Media Coverage Of The Refugee Crisis In The United States

Civil unrest of Middles East and other countries have significantly increased the number of people running away their countries and seeking refuge in Western countries. This has led to a state where the number of refugees in the world has increased significantly. Calamur (2015) indicates that 160,000 individuals are moving to Europe in search of safer places and the United States expects more than 100,000 refugee applications leading to a refugee crisis. An important societal institution that can play a significant role in shaping this refugees crisis is the media; both traditional and contemporary. Citizens from peaceful countries can learn about refugee crisis through the use of various media sources, which indicates the key role that the

In order for the society to take a problem seriously, it is important for the problem to be highlighted and its urgency shown. The media should be highlighting important events such as the civil war in Syria that is significantly increasing the number of refugees fleeing their countries in search of peace. It should also indicate the way in which this is leading to increase in the number of refugees and how an individual can help in this situation. According to Olsen (2003), more and more media coverage of a certain crisis the more attention that people pay towards the problem and the more the people want to help. Increasing coverage would also involve bringing stories of how people are helping refugees which would inspire others to also want to contribute towards helping refugees. The high number of people affected by the refugee crisis implies that the government may end up being overwhelmed by the demand of emergency services required by the high number of refugees and individual citizens can play a key role in helping their countries to deal with the situation. As such, the media can play a key role in the crisis by increasing their coverage of the refugee

Most people are not usually ready to help the refugee as there is the false belief that refugees are those people who are escaping their country so as to enjoy the economic benefits that are found in developed countries. However, this is usually not the case for many refugees as they are usually running away from their countries in search for peaceful place where they can be able to live their life without being threatened by violence. Bowden (2015) points out that the media can help the situation by using words that insists that the refugees are facing problems that should be addressed. The public would put more pressure on the government to deal with the problem if they approached the crisis from a refugee point of view as opposed to seeing them as migrant in search of economic empowerment. This can be achieved through making sure that the difference between refugees and migrants are well set out in the news coverage of people affected by the refugee