575 Migration & (ill) health in the media: challenges in representation and the prospects of constructive journalism

Abstract OP 20: Challenges and Opportunities for Health 1, B308 (FCSH), September 4, 2025, 13:30 - 14:30 The living conditions of refugees and migrants in Greek camps, particularly in Moria, have been extensively covered by the media. At the same time, numerous studies have underlined the impact of poor living conditions on the health of refugees and migrants, while this aspect remains less researched in the literature on media representations of health and migration. In this context, the present paper draws attention to living conditions and explores how the media framing of them affects the representation of health issues. The overall objective of the research is to investigate the representation of health in the field of migration during the refugee and migration crisis in Greece (2015-2020), through a sample of 1193 news stories stemming from the online news pages of national (Ta Nea, Proto Thema) and international newspapers (The Guardian, The New York Times). For the analysis of news stories, a quantitative content analysis was conducted using an interdisciplinary encoding scheme developed for the study. Selected results from the research indicate that, although social determinants of health appeared in significant percentages in news stories, solutions to the problems arising from them are largely absent. At the same time, the way these determinants are framed tends to reinforce the portrayal of refugees and migrants as ‘victims’. These findings reveal that, when notions such as social determinants of health and structural violence, which are fundamental in the literature to comprehending the exposure of minorities to ill health, are embedded in the news content, they may lean towards serving the journalistic narrative rather than raising critical awareness of refugees’ and migrants’ health problems. To respond to this multidimensional challenge, the study proposes a new perspective for the coverage of health issues concerning migration, which is grounded in constructive journalism and inspired by the principles of global health.