The way in which the mass-media reflects the different aspects regarding migration and integration influences the public perception on immigrants. For this reason, the actors in the integration field play an important role in their relation with mass-media and how it tackles these subjects.

The European Commission helped actors in the integration field regarding the way they collaborate with mass-media, offering a „Handbook on Integration for Policy-Makers and Practitioners”. According to the work, the actors who wish to analyze the mass-media structure must focus on four main fields: production and broadcasting mass-media organizations, legislative and control organisms which regulate how mass-media operates, mass-media users and the labor market.

1. Production and broadcasting mass-media organizations
In order to have a balanced image of immigrants in the press, actors in the integration field must first establish the type of mass-media organization the consider the most suitable for collaboration: local, regional, national or global, public or commercial. In order to have an objective depiction of important, it is of the essence that the actors understand the role of the diverse array of professions in the mass-media field – and there are a lot – but also the way in which mass-media is organized in departments.

2. Legislative and control organisms which regulate how mass-media operates
Mass-media self-regulation, especially of the written press, is a present phenomenon, but not efficient enough to reduce the inexact and sensationalistic stories or to protect immigrants against discrimination. Racism in mass-media can be controlled, but for this one needs to know the types of awareness mechanisms existing in mass-media, but also the legislation against racism. „In case of a control organism, it is necessary to first identify the status of the institution and then to know the situations in which mass-media must be held accountable and in what circumstances”, it says in the manual.

3. Mass-media users
Actors in the integration field who wish to influence mass media must exploit the influence of mass-media users, which becomes bigger and bigger. Press consumers get involved in the programs, make their own platforms, sites, social pages or blogs and act as unofficial authorities of mass media control, for example by ratings and complaints. The suggestion of the authors named Jan Niessen & Thomas Huddleston is that actors from the integration field should encourage readers and press consumers to use structures through which complaints are filed, attend interactive debates about mass-media.

4. Labor market
The labor market in the press can be diversified too both on short and long term. Unions, patronages, professional forming institutes and professional orientation national centers in the mass-media field play an important role. These organizations can encourage new professionals to train the employees, to acquire new skills and intercultural abilities.

Strategies for how to approach the press

Actors in the integration field should focus on how their priorities coincide with the mass-media organizations mission and should adapt the media strategy accordingly. The European’s Commission manual specifies that solid and clear information should be supplied to journalists. Organizations may opt for efficient press releases – which should be sent to the mass-media or summaries which offer the journalists the necessary contextual information to have a clear picture of the subject he will approach in press materials. Materials posted on the website must always be updated, in order for the journalists to consult the information, press releases and other published documents. Another suggestion from the authors is to create a database with key people in the migration field, to help journalists find spokesmen, experts and immigrants who would tell them their own experiences.

The local press is often ignored or is not considered important enough, but one should take advantage of it, as it is a very influential sources because of the significant number of readers of local papers and because integration is felt by people at a local and not at a national level. There are situations when news in the local press is exposed in national mass-media. The authors of the manual recommend the nurture of the working relations with journalists in general, not only with those who wrote about migration. The authors draw attention over the different editorial style or mass media organizations.” (…) There is a bigger probability to take emotional stories, thus using personal experiences of immigrants might be more efficient, while serious media will probably search for quantitative data and contextual information.”

Without aiming to change the working style of the mass-media in general, organizations in the integration field must focus on collaborating with it to send strong and coherent messages at both a local and communitarian level, regional and national.

Source: Jan Niessen & Thomas Huddleston (Migration Policy Group) – Handbook on Integration for Policy-Makers and Practitioners; Justice, Freedom and Security Division. The European Commission, Third Edition, April 2010.