering off refugee protection.

Research Findings

Although their resettlement quotas varied in size, both Ottawa and Washington made pledges to accept refugees. This, however, did not mean that the public necessarily agreed with their government’s decision. Public opinion was largely shaped by each country’s past relationship to the Indochinese region. Media representations were therefore greatly influenced by different points of view. Before the refugee crisis began, both newspapers had been reporting on the conflicts in Indochina for years. They therefore applied the editorial context of previous experiences in the region to the refugee crisis. Neither paper was neutral.

Articles on Vietnam published by The New York Times
40000
Articles on Vietnam published by The Globe and Mail
12000

The New York Times published 46,374 pieces about Vietnam between 1975 and 1995 whereas The Globe and Mail only issued 14,255. The fact that The New York Times published a much higher quantity of articles is explained not only by its larger size and readership, but also by the fact that the U.S. had been involved both indirectly and directly in a military intervention in the region since the 1950s. Despite this discrepancy in total numbers, both papers dedicated approximately one tenth of their articles to the plight of the refugees.8 Since the proportion of articles on Vietnam relative to all articles on refugees was similar in both papers, it is possible to compare them. Clearly, the Southeast Asian crisis was a major concern for both The New York Times and The Globe and Mail. 

In The New York Times
0%
In The Globe and Mail
0%

When it came to opinion pieces, the two newspapers took different approaches. In The Globe and Mail the letters to the editor stood out, whereas in The New York Times it was the editorials. This contrast is interesting to note since the comparative number of these two types of articles varied little between the two. The only meaningful difference in quantity concerned the letters to the editor, which made up 4.01% of all of The Globe and Mail‘s articles on the Indochinese refugee crisis and 2.25% of The New York Times’. The content of the letters also varied significantly between the two newspapers. The Globe and Mail made more room for dissenting opinions. Views explicitly opposing refugee resettlement in Canada made up 14% of all the letters to the editor they published. The letters in The New York Times were considerably more uniform in opinion, with only 4.79% questioning refugee admittance. An additional 12% of the letters in The Globe and Mail were written in response to an ad placed by the National Citizens Coalition (NCC), which advocated against the admittance of the boat people. While the responses condemned the NCC’s statements, they nonetheless drew attention to the debate against refugee protection. More so than The New York Times, The Globe and Mail served as a forum where all opinions on refugee admittance, including negative ones, could be expressed.

Alternatively, The New York Times adopted a more unilateral approach to refugee protection. The number of editorials in relation to all published articles was comparable in both papers, 1.62% in The Globe and Mail and 1.48% in The New York Times. The latter’s opinion however stood out because of its implacable tone. Between 1975 and 1995 there was not a single editorial published in The New York Times that condemned American implication in the humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia. Additionally, 81.25% of the articles explicitly advocated in favour of increased refugee resettlement in the US or for aid to be given to Vietnam.9 Editorials made frequent use of symbolic language, making references to concepts such as the American dream, and underlined America’s duty towards Vietnam.10 While 72.5% of editorials in The Globe and Mail were also favourable to the refugees plight, they were generally less vehement in their support. These differences allow us to deduce that The Globe and Mail took a pro-refugee stance, but wanted to highlight different opinions from its readers. Meanwhile, The New York Times took a firm position in the refugee debate.

Through a quantitative data analysis we established that representations in both newspapers changed during three distinctive periods: 1974-1976, 1978-1980 and 1988-1990. In each of these periods there was a spike in the number of articles that were published about Vietnamese refugees. The largest number of articles appeared in the years 1975 and 1979. This coincides with the end of the war and a new wave of refugees fleeing the peninsula respectively. While the word refugee was consistently the most used in both newspapers, the use of boat people and migrant increased as the crisis unfolded. The term refugee peaked in the first period (1975) directly after the war; the term boat people was most used in the second period (1979) as the number of people leaving by sea increased; and the term migrant culminated in the third period (between 1988 and 1991), as the Cold War drew to an end. The various trends that emerge from this quantitative overview indicate that the refugee crisis encapsulated a variety of phenomena.

This combined analysis of The Globe and Mail and The New York Times demonstrates the rate at which the terms refugee, boat people and migrant were used in relation to Vietnam. 

War Victims

In 1975, the media, both in Canada and the US, reported on the communist takeover in Vietnam. By far the largest number of articles concerning mainland Southeast Asia were published in this year, during which the displaced population was overwhelmingly referred to as refugees. Since journalists were predominantly describing people fleeing the country after the fall of Saigon, refugee here mostly referred to war refugees or refugees of communism. Articles describing current events in Vietnam appeared regularly and covered a variety of topics including the communist victory, post-war reeducation camps, and post-war economic hardship. That being said, the most widely reported subject was the arrival of refugees in North-America. Both journalists and readers assumed that the communists would persecute any Vietnamese with connections to the US if they stayed in the country.

While both countries decided to accept refugees shortly after the capture of Saigon (numbering 3,00011 and 140,00012 for Canada and the USA respectively), this decision was met with a certain level of opposition on both sides of the border.13 Both papers published articles that took issue with refugee resettlement. They suggested that newcomers would take domestic jobs, that resettlement would be too expensive, and that refugee claims were potentially illegitimate.14 The papers however differed in the weight that they gave to these opposing views. The New York Times emphasised the moral duty that Americans had towards Vietnam while The Globe and Mail took a more sceptical outlook.15 It questioned the necessity of Canada’s involvement and allowed many opposing voices to be heard. The authors of these opinion pieces saw the displaced population either as migrants or an American problem.

Boat People

The word boat people appeared in the press in 1976 to refer to people leaving mainland Southeast Asia on boats. When the scale of the humanitarian crisis increased in 1978, Indochinese refugees once again became a major issue for newspapers. During this time a new narrative emerged. Journalists no longer wrote about war refugees fleeing communist authorities, they focused instead on the dangerous conditions in which refugees were leaving the region. When people left by boat they faced dangers such as pirate attacks, indefinite drifting and drowning. This was now a new story for journalists to cover.

By 1978, it was clear to the international community that the region was facing a new humanitarian crisis. The crisis of 1975 was not yet over when the boat people crisis began. It was the tragedies that people faced at sea that widely caught the attention of the international public. The newspapers used the terms refugee and boat people interchangeably. While the two terms have different legal implications, The New York Times and The Globe and Mail  mainly used them to refer to the danger the displaced population faced during their flight. It is interesting to note that the number of people fleeing by land was in fact more significant than those fleeing by boat. Nevertheless, foreign media concentrated its coverage on the second group.

Articles described unseaworthy boats, rampant pirate attacks and the refusal of even temporary asylum by neighbouring Southeast Asian countries.16 Foreign media likely focused on the experiences of refugees at sea because of its shock factor and because it raised questions surrounding responsibilities in international waters.17 Unfortunately, refugees continued to arrive much faster than countries of permanent resettlement were willing to accept. There was no simple way to manage the crisis. Worse still, the situation was deteriorating.

The inhospitable attitude of first asylum countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines was widespread. The papers reported that the Indochinese refugees were considered to be migrants or even illegal immigrants by most of their neighbouring countries. The New York Times and The Globe and Mail strongly condemned extreme cases where refugees were pushed back to sea at gunpoint both in their editorials and in their letters to the editor.18 They also drew attention to the disproportionately high percentage of ethnically Chinese amongst the refugees. Articles reported with indignation that the Vietnamese communist government was allegedly evicting its chinese population.19 

Both newspapers focused on the same major issues: the dangers faced at sea, the inhospitality of neighbouring nations and the targeting of ethnic Chinese. Despite these commonalities, the newspapers’ editorial decisions continued to differ. While The New York Times advocated for higher refugee quotas in their editorials,20 defending the legitimacy of the refugees, The Globe and Mail opened a debate in which all points of view, no matter how marginal, could be expressed.

The CBC interviewed members of the National Citizens Coalition after their published a full page advert discouraging Canadians to welcome Indochinese refugees. (https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/national-citizens-coalition-anti-immigration-campaign)

Migrants

The term migrant was barely used in the 1970s. Its use increased after 1984, and it peaked in 1989. While the term was never used to the same extent as refugee or boat people, its increase nonetheless reflected a shift in North American public opinion. Some Canadians and Americans had begun to view the refugees as economic migrants rather than victims of persecution.21 They no longer necessarily believed that the people fleeing the Indochinese peninsula were refugees or even boat people. The words illegal immigrant, economic refugee and illegal alien also began appearing with increasing frequency. A diminishing number of states were willing to take responsibility for the continuously growing number of displaced people.22 The papers however showed that these beliefs were not universal. The New York Times in particular continued to advocate against the use of the term economic migrant by publishing highly emotional images and editorials.23 Both papers nonetheless conceded that distinctions needed to be made between asylum seekers.

In 1989, at the end of the Cold War, the United Nations’ Comprehensive Plan of Action determined that boat people would no longer be considered refugees prima facie. This decision reanimated the debate surrounding the crisis in Indochina.24 It reflected the growing sentiment in North America that many asylum seekers were simply taking advantage of international solidarity to leave Vietnam. The decision also brought a new issue to the public’s attention: repatriation. As refugee camps began to screen asylum seekers to determine who qualified as a genuine refugee, those whose status had not been recognized faced possible repatriation. Many journalists presented this development as the unavoidable conclusion to the crisis.25 However, when Great Britain forcefully repatriated asylum seekers out of Hong Kong in 1989, the editorial teams of both The Globe and Mail and The New York Times condemned its actions.26 The public was nonetheless gradually growing weary of the situation in Southeast Asia. The term compassion fatigue was introduced to describe the apathy that resulted from the drawn out nature of the crisis.27

Conclusion

This analysis of The New York Times and The Globe and Mail shows that there was not one, but four intertwined narratives surrounding the Indochinese refugee crisis. The newspapers presented the story of war refugees fleeing the victory of Communist authorities and war devastation; the distress of overcrowded boats on the high seas; the possibility of hidden opportunistic migrants; and the voluntary or forced repatriation of asylum seekers to Vietnam. Each paper however presented these narratives differently. The New York Times systematically advocated for greater refugee protection in its editorials by denouncing repatriation and the representation of the displaced population as migrants. Alternatively, The Globe and Mail published a wider variety of opinions, both for and against the resettlement of Indochinese refugees and encouraged an open debate in its section of letters to the editor. A careful reading of the articles in each newspaper shows that the Indochinese refugee crisis revealed deeper issues. In the United States, the crisis was deeply linked to the memory of the Vietnam War. Between 1975 and 1995, Americans attempted to determine how much responsibility they had for the flood of refugees. In Canada, the question of resettlement revealed tensions over the autonomy of the provinces and the role of private citizens, with regards to their federal government and immigration. These are important topics that merit further consideration in an individual analysis of these newspapers.

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References

  1. Media representations of the refugee crises in European media with respect to Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees have been studied in :Silva, Mfd, Bruras, S, and Banares, AB. “Improper Distance: The Refugee Crisis Presented by Two Newsrooms.” Journal Of Refugee Studies 31, no. 4 (December 2018): 507–527;  Greenwood, K., and Thomson, T.J. “Framing the Migration: A Study of News Photographs Showing People Fleeing War and Persecution.” International Communication Gazette (2019); Chouliaraki, Lilie, and Stolic, Tijana. “Rethinking Media Responsibility in the Refugee ’crisis’: a Visual Typology of European News.” Media, Culture & Society 39, no. 8 (November 2017): 1162–1177.
  2. See Hathaway, James C. "Labelling the "Boat People": The Failure of the Human Rights Mandate of the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees." Human Rights Quarterly 15, no. 4 (1993): 686-702. Accessed January 19, 2020. doi:10.2307/762402; Tsamenyi, B. Martin. "The "Boat People": Are They Refugees?" Human Rights Quarterly 5, no. 3 (1983): 348-73. Accessed January 19, 2020. doi:10.2307/762028.
  3. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, s.v. “refugee,” accessed June 10, 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refugee
  4. The UN Refugee Agency, Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951. Accessed 22 June 2020. https://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10
  5. The first article from the New York Times to use the word boat people appeared in 1977: Henry Kamm, “Singapore Is a Bitter Harbor for Vietnam Refugees,” The New York Times, June 13, 1977.
  6. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, s.v. “boat people,” accessed December 25, 2019, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boat%20people.
  7. The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “migrant (n.),” accessed December 25, 2019, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/migrant.
  8. When compared with refugees from all other regions of the world, displaced people from Vietnam made up 11.5% (New York Times) and 8.8% (Globe and Mail) of the total articles written about refugees from 1975 to 1995.
  9. Between 1994 and 1995 the editorials stopped advocating for increased resettlement in foreign asylum countries because they believed that it was safe for the displaced population to return to Vietnam. The editorials did however specify that asylum claims should be reconsidered and that the repatriated population would be under American protection while in Vietnam. For an example see: Editorial, “The Last Vietnamese Boat People,” The New York Times, Dec 25, 1995.
  10. Editorial, “Keeping Faith With the Boat People,” The New York Times, Nov 21, 1978; Editorial, “America's Duty to the Boat People,” The New York Times, Dec 16, 1978; Editorial, “Boat People, Launched,” The New York Times, May 18, 1983.
  11. Front page article, “Normal immigration rules waived: Canada to move quickly’ on 3,000 viet refugees”, The Globe and Mail, May 2, 1975.
  12. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Flight from Indochina,” The State of The World’s Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action, (2000): 81.
  13. For examples of letters to the editor against refugee repatriation see: Farley Katz, “Of Mr. Ford and Logic,” The New York Times, May 17, 1975; Isidor Gorn, “Refugees: Misplaced Pity,” The New York Times, May 17, 1975. "Vietnamese Refugees," The Globe and Mail, May 12, 1975.
  14. See Douglas E. Kneeland, “Wide Hostility Found To Vietnamese Influx,” The New York Times, May 2, 1975.
  15. Example from the New York Times: Editorial, “A Moral Responsibility,” The New York Times, April 24, 1975. Example from the Globe and Mail: Jerry Spiegel (letter to the editor), “Vietnamese Refugees,” The Globe and Mail, 12 mai 1975.
  16. See  Reuters, “Malaysia to Put 70,000 Refugees Back Out to Sea,” The New York Times, June 16, 1979; Henry Kamm, “5 Asian Nations Bar Any More Refugees,” The New York Times, July 1, 1979; “Boat People Towed Out to Sea,” The Globe and Mail, Jun 02, 1979; “Soldiers Killed Boat People, Report Says,” The Globe and Mail, Jul 23, 1979.
  17. See James P. Sterba, “The Agony of Vietnam Refugee Boat 0105,” The New York Times, July 25, 1979; “Girl Survives on Wreck, but 49 Others Die,” The Globe and Mail, Mar 02, 1979.
  18. Editorial. “Our Vietnam Duty Is Not Over”, The New York Times, Feb 28, 1978. And Louis Kawall. “Canada and others urged to unite to help the boat people”, The Globe and Mail, June 21, 1979.
  19. Fox Butterfield, “Hanoi Regime Reported Resolved To Oust Nearly All Ethnic Chinese,” The New York Times, June 12, 1979; Henry Kamm, “Chinese Of Vietnam Driven From North,” The New York Times, May 14, 1979; “Vietnam is Planning Ouster of 800,000 Ethnic Chinese,” The Globe and Mail, Jun 12, 1979; “Take the Profit Out of Vietnam’s Refugee Trade,” The Globe and Mail , Jul 09, 1979.
  20. See Editorial. “America’s Duty to the Boat People”, The New York Times, Dec 16, 1978.
  21. See Victor Malarek, “Vietnamese Influx a Dilemma for Hong Kong,” The Globe and Mail, May 04, 1988; Jan Wong, “Hong Kong’s Heart Hardens Against Refugees,” The Globe and Mail , Apr 02, 1990.
  22. Felicity Barringer, “’Repatriation’ Is the Trend For Refugees Worldwide,” The New York Times, Nov 17, 1991.
  23. See Nathan Caplan, “Boat people belong here,” The New York Times, July 23, 1989.
  24. See Richard Towle, “Processes and Critiques of the Indo-Chinese Comprehensive Plan of Action: An Instrument of International Burden-Sharing?” International Journal of Refugee Law 18, no. 3-4 (September 1, 2006): 537–570; James C. Hathaway, “Labelling the ’Boat People’: The Failure of the Human Rights Mandate of the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees,” Human Rights Quarterly 15, no. 4 (November 1, 1993): 686-702; Sten A. Bronee, “The History of the Comprehensive Plan of Action. (Indo-Chinese Refugees, Vietnamese Boat People),” International Journal of Refugee Law 5, no. 4 (December 22, 1993): 534–543.
  25. See Felicity Barringer, “’Repatriation’ Is the Trend For Refugees Worldwide,” The New York Times, Nov 17, 1991; John Pomfret, “Hong Kong Deports 51 Vietnamese Boat People,” The Globe and Mail, Dec 12, 1989; Jan Wong, “Hong Kong’s Heart Hardens Against Refugees,” The Globe and Mail , Apr 02, 1990.
  26. See Nathan Caplan,“Boat People Belong Here,” The New York Times, July 23, 1989; Estanislao Oziewicz, “Ottawa Cautious on Forced Repatriation: Canada Unclear on Details of Agreement regarding Vietnamese Boat People,” The Globe and Mail, Oct 5, 1991; Ross Howard, “Hong Kong Governor Thanks Canada for Backing Repatriation of Boat People,” The Globe and Mail, May 24, 1990.
  27. A selection of editorials and articles about compassion fatigue from the New York Times: Editorial, “Boat People and Compassion Fatigue,” July 14, 1988; Editorial, “A Cure for Compassion Fatigue,” June 14, 1989; Henry Kamm, “Obstacles in West To Poor Refugees,” March 27, 1989.