Political parallelism and the geopoliticisation of migration in the Georgian media: analyzing migration framing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

This study investigates how Georgian media portrayed the unprecedented migration flow into Georgia from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This influx posed new challenges for a country historically not a major migrant destination and sensitive to Russian influence due to Russia’s occupation of 20% of its territory. Drawing on political parallelism, popular geopolitics, and framing theory, the research introduces the notion of the “geopoliticization of migration” to describe how political actors instrumentalize migration discourse according to their geopolitical stances. Methodologically, it combines quantitative content analysis and social network analysis with qualitative analysis of selected examples from the coded corpus to situate the identified frames within broader meaning-making processes. The study reveals that Georgian media predominantly utilized a conflict frame, intensifying the polarized discourse around migration. Pro-government outlets portrayed opposition concerns about Russian migration as exaggerated, accusing the opposition of alarmism. Conversely, opposition-affiliated media framed Russian migration as a significant threat and criticized the government’s migration policies. We argue that Georgian media intensified political actors’ geopoliticization of migration discourse by selectively prioritizing migrant groups based on their countries of origin and the geopolitical alignments of affiliated political forces. Pro-government media highlight aid to Ukrainian migrants, amplifying the government’s positive self-representation, while pro-opposition media portray Russian migration as a threat and link government policy to Russian interests. These findings demonstrate deep-seated political parallelism and show how migration coverage in Georgia became a site of popular geopolitics, where migrants’ origins symbolized competing geopolitical alignments, threat, solidarity, and political legitimacy.