@phdthesis{8757051,
  abstract     = {{Although forced migration has always occurred throughout history, it has increased significantly recently. The largest increase took place between 2012 and 2015 and was largely driven by conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Central African and East African countries (the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2021). Worldwide, forcibly displaced people are, however, nowadays confronted with hostility, xenophobia and the increasing popularity of extreme right-wing political parties (Frelick, 2007; Freedman, 2015). Furthermore, in recent decades, several states have tightened their asylum policies and/or become more reluctant to cooperate with refugee organizations (Johnson, 2011; Freedman, 2015). Since 2015, the theme of forced migration has been ubiquitous in (often polarized, overlapping and interacting) public, media and political debates (Hellman & Lerkkanen, 2019).

Within such contexts, UNHCR, which is mandated to lead and coordinate refugee protection worldwide (Jones, 2013), and other international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) play key roles as providers of assistance and/or protection to forcibly displaced people (Betts et al., 2012). However, through public communication, they also try to inform, raise awareness and set news media, public, political and donor agendas. Therefore, they provide diverse communication content to news media and increasingly communicate directly with citizens via social media and websites (Atkin & Rice, 2013). Hence, these organizations can significantly influence how the general public perceives forcibly displaced people and related displacement crises (Chouliaraki, 2012a) and consequently can have broader policy and societal consequences. Nevertheless, few studies have examined how they attempt to influence public, media and political agendas, and even less studies have analysed the underlying reasons behind the use of their discursive strategies. While most research has analysed the news-making activities of humanitarian organizations, and broader changing journalism-NGO relationships in evolving news and humanitarian ecologies (e.g., Ongenaert & Joye, 2016; Powers, 2018; Van Leuven & Joye, 2014), fewer studies specifically investigated refugee organizations. Second, most research centres on agenda-setting (e.g., McCombs & Valenzuela, 2021) and, to lesser extents, stakeholders’ efforts to influence about which subjects news media, citizens or other stakeholders should think (cf. first-level agenda-building) (Kim & Kiousis, 2012). However, to our knowledge, only a few studies, have thoroughly explored refugee organizations’ second-level agenda-building strategies which attempt to influence how stakeholders perceive certain subjects (Kim & Kiousis, 2012). Further, they mainly textually focus on one organization, media genre, year, and/or crisis, lacking essential explanatory comparative, production, and/or societal perspectives.

Therefore, adopting a mixed-methods research design, this research project analysed refugee organizations’ public communication strategies from multiple perspectives. More specifically, we examined various relevant international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies regarding the recent Syrian and Central African crises. Hence, the central research objective of this project is to investigate the conceptual, textual, production and societal dimensions and their interactions involved in international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies. This overarching objective is operationalized through three more specific, interrelated sub-objectives, corresponding to three components and adopting a source-to-end product perspective.

First, we examined the conceptual dimension of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (component 1). How can the public communication of international refugee organizations be conceptualized? For this purpose, we conducted an extensive literature review.

Second, we studied the textual dimension of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (component 2). Which discursive strategies do international refugee organizations mainly use (cf. how, who, what)? Acknowledging current trends and gaps within the literature, this sub-objective can be further divided into three more specific objectives:
1.	How are forcibly displaced people mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication? In other words, which representation and argumentation strategies do the international refugee organizations use?

For this purpose, we conducted two empirical studies. First, acknowledging potential organizational differences, we applied a comparative-synchronic (Carvalho, 2008) critical discourse analysis (CDA) according to Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA model on the international press releases (N=122) of UNHCR and two INGOs, de ‘Danish Refugee Council’ (DRC) and de ‘International Rescue Committee’ regarding the Syrian crisis (2014-2015). Additionally, we conducted semi-structured expert interviews (N=6) with press and regional officers at these organizations to yield additional empirical material about the underlying production and societal contexts. Second, recognizing potential media genre and crisis differences, we applied a comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) (Machin & Mayr, 2012), again following Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA model, on UNHCR’s international press releases (N=28), news stories (N=233), and related photos (N=462) and videos (N=50) of the key year 2015.

2.	Who is mainly (not) represented and given a voice in international refugee organizations’ public communication? 
3.	What is mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication? Which key characteristics (e.g., organizations, crises, media genres, years) and themes do international refugee organizations represent?

To meet these specific objectives and acknowledging organizational, media, crisis and temporal differences, we applied a comparative, longitudinal, intersectional quantitative content analysis (Neuendorf, 2017; Riffe et al., 2019) on the press releases and news stories (N=1244) about the recent Syrian and Central African crises (2015-2018) of UNHCR, and two INGOs, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).

Third, we focused on the production and societal dimensions (component 3). Central to the corresponding component are the production, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, forces and motivations behind the public communication strategies. How do the underlying production, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, forces and motivations explain the discursive strategies of international refugee organizations (cf. why)? Likewise, this sub-objective can be further divided into three more specific objectives that correspond with the specific textual objectives:
1.	How can we explain how forcibly displaced people are mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
2.	How can we explain who is mainly (not) represented and given a voice in international refugee organizations’ public communication? 
3.	How can we explain what is mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication?

Therefore, we conducted a three-week office ethnography at NRC’s main press and communication department, semi-structured expert interviews with press and communication officers of NRC (N=10), and a document analysis of the key communication policy documents of NRC. We thereby focused each time on the production and societal contexts of NRC’s public communication regarding the recent Syrian and Central African crises.

In general, we found diverse, often mixed results that nuance, extend and sometimes contradict the existing literature on the public communication of refugee organizations and, more generally, humanitarian communication, and frequently interact with and explain each other. For reasons of relevance, focus and space, we discuss below interactions between different dimensions, as evidenced within one or more studies. The literature review indicated that in recent decades the social and scientific relevance of research on strategic and non-profit communication in general and on refugee organizations’ public communication particularly have increased. Nevertheless, these fields remain underdeveloped and are mostly text-focused, while the production and reception dimensions are barely explored. Remarkably, however, little or no research has been conducted from an organizational communication perspective, although this study demonstrates that the subject can be adequately embedded in and examined from the fields of strategic, non-profit and public communication. Specifically, our dissertation highlights the relevance of the holistic Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) perspective. This perspective argues that communication is not just an activity that occurs within or between organizations, but forms the constitutive process of organization (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). Further, strongly influenced by the understandings of Oliveira (2017), Atkin and Rice (2013), and Macnamara (2016), we define refugee organizations’ public communication as the practice of organized and systematic symbolic social action (diversified communication disseminated through a variety of channels and activities) within the public sphere to reach set goals, co-create the refugee organization, perform civic relations and fulfil its mission by groups of people that pursue the (perceived) common good for forced migration. Finally, our conceptual study argues that future research can benefit by adopting multi-perspective, practice-oriented, multi-methodological, comparative and/or interdisciplinary approaches to which we respond in our empirical studies.

Regarding the ‘how’ and related ‘why’ dimensions, the critical discourse analysis shows that the observed organisations to varying extents dehumanize forcibly displaced people and subordinate them to the ‘Western Self’ and national state interests in their press releases. Acknowledging organizational and media genre differences, these power inequalities can be explained by the use of various discursive strategies, as well as the broader production and social contexts. The findings demonstrate that forcibly displaced people are often portrayed as a homogenous and suffering collective, confirming the dominance of the regime of pity’s traditional ‘negative’ representational strategies (Bettini, 2013; Chouliaraki, 2012a; Johnson, 2011). However, unlike existing fragmented research, this analysis also found evidence of the use of other discursive strategies and explored the production process and the social context. The aforementioned depersonalising humanitarian discourse can be considered to be the product of the specific features of the press releases. The importance of news media attention and commercial reasons are other explanatory factors. In addition, the study found articulations of a simultaneously existing post-humanitarian discourse. The interviews revealed that the humanitarian sector has evolved from a non-economic to a market-oriented sphere within which private choice and self-expression are central. One can relate this post-humanitarian discourse to the regime of irony and consider it as an expression of neoliberalism (Chouliaraki, 2012a). While post-humanitarian discourses respond to the needs for personal development and self-expression, the oft-deployed cross-issue persuasion strategy responds to state interests and reflects political realism (Grieco, 1999). Both strategies are self-directed and reduce forcibly displaced people principally to secondary figures.

Similarly, the comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis reveals that UNHCR primarily represents forcibly displaced people in its press releases and, to lesser extents, in its news as generic, anonymized, passive, victimized, deprived, and/or voiceless masses, reproducing humanitarian saviour logics and hierarchies of deservingness. However, stories, photos, and videos frequently combine these representations with portrayals of empowered individual doers, speakers, and/or thinkers. Both representation strategies can be partially explained by news logics such as genre characteristics, news media conventions, and representations, and by respectively political and private sector discourses and agenda-building opportunities, and related organizational goals, as the expert interviews show. Furthermore, we identified several argumentation methods, particularly in textual communication genres. UNHCR mainly attempts to stimulate pity-based solidarity but also voices various neoliberal post-humanitarian (mainly Western) Self-oriented solidarity discourses. Refining cross-issue persuasion, we discovered that UNHCR links protection to states’ (perceived) interests in various issue areas but also in various principles and values, and propose the more appropriate concept of ‘cross-interest persuasion’. Rather than just to other (perceived) important issue areas, refugee organizations link contributions to protection to the interests of states in general. Moreover, the term emphasizes the political realist nature of the pragmatic argumentation strategy. Finally, we consider these discursive strategies as reflections and reproductions of, and responses to dominant migration management paradigms and the increasingly neoliberalized and political realist international refugee regime.

Concerning the textual ‘who’, ‘what’ and connected ‘why’ dimensions, the comparative, longitudinal and intersectional quantitative content analysis shows a mixed picture of what and who are (not) represented, involving interorganizational commonalities and differences. First, regarding ‘what’, the refugee organizations predominantly communicated in 2015 and 2016 about forcibly displaced people involved in the Syrian crisis, because of intertwined organizational, societal and/or financial reasons and mainstream media logics. More specifically, it is far more difficult for international refugee organizations to obtain media attention for the Central African crisis than the Syrian crisis, because of various factors such as the nature, magnitude, implications, mediatization and comprehensibility of the conflicts, and geographic and cultural proximity. As there is more media attention on Syria, international refugee organizations generally obtain also more resources specifically intended for the Syrian crisis, including for press and communication efforts. This leads on its turn to even more attention for this crisis, creating a ‘Vicious Neglected Crisis Circle (VNCC) effect’. Organizational factors generally reinforce this effect, while security and political factors in the case of communication about Syria limit it.

Regarding ‘who’, we observed that primarily forcibly displaced people and refugee organizations obtain voices in het public communication about the investigated forcibly displaced people, refining earlier studies. Additionally, examining several (largely unexplored) sociodemographics, this study finds that individualized forcibly displaced people are represented in significantly unbalanced manners (e.g., mainly along age, geographical location, legal status, current country and continent, nationality, life stance, sexual orientation, family situation, marital status and former and current profession). This can be explained by a myriad of pragmatic, humanitarian, societal, organizational, ethical/personal, practical, security, political and/or narrative reasons. Shaped by production and societal contexts, humanitarian communication reproduces and reflects quantitative mediated hierarchies of suffering, both between (cf. what) and within (who) crises. In general, we can conclude that various pragmatic and contextual factors explain ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ are represented. Finally, we argue that well-balanced humanitarian communication is essential for societal and strategic reasons (e.g., negative long-term implications of imbalanced humanitarian imagery and sensational public communication, branding opportunities as reliable, accountable ‘authorised knowers’).}},
  author       = {{Ongenaert, David}},
  keywords     = {{Agenda-building,critical discourse analysis,distant suffering,document analysis,expert interviews,forcibly displaced people,humanitarian communication,media production,media representation,mediated humanitarianism,multimodal critical discourse analysis,NGO communication,non-profit communication,office ethnography,public communication,quantitative content analysis,refugee organizations,refugees,strategic communication}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{XXVIII, 328}},
  publisher    = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences}},
  school       = {{Ghent University}},
  title        = {{(De)constructing humanitarian representations of forcibly displaced people : a mixed-methods and multidimensional research project on the public communication strategies of international refugee organizations}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}