A closer look at how the refugee crisis has been represented in Canadian news reveals how powerful the media can be in the reporting of global crises.
Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, millions of people in Syria and surrounding war zones have fled their homes. They have sought asylum in neighbouring countries, nations in Europe, and countries as far away as Australia and Brazil. This mass displacement of people to different parts of the world can be considered not only a refugee crisis, but a global crisis.
A global crisis occurs when internationally legitimate humanitarian, political or military intervention is needed to resolve it (Shaw 1996). However, it can be asserted that crises today are principally defined and dramatized in and through media and communications (Pantti et al. 2012) and “it is mainly through media reports that the world perceives international crises” (Joye 2009: 3). Therefore, when analyzing global crises, it is crucial to look at how they are reported in the media.
Shelley Pascual 