Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees

Keyu Chen; Marzieh Babaeianjelodar; Yiwen Shi; Kamila Janmohamed; Rupak Sarkar; Ingmar Weber; Thomas Davidson; Munmun De Choudhury; Jonathan Huang; Shweta Yadav; Ashiqur Khudabukhsh; Chris T Bauch; Preslav Nakov; Orestis Papakyriakopoulos; Koustuv Saha; Kaveh Khoshnood; Navin Kumar

doi:10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130

Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees

Keyu Chen, Marzieh Babaeianjelodar, Yiwen Shi, Kamila Janmohamed, Rupak Sarkar, Ingmar Weber, Thomas Davidson, Munmun De Choudhury, Jonathan Huang, Shweta Yadav, Ashiqur Khudabukhsh, Chris T Bauch, Preslav Nakov, Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, Koustuv Saha, Kaveh Khoshnood, Navin Kumar

Research output: Contribution to journal › Conference article › peer-review

Abstract

We investigate how representations of Syrian refugees (2011-2021) differ across US partisan news outlets. We analyze 47,388 articles from the online US media about Syrian refugees to detail differences in reporting between left- and right-leaning media. We use various NLP techniques to understand these differences. Our polarization and question answering results indicated that left-leaning media tended to represent refugees as child victims, welcome in the US, and right-leaning media cast refugees as Islamic terrorists. We noted similar results with our sentiment and offensive speech scores over time, which detail possibly unfavorable representations of refugees in right-leaning media. A strength of our work is how the different techniques we have applied validate each other. Based on our results, we provide several recommendations. Stakeholders may utilize our findings to intervene around refugee representations, and design communications campaigns that improve the way society sees refugees and possibly aid refugee outcomes.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	103-113
Journal	Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
Volume	17
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130
State	Published - Jun 2 2023
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Credibility of online content
demographic/gender/age identification
topic recognition
Text categorization
Centrality/influence of social media publications and authors
Web and Social Media

Online availability

10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130

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Chen, K., Babaeianjelodar, M., Shi, Y., Janmohamed, K., Sarkar, R., Weber, I., Davidson, T., De Choudhury, M., Huang, J., Yadav, S., Khudabukhsh, A., Bauch, C. T., Nakov, P., Papakyriakopoulos, O., Saha, K., Khoshnood, K., & Kumar, N. (2023). Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 17, 103-113. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130

Chen, K, Babaeianjelodar, M, Shi, Y, Janmohamed, K, Sarkar, R, Weber, I, Davidson, T, De Choudhury, M, Huang, J, Yadav, S, Khudabukhsh, A, Bauch, CT, Nakov, P, Papakyriakopoulos, O, Saha, K, Khoshnood, K & Kumar, N 2023, 'Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees', Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, vol. 17, pp. 103-113. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130

@article{5762e281604b42b8891fde6bcde28c8e,

title = "Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees",

abstract = "We investigate how representations of Syrian refugees (2011-2021) differ across US partisan news outlets. We analyze 47,388 articles from the online US media about Syrian refugees to detail differences in reporting between left- and right-leaning media. We use various NLP techniques to understand these differences. Our polarization and question answering results indicated that left-leaning media tended to represent refugees as child victims, welcome in the US, and right-leaning media cast refugees as Islamic terrorists. We noted similar results with our sentiment and offensive speech scores over time, which detail possibly unfavorable representations of refugees in right-leaning media. A strength of our work is how the different techniques we have applied validate each other. Based on our results, we provide several recommendations. Stakeholders may utilize our findings to intervene around refugee representations, and design communications campaigns that improve the way society sees refugees and possibly aid refugee outcomes. ",

keywords = "Credibility of online content, demographic/gender/age identification, topic recognition, Text categorization, Centrality/influence of social media publications and authors, Web and Social Media",

author = "Keyu Chen and Marzieh Babaeianjelodar and Yiwen Shi and Kamila Janmohamed and Rupak Sarkar and Ingmar Weber and Thomas Davidson and {De Choudhury}, Munmun and Jonathan Huang and Shweta Yadav and Ashiqur Khudabukhsh and Bauch, {Chris T} and Preslav Nakov and Orestis Papakyriakopoulos and Koustuv Saha and Kaveh Khoshnood and Navin Kumar",

year = "2023",

month = jun,

day = "2",

doi = "10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "17",

pages = "103--113",

journal = "Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media",

issn = "2162-3449",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees

AU - Chen, Keyu

AU - Babaeianjelodar, Marzieh

AU - Shi, Yiwen

AU - Janmohamed, Kamila

AU - Sarkar, Rupak

AU - Weber, Ingmar

AU - Davidson, Thomas

AU - De Choudhury, Munmun

AU - Huang, Jonathan

AU - Yadav, Shweta

AU - Khudabukhsh, Ashiqur

AU - Bauch, Chris T

AU - Nakov, Preslav

AU - Papakyriakopoulos, Orestis

AU - Saha, Koustuv

AU - Khoshnood, Kaveh

AU - Kumar, Navin

PY - 2023/6/2

Y1 - 2023/6/2

N2 - We investigate how representations of Syrian refugees (2011-2021) differ across US partisan news outlets. We analyze 47,388 articles from the online US media about Syrian refugees to detail differences in reporting between left- and right-leaning media. We use various NLP techniques to understand these differences. Our polarization and question answering results indicated that left-leaning media tended to represent refugees as child victims, welcome in the US, and right-leaning media cast refugees as Islamic terrorists. We noted similar results with our sentiment and offensive speech scores over time, which detail possibly unfavorable representations of refugees in right-leaning media. A strength of our work is how the different techniques we have applied validate each other. Based on our results, we provide several recommendations. Stakeholders may utilize our findings to intervene around refugee representations, and design communications campaigns that improve the way society sees refugees and possibly aid refugee outcomes.

AB - We investigate how representations of Syrian refugees (2011-2021) differ across US partisan news outlets. We analyze 47,388 articles from the online US media about Syrian refugees to detail differences in reporting between left- and right-leaning media. We use various NLP techniques to understand these differences. Our polarization and question answering results indicated that left-leaning media tended to represent refugees as child victims, welcome in the US, and right-leaning media cast refugees as Islamic terrorists. We noted similar results with our sentiment and offensive speech scores over time, which detail possibly unfavorable representations of refugees in right-leaning media. A strength of our work is how the different techniques we have applied validate each other. Based on our results, we provide several recommendations. Stakeholders may utilize our findings to intervene around refugee representations, and design communications campaigns that improve the way society sees refugees and possibly aid refugee outcomes.

KW - Credibility of online content

KW - demographic/gender/age identification

KW - topic recognition

KW - Text categorization

KW - Centrality/influence of social media publications and authors

KW - Web and Social Media

U2 - 10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130

DO - 10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22130

M3 - Conference article

SN - 2162-3449

VL - 17

SP - 103

EP - 113

JO - Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

JF - Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

ER -

Partisan US News Media Representations of Syrian Refugees

Abstract

Keywords

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