An Investigation into Media Coverage of Immigration Using a Web Scraping Methodology: An Analysis of Online Newspaper Headlines During the 2022 Italian General Election Campaign

Abstract Migration issues dominate both political and media discourse during the campaign period and often play a decisive role in shaping election results. This study examines how Italian online newspapers with different political orientations framed migration during the 2022 Italian general election campaign. Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, we collected the headlines of almost 14,000 articles published between 25 September 2021 and 25 September 2022. We conducted a thematic analysis to assess topic salience, actor engagement, recurring subthemes, and the most frequent lexical associations within migration-related discourse. Furthermore, we investigated the sentiments and prevailing tones expressed in newspaper headlines addressing migration. Our findings reveal that Right-wing media amplified migration coverage more intensively, depicting it as an emergency associated with criminality and threats to national security. In contrast, Left-wing and moderate outlets emphasized humanitarian perspectives, particularly during the early months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, promoting solidarity and European cooperation. Over time, both sides tended to frame migration as an exceptional and problematic phenomenon rather than a structural dimension of Italian society. The study also underscores the persistence of emotionally charged and polarized narratives designed to shape public perceptions of safety, empathy, and belonging. Overall, our research contributes to ongoing efforts to understand migration narratives circulating within online media environments.