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Sending and receiving: The ethical framing of intra-EU migration in the European press
Ekaterina Balabanova and Alex Balch European Journal of Communication 2010 25: 382 DOI: 10.1177/0267323110381005 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ejc.sagepub.com/content/25/4/382

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Article

Sending and receiving: The ethical framing of intra-EU migration in the European press
Ekaterina Balabanova
University of Liverpool, UK

European Journal of Communication 25(4) 382397 The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0267323110381005 http://ejc.sagepub.com

Alex Balch

University of Liverpool, UK

Abstract
Labour migration in the European Union (EU) has become a hot topic in public debates, particularly around the issue of European enlargement. The media are frequently criticized for stirring up debates around immigration but analysis has overlooked the underlying ethical justifications for migration controls. This article addresses this by developing an innovative approach that applies an ethical lens to media coverage of intra-EU migration. It shows how a generally narrow range of communitarian and cosmopolitan arguments are employed by the press in two European countries that occupy very different positions in the migratory system: Bulgaria and the UK. It finds a convergence of communitarian arguments across the case studies, and a significant importation of frames, reversing the roles of sending and receiving country.

Keywords
ethics, EU enlargement, framing, intra-EU migration, media

How do European media frame issues around the international movement of persons for the purposes of work in the context of free movement and enlargement? What kinds of ethical ideas underpin and inform these frames? How can we understand variation across an EU that now incorporates major sending and receiving countries? Since 2000 managed migration has become a dominant policy frame in Europe (Balch, 2010),
Corresponding author: Alex Balch, Lecturer in International Relations and European Integration, University of Liverpool, Department of Politics, Roxby Building, Liverpool, L697ZT. Email: abalch@Liverpool.ac.uk

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but on what basis, and for whose benefit should migration be managed? This article explores how and in what ways the ethics of immigration controls in Europe play a role in communication processes. It does this by examining the framing of intra-EU migration in the news media of two EU member states (Bulgaria and the UK) in the lead-up to the 2007 enlargement. During this period the issue became the object of intense media and political scrutiny in view of uncertainties over the forthcoming enlargement,1 with the UK and Bulgaria intricately involved. The UK faced the decision on freedom of movement for work for the new EU members (Bulgaria and Romania), complicated by the number of EU workers arriving in the country post-2004 and other immigration-related scandals (foreign prisoners, sex-for-asylum/sex-for-visas corruption, etc.). Bulgaria was hoping to become a full and equal member of the EU, and freedom of movement for work for its citizens was one of a range of issues of concern. The considerable body of work focusing on media framing of immigrants and minorities (Buchanan et al., 2003; Finney, 2003; Greenberg and Hier, 2001; King and Wood, 2001) has identified how the media problematize immigration, linking immigrants and minorities with insecurity and disease (Butterworth, 1967; Greenberg and Hier, 2001; Pickering, 2001), crime, rioting, drug use, sexual promiscuity, welfare sponging and recently, religious fanaticism and terrorism (Cottle, 2000; Poole and Richardson, 2006). However, there is little on how the European media communicate ideas about immigration controls, or free movement of workers in the EU. This is important because for EU member states, integration, enlargement and the emerging European migration regime mean decisions about immigration have a greater European resonance than ever before. In addition, the new wave of intra-EU migration spurred by the 2004 and 2007 enlargements is distinct from other forms of immigration, characterized by greater cultural and religious similarities, and by circular flows (Pollard et al., 2008). Interest-based and institutionalist accounts of the media have improved our understanding of why different European countries might diverge in terms of media outcomes because of, for example, the influence of media system and political system type (Hallin and Mancini, 2004), financial considerations (Hamilton, 2004) or technology (Pavlik, 2001). However, these accounts sometimes suffer from a latent functionalism or national bias which underplays the role of ideas in public communication and how these can be blind to national boundaries, particularly in an integrating EU. This article addresses these gaps by looking at how government decisions on a specific policy matter (intra-EU migration) are framed in the media in two EU countries. Responding to the cultural turn in media studies (Corpus Ong, 2009), it proposes a normative political-ethical approach. Instead of criticizing how media frame certain groups such as immigrants themselves (for example, with racist stereotyping), we argue that attention needs to be paid to the deeper, ontological, framing which operates to inform or legitimize the ways in which the other is subsequently portrayed. The article proceeds in four parts: the first section discusses our approach and presents the framework for analysis, including hypotheses; this is followed by a methods section, which outlines the steps of the research process and briefly discusses the concept of framing. The findings are presented comparatively and individually before the final section turns to discussion and conclusions.

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Approach and framework for analysis

Most work on media framing of immigration looks at how immigrants are objectified, stereotyped or discriminated against, or expresses concern about the dominance of conservative (as opposed to progressive) frames (Lakoff and Ferguson, 2006). We adopt a different approach by linking media framing in a more systematic way with normative political theory. We argue that media treatment of immigrants/immigration is contingent upon and symptomatic of deeper (and often submerged) values and ideational structures related to the ethical basis for immigration controls themselves. Liberal theorists have traditionally conceived of society as a closed system (e.g. Rawls, 1985: 233) where notions of community are ontologically prior to notions of justice (e.g. Dworkin, 1986: 208). However, this has allowed communitarian liberals to argue that closed borders are a necessary precondition for justice (Walzer, 1983). Cosmopolitan accounts have challenged this (Cole, 2000) with arguments based on principles of individualism, universality and generality (Pogge, 2002: 169). A number of authors have applied these ideas to develop liberal arguments for open borders, questioning the right of states to limit immigration (e.g. Carens, 1987), or exploring the possibility of a borderless future (Casey, 2009). Table 1 draws from these debates to construct a typology of different communitarian and cosmopolitan positions on immigration controls.
Table 1. Ethical frames for understanding immigration controls Types Communitarian Domestic social justice Cultural protectionist Public security Liberal constitutionalist Priority for compatriots Cosmopolitan Universalist cosmopolitanism (ecstatic) Consequentialism (instrumental) Quotidian cosmopolitanism (banal) Descriptions Immigration should be controlled to deliver the best possible economic, social and welfare conditions for citizens Ethno-national arguments for controls to maintain a national culture Uncontrolled immigration poses a threat to public order and social stability Restrictions needed to maintain democratic functioning of the state Special ties or obligations related to the nation-state, e.g. civic practices or historical (national) conflicts/struggles Freedom of movement as part of universalist conceptions of human rights Immigration as a means to maximize total welfare Linkages between immigration and postnational forms of identity formation

Sources: Bader (2005), Cole (2000), Corpus Ong (2009), Dauvergne (1999) and Higgins (2008).

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By interrogating justifications for immigration controls we can consider the full range of ethical arguments. Bader (2005) summarizes these as based upon five interlinking strands (in stronger or weaker versions): duty to the national community (special obligations towards or prioritization of fellow citizens); cultural protectionism (e.g. national identity); liberal constitutionalism (membership/citizenship and the democratic process); domestic social justice (welfare chauvinism, economic nationalism); and the need to maintain public order and security (Bader, 2005: 34552). Cosmopolitan perspectives challenge communitarian arguments over immigration and are often linked to the open borders position (see, for example, Cole, 2000). Contrasts can be found between cosmopolitan arguments based more purely upon the universal nature of human rights, the form of cosmopolitanism closest to the third article in Perpetual Peace (Kant, 1932); those based on a more consequentialist logic about inequality (immigration as a means to maximize total welfare); and other less defined arguments that connect globalization and increased immigration to a brighter, more cosmopolitan future, i.e. enhanced inter/multicultural social cohesion (Tomlinson, 1999). What ties together the many cosmopolitanisms is appreciation of the other the universalist position has also been described as ecstatic, while the consequentialist logic is more instrumental (Corpus Ong, 2009). The more ambiguous connection with identity formation is based on the everyday, quotidian, banal appreciation of the other something discussed by those interested in a nascent European identity (Cram, 2009). However, the underlying assumptions of consequentialist arguments (i.e. the positive economic consequences of immigration) also mean that there is potential overlap between a communitarian position of economic nationalism and a utilitarian cosmopolitanism (Higgins, 2008) both see the economic advantages of lower barriers to migration, but for different reasons (increased welfare at the national or global level). Free movement in the EU refers to a specific set of (relatively complex) regional arrangements, but transitional arrangements maintain nation-states control of the international movement of persons. We consider full free movement in the EU as a type of non-ideal (Ypi, 2009) cosmopolitanism, not least because of the inherent paradoxes regarding different nationalities (Rumford, 2005). The issue of free movement and immigration in the EU therefore touches directly upon the cosmopolitan/communitarian debate not because achieving free movement in the EU necessarily means the attainment of a cosmopolitan reality (Archibugi, 1998), but because free movement is a core part of cosmopolitan arguments more generally. Following from this framework we developed three hypotheses: H1: As the existence or legitimacy of immigration controls is rarely questioned in political debates we would expect cosmopolitan arguments to be relatively marginalized in national media coverage, and for communitarian frames to dominate. H2: In terms of variation across cases, we expect a correlation between the dominant type of migration that a country experiences (i.e. sending state or receiving state) and ethical frames. Sending states have a greater interest than receiving countries in supporting international human rights for migrant workers, as shown by the signatories to the UN Convention on Migrant Workers (UN, 1990). We therefore expect that in sending states the dominance of communitarian arguments will be less pronounced.

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H3: Considering the variation between news outputs in different countries predicted by institutionalist or interest-based accounts, we would expect strong variation in the specific kinds of communitarian and cosmopolitan arguments in each case.

Methods
The article employs content analysis and draws from and builds on the concept of framing (Gamson and Modigliani, 1987; Shah et al., 2002). Framing, in the words of Entman (2004: 5), is selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution. By framing an issue in a certain way the media organize and structure their presentation, in the process including and excluding ideas and arguments to produce a coherent construction and understanding of the issue (Pan and Kosicki, 1993). Thus, frames define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, suggest remedies (Entman, 1993) and legitimize the policies and politics of control (Cottle, 2009: 98). The article applies a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis focusing on 12 newspapers in Bulgaria and the UK during 2006. The two countries were selected as representing contrasting perspectives on intra-EU migration; the period was characterized by intense media and political scrutiny of the issue in view of the forthcoming enlargement. First, a keyword search was carried out using immigration and emigration as search terms. In the case of the British newspapers LexisNexis was used. In the case of the Bulgarian press, the articles were retrieved from the online archives of the individual papers (there are no databases equivalent to LexisNexis containing all Bulgarian newspapers). Six UK national newspapers were selected The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Sun. The choice of these papers allows for a broadly representative sample of the UK press that could also be comparable to the Bulgarian print media selected for the analysis. In the Bulgarian case the six newspapers were Trud, Kapital, Dnevnik, Standart, Sega and Monitor. As with the UK, this provides a reasonably representative sample of the available spectrum of print media on the Bulgarian print market. Next, all articles2 containing the keywords were entered into a database and content analysis was carried out to identify the range of topics (up to two per article). Only those articles specifically discussing intra-EU migration (as first or second topic) were selected for the subsequent analysis. In order to equalize the samples, the same number were selected randomly using the database software. Finally, a critical qualitative reading of the selected articles was carried out identifying the presence of ethical positions and the range of communitarian and cosmopolitan arguments (up to two per article) employed (see Table 1). One researcher coded the Bulgarian sample, and another was responsible for the UK sample. Before doing the final content analysis, a pre-coder test was used 30 percent of the UK articles were randomly selected to check agreement and inter-coder reliability was calculated to .94 using Holstis formula.

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Findings
In the UK newspapers, 1221 articles covering the year 2006 were identified using this process; in the Bulgarian newspapers the total was 379. After the identification of the topics, the articles discussing intra-EU migration (as first or second topic) were selected for the subsequent analysis. In the case of the UK this was 128 and for Bulgaria, 93. In order to equalize the samples, 93 articles were selected from the UK sample randomly (preserving the proportions from each newspaper). In the UK case, 88 articles were assigned at least one ethical frame and 20 were also assigned a secondary frame. In the Bulgarian case, 75 were assigned at least one ethical frame, and 25 were assigned a secondary frame. This demonstrated the overlapping nature of the frames, particularly communitarian arguments based on social and economic justifications for immigration controls on Eastern European workers. The following analysis considers the number of frames (108 for the UK, 100 for Bulgaria) rather than the number of articles (88 for the UK, 75 for Bulgaria). Figures 1 and 2 present the results. In the Bulgarian sample nearly a quarter (24 percent) of articles mentioning migration engaged with the topic of intra-EU migration (compared to 10 percent in the UK), indicating a greater prominence of the issue in the Bulgarian print media. Interestingly, 48 percent (45/93 articles) focused on Bulgarian immigration to the UK. This is regardless of the fact that in surveys the UK is not perceived as a preferred EU or world destination for Bulgarian emigrants.3 Many of these articles directly sourced (and acknowledged) British newspapers: 21 were based on stories from UK tabloids or broadsheets, particularly The Sun, Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph. On seven occasions articles from The Guardian (2), The Independent (2), The Economist (1), Financial Times (1) and the German Handelsblatt (1) were fully reproduced after a translation into Bulgarian. In both cases the majority of frames employed were communitarian, with this effect slightly stronger for the UK (76 percent, compared to 72 percent for Bulgaria). Out of these,
0% Domestic social justice Cultural protectionist Public security Liberal constitutionalist Patriotic prioritization Universalist cosmopolitanism Consequentialism Quotidian cosmopolitanism Bulgaria UK 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Figure 1. Ethical framing of intra-EU migration

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76%

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

72%

28%

24%

Bulgaria Communitarian

UK Cosmopolitan

Figure 2. Cosmopolitan/communitarian framing of intra-EU migration

domestic social justice (DSJ) was by far the most frequently employed communitarian frame in both cases, split into welfare-based (31 UK, 23 Bulgaria) and economic-based (21 UK, 21 Bulgaria) arguments. The cases differed slightly in terms of the prevalence of the other communitarian frames, with public security more commonplace in the UK, and the liberal constitutionalist frame completely absent in Bulgaria (see Table 2). There was wider divergence between the cases in terms of the prevalence of different cosmopolitan arguments. In Bulgaria, there were more cases of universalist cosmopolitanism (17/28) while in the UK consequentialism was the most common type of cosmopolitan framing (17/26). Quotidian cosmopolitanism was present in the UK (7/26) but absent in Bulgaria (see Table 3).

Case 1:The UK
Communitarian frames. The most common communitarian frame from our sample of the UK press was DSJ (53/82), i.e. the economic costs/benefits of immigration or strains on the welfare state as a result of immigration. The latter was the more common (31/53),

Table 2. Communitarian frames Prevalence 1 2 3 4 5 UK DSJ 53/82 Public security 13/82 Patriotic prioritization 11/82 Liberal constitutionalist 3/82 Cultural protectionist 2/82 Bulgaria DSJ 44/72 Patriotic prioritization 14/72 Public security 13/72 Cultural protectionism 1/72 Liberal constitutionalist 0/72

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Table 3. Cosmopolitan frames Prevalence 1 2 3 UK Consequentialism 17/26 Quotidian cosmopolitanism 7/26 Universalism 2/26 Bulgaria

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Universalism 17/28 Consequentialism 11/28 Quotidian cosmopolitanism 0/28

highlighting in particular the costs of education and housing due to immigration. The Daily Mail was the most active in putting this argument forward. For example, it (Daily Mail, 2 May 2006) expressed concern that it [immigration] has increased unemployment among Britons, as well as keeping wages low for less skilled jobs. Schools, hospitals and GPs also come under pressure. Daily Mail (29 November 2006) also used an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, criticizing conservative government immigration projections, as well as an Open Europe report warning about European benefit shoppers (Daily Mail, 5 May 2006). These concerns are also acknowledged by broadsheets for example The Guardian (8 December 2006) quotes a Home Office minister admitting anecdotal reports of schools struggling to cope and of overcrowding in private housing, i.e. a specific link between the need for immigration controls to ensure domestic social justice. Slightly fewer (21/53) justified free movement on the basis that this would increase national GDP. An example is the call from Business for New Europe for the open door approach to be extended to new EU members on the pages of The Guardian (6 September 2006): Britain had won an advantage over France and Germany by welcoming Eastern European workers. The tabloids make a similar claim. The Sun (16 May 2006) states that immigration is helping make Britain the economic powerhouse of Europe. . . . The day to worry is NOT when Romanian and Bulgarians arrive on our shores but when they decide to head for France and Germany instead. The different types of communitarian arguments for immigration controls overlap and interconnect. After DSJ, public security was the next most common justification for controls, often with a link between strains on public provision of services and public disorder. For example, on 31 July 2006 The Sun claimed that The NHS, already on its knees, will be swamped. Housing will run out. A flood of new workers will force wages down and some immigrants who cant get jobs will survive on the streets by begging and stealing and on 25 October 2006, Bulgaria and Romania are seen by Brussels as hubs of crime, corruption and gangland slaughter. Once in, they will provide a route into Europe for drugs, sex slavery and money-laundering from neighbouring states. By offering them an open door, Britain risks becoming the capital of organised crime. Cultural arguments for immigration controls have a long history in UK immigration policy, but relatively few articles in our sample ascribed specifically cultural justifications for immigration controls, which could be explained by the characteristics of intraEU migration (i.e. greater similarities between populations in terms of culture, education, religion, etc.). However, in The Daily Telegraph (24 August 2006) there was a conflation

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of intra-EU migration with concerns that the white population will decline slightly, and similar discussions of a drop in white Britain due to immigration/emigration in The Daily Telegraph (27 January 2006) and The Sun (27 January 2006). Those newspapers generally considered to represent the liberal press were keen to counter the claims of the Daily Mail and The Sun. This was done in a number of ways: by presenting neoliberal arguments (i.e. economic justifications) or a more liberal constitutionalist argument for closure (i.e. the need to enforce UK labour standards). Thus, The Independent (1 May 2006) reports a survey which confirms that migrant workers are exploited in a number of sectors. Unions need to step up their recruitment and government must do more to enforce legal standards. The Guardian (11 August 2006) argues that a proper [labour] inspectorate would make exploitation of migrants much more difficult. There were a range of arguments which drew on patriotic prioritization of citizens (for jobs, houses, etc.). A small number of articles linked intra-EU migration with the EU/ sovereignty debate. For a larger number nationalism was twisted into an opportunity to criticize certain sections of the population under the banner of lazy Britain a classic conservative frame on the welfare state. For example, the Daily Mail (22 November 2006) is positive about certain attributes of immigrants, and macroeconomic effects, but worries about vulnerable British: which employer is going to take a young British worker off incapacity benefit when he can take a bright, young, energetic and probably overqualified Pole? Another example is the Daily Telegraph (18 August 2006) with suggestions that uncontrolled immigration is putting Britons out of work. The lazy Britain frame can be seen as a kind of perverted patriotism, as observed on the pages of The Sun: We cannot continue to provide benefits, houses and welfare for the new arrivals. And we also cant continue to support the lifestyles of the workshy, layabouts and long-term useless (5 September 2006) and We live off their sweat and then we call them scroungers (24 August 2006). The Independent (21 August 2006) also raises the question of what are we to do with our native unemployables? Cosmopolitan frames. Examples of a cosmopolitan discourse are mainly found on the pages of The Independent, and to a lesser extent, The Guardian. On 4 August 2006, The Independent claimed that immigration changes attitudes, broadens outlooks and boosts the global economy. A headline from 23 August 2006 says Why our new arrivals are to be welcomed, not feared and continues Far from being a cause of trepidation or fear as some have tried to make it this should be a reason for wholehearted celebration. On 21 August 2006, The Independent suggests that mutual interest dictates our welcome for the next new Europeans. At the same time the difficulties are acknowledged The Guardian (23 August 2006), for example, openly admits that The argument for openness does not make for easy politics. Those considering the costs/benefits on a global scale (i.e. cosmopolitan consequentialist) were both positive and negative. The latter, for example, might be about how it will be disastrous for local poor, mixed in with some understanding offered for the poor, wretched of Europe. The cosmopolitan element is that consequences are still considered in a universal sense (i.e. not just for national economy). Some of the examples are from the Daily Mail: on 14 November 2006 the paper quotes (Conservative MP) Damien

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Green that The consequences are not only negative for the British people but also the immigrants who leave themselves open to exploitation. In the liberal press there is a tendency to denounce the arguments of the tabloids and suggest a more rational argument; although often this is where a consequentialist approach could be little more than communitarian arguments wrapped in cosmopolitan ideas. For example, The Guardian (4 September 2006) questions the global implications as not all positive (e.g. environmental impact of economic growth, contribution to growing inequality) I think the government is right to exercise caution, although for different reasons. So there is a cosmopolitan sheen but really just a restatement of DSJ using quasi-cosmopolitan arguments. Also, The Independent (13 July 2006) warns that the UK is taking a huge bet on globalization. Some of the claims are nakedly neoliberal, such as this made by The Independent (25 October 2006) government capitulates to public pressure, but the free market, for all its failings, is the only realistic way to decide how much labour our economy needs. Quotidian cosmopolitanism was found in articles noting the appearance of new music and culture as a result of immigration the classic example being the arrival of Polish products in the supermarkets. The Guardian (7 October 2006) discusses the benefits of new European visitors for the club scene, while The Independent (11 June 2006) applauds the crop of Polish delis that are sprouting up across the country.

Case 2: Bulgaria
Communitarian frames. As with the UK, DSJ was the most common justification for immigration controls. However, those articles expressing welfare chauvinism were usually linked to British newspaper sources. The Bulgarian print media effectively imported frames that argued intra-EU migration should be restricted because of education/housing costs, etc. An article from Dnevnik (18 August 2006), for example, discusses concerns about overcrowded public services and local authorities if the British government continues the policy of open doors, citing the Financial Times as a source. Statistical data from foreign and Bulgarian sources are sometimes used to counter such arguments, for example, Dnevnik (9 May 2006) reports on an Institute for Public Policy and Research (IPPR) seminar in London which announced that only around 14,000 Bulgarians would emigrate to UK. Another example from Dnevnik (9 May 2006) quotes the then Bulgarian deputy foreign minister Koldanova to discuss the unlikelihood of huge migration flows: preferences for emigration in Bulgaria in the last three years have decreased. Around 75 percent of Bulgarians do not intend to move at all, while those determined to emigrate are no more than 4 percent of the total population. Dnevnik (20 September 2006) reports on a European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) survey that suggests the fears of flooding by Bulgarians and Romanians are not justified. Another (communitarian) reaction to arguments against free movement is calls for Bulgaria to raise its own level of controls. Kapital (27 October 2006), for example, claims that experts believe it is a matter of a year or two before the country receives more people than are leaving. . . . Bulgaria has to stop pretending not to notice this and decide what policy it will have.

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Articles presenting economic arguments for migration controls contain stories both for and against free movement. For example Dnevnik (8 June 2006), discussing the UK, reports that incoming qualified workers had a reviving effect on the economy. The newspaper notes that Britain has taken advantage of the skills of the Polish plumbers, Hungarian doctors in the hospitals, Estonian engineers, Slovak scientists, etc.. Other articles argue that immigrants fill holes in the labour market in unattractive sectors of the economy, again sourcing British newspapers (The Independent), repeating Home Office research showing immigration contributes 2.5 billion to the UK economy every year (Dnevnik, 23 August 2006). The costs for Bulgaria as a sending country were also discussed. Dnevnik (31 January 2006) reported that Bulgaria loses over 13 billion BGN from the recruitment of Bulgarian specialists abroad. Effects on the labour market are also mentioned, particularly the loss of highly qualified people . . . which will put Bulgarian companies in a difficult position (Dnevnik, 20 October 2006). In addition, a link is established with Bulgarian policy on immigration into the country: Monitor (6 February 2006) quotes the head of the Economic and Social Council, Docent Lalko Dulevski, that a ban on labour emigration has to be introduced when the country becomes an external EU border . . . to stabilize the labour market and stimulate demographic development. The public security frame was identified in a number of articles and was again imported either directly representing views from other EU countries or countering these arguments (often repeating the claims). A very telling example of the latter is contained in the interview with the Bulgarian foreign minister Kalfin in Trud (8 September 2006), where the criminality of Bulgarian immigrants is discussed. He argues that Bulgaria is not a criminal threat out of 80,000 prisoners in British prisons, only eight are Bulgarians. Last year there were around 50 Bulgarians [convicted of] small crimes, among which is outstaying their visa. Another example is a quote from Dnevnik (23 July 2006) (based on material from The Sunday Times): the ban on work will be in order to reduce the possibility for people who are suspected of having links with the criminal world or representing a threat to security, to remain in UK. Linkages between DSJ and public security were found in the words of the British MEP Geoffrey van Orden (Dnevnik, 22 November 2006) who suggests that Western countries punish Bulgarians and Romanians for the failure of their own immigration policy in the last years . . . both the government and the society find a scapegoat in the face of Bulgaria and Romania. . . . I am trying to explain that from next year we will not be flooded by a wave of 9 million Bulgarians, that not all immigrants are criminals and HIV-positive. In essence, these words can be seen as indirectly expressing a preference for EU immigration, at the expense of non-EU immigration; national communitarianism is replaced by EU communitarianism. Patriotic prioritization (14/72) and cultural protectionism (1/72) were two more frames that were mainly imported from foreign media. The former mainly focused on the impact on indigenous British workers, especially the most vulnerable among them. An example is the following from Sega (6 July 2006): 80 percent of the new arrivals who have registered earn 4.506.00 an hour, this has led to a lowering of wages, for example in construction, also undermining the welfare state.

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Only one instance of cultural protectionism was discovered in the Bulgarian press, again appearing in connection with the UK. Dnevnik (15 August 2006) reported how the former Labour minister Frank Field when asking for the closure of the British borders for new-coming workers claimed that along with welfare effects, immigration threatened the very essence of our society. Cosmopolitan frames. The most frequent cosmopolitan frame (17/28) was universalist, associated with a supportive stance on free movement, and using rights-based arguments for open access to the EU and equal treatment. Some articles pointed out the hypocrisy that many reluctant receiving countries (mainly the UK) were also a source of emigration. An article in Sega (8 November 2006), for example, complained that Brits expect other people to be happy about their presence and at the same time to beg them for reciprocal hospitality. The same newspaper (Sega, 27 October 2006) also criticized the UKs historical use of foreign labour, such as the (postwar) European voluntary worker system: it was hardly democratic arrivals had no right to change job or marry, and were deported for the slightest of reasons. A key way of communicating cosmopolitanism was by questioning the proper treatment of citizens in the international arena, i.e. putting Bulgaria in an unequal position compared to the 10 countries who joined the EU in 2004 (Standart, 25 October 2006). Similarly, Standart (13 December 2006) quotes a Bulgarian living in Ireland: Bulgarians are treated as third-class citizens, behind the other countries that joined in 2004. There wont be welcoming flourishes for us. Cosmopolitan arguments are also made using politicians voices mainly of receiving countries. The then prime minister, Tony Blair, is reported as saying I dont want to live in a closed society . . . I want an open society with rules, a society that is proud of its tolerance and fights for justice not only within its own borders, but outside them too (Dnevnik, 13 September 2006). Sega (27 November 2006) quotes the then deputy social affairs minister of Poland, Bogdan Socha, saying that If you want to achieve a united Europe, to build social conditions and standards, you cannot impose restrictions on the labour market . . . the new 12 member states, including Bulgaria and Romania, continue to be that part of the continent where workers earn a lot less. Consequentialist arguments were present to a lesser extent and often came close to communitarian arguments such as economic nationalism. An example of the cost/benefit assessment of immigration beyond the national-level scale is the following from Dnevnik (8 June 2006), which criticizes the fears around enlargement, pointing out that expert advice that these fears were unfounded, based on previous migrations, have been dismissed and ignored. Consequentialist arguments were also expressed through links between controls and rises in illegal migration: The hysterical campaign against immigration from Bulgaria and Romania has closed the doors of the UK labour market. . . . According to experts, restrictions will only increase the number of illegal workers in both countries (Sega, 27 November 2006).

Discussion and conclusions

In terms of our three hypotheses, the results were mixed. There was support for the proposition that there would be a greater number of articles employing communitarian

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frames than cosmopolitan ones in both cases (hypothesis 1). In the UK, the ratio between communitarian and cosmopolitan frames was 82:26 and in Bulgaria 72:28. There were also proportionately more cases of cosmopolitan frames in the Bulgarian case than in the UK (hypothesis 2), but this was marginal in overall terms: cosmopolitan frames in the Bulgarian press represented 28 percent of the total, compared to 24 percent for the UK. However, there were more marked differences in the kinds of cosmopolitan frames: a universalist frame was more common for Bulgaria, while consequential arguments were more frequent in the UK press. This provides limited support for hypothesis 3, and is in contrast to the similarities between the two cases in terms of communitarian frames, but this latter effect was due to the considerable importation of frames from the UK to Bulgaria. Overall, the fit between our typology of ethical frames derived from political theory and the media reporting of intra-EU migration was good. Our framework is valuable for media analysis because it identifies how discourse on policy issues is framed by underlying ethical positions. This allowed us to consider the politics of hospitality in Europe through the eyes of the media. Instead of being alarmed by stories linking immigrants with crime, disease and poverty, we asked what kinds of justifications for immigration controls are present in the public debate. If the justification for immigration controls is public security, should we be surprised if spurious or exaggerated links are then made between immigration and crime? Likewise, if controls are supported on the basis of cultural protectionism is the space then opened for stories claiming that immigrants pollute or swamp national identity? What we found was a dehumanized debate, with free movement presented in an instrumental way related to macroeconomic outcomes. This reflects the dominant policy frame of managed migration because the majority of articles in both cases were found to justify migration controls on the basis of costs/benefits to the nation-state (the economy or the welfare state). The framework was not perfect there were articles in each case where we could not identify an ethical frame, and this was more so with the Bulgarian sample than that of the UK (UK 5, Bulgaria 18). Generally these were articles that maintained maximum distance and tried hard to deal with the issue without engaging with the ethical debate. We suspect that a number of those that were self-consciously neutral/objective belied an underlying or submerged liberal unease with communitarian arguments against free movement. The point is that instead of countering with cosmopolitan arguments, they tended to focus on putting the record straight in terms of facts, rather than any underlying principles, thereby arguably perpetuating the communitarian frame. Intra-EU mobility and the advent of European citizenship are seen by some as rendering obsolete old frames about immigration (Favell, 2008). Our evidence, and particularly the lack of cultural arguments in the UK case, partly backs this up. It also reflects the specificities of intra-EU migration, as less racially noticeable than some other immigration categories. However, the dominance of communitarian frames in both cases, and the importation and reproduction of articles from the UK in the Bulgarian press, is illustrative of the endemic nature of communitarianism in the media. Our results show that the media generally frame intra-EU migration with nationalist, communitarian arguments. Interestingly, these frames cannot always be logically deduced from that countrys presumed interests vis-a-vis immigration (as predominantly

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sending or receiving country, for example). The communitarianism we found in the Bulgarian press is distinct from that in the UK because it is communitarianism by proxy the frames are imported (mainly from the UK itself) and form a large part of the content. This transmission of ideas and information reverses the roles of sending and receiving country. This effect contributed to the sense of a lack of variation between the two cases particularly surprising considering the differences in terms of media system/ political system type, journalistic culture, etc. One possibility is that communitarian frames on immigration have viral qualities spreading from country to country because of their simplicity, attractiveness or fit with other types of nationalisms (and despite their lack of fit with actual circumstances). It is also possible that we are witnessing the effects of changing journalistic practices (i.e. tight deadlines, demand for content, reduced reporting quality) (Lewis et al., 2008), or a pan-European variant of what Davies (2009) describes as churnalism. Each of these represents potentially fruitful lines of enquiry, but our work also provides evidence of a communicative linkage between two EU member states a phenomenon linked with discussions of Europeanization (Pfetsch, 2008). Our results chime with the horizontal form of Europeanization which can be divided into stronger and weaker forms (Koopmans and Erbe, 2004). The former refers to coverage in one country of debates in another, the latter to actors explicitly addressing or referring to actors/ policies in another state. Our findings were a mixture of strong and weak forms, but the effects were found predominantly in the Bulgarian case, suggesting that in this instance horizontal Europeanization is one-directional. This asymmetry has implications for discussions about horizontal Europeanization because the effects are not neutral. The transference of debates opens the possibility that new ideas can be smuggled into public discourse ideas that might not even apply to the new context in which they are used i.e. possibly leading to the skewing of national debates. Analysis of a larger number of cases over a longer time-period would be useful in order to explore these effects further. Our results suggest that future research on media framing in Europe should pay closer attention to the ways in which national media systems communicate with each other: we found that if one part of Europe is discussed in another, foreign can become national opening channels for different kinds of ideas to travel in the EU. Widening this to the mediapolicy relationship, this also presents a fascinating empirical and theoretical challenge in terms of charting how intra-EU effects might influence and shape national policy debates. Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. During this research Dr Balch was funded by a post-doctoral fellowship awarded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council).

Notes
1. Bulgaria and Romania were due to join the EU on 1 January 2007 but the accession date was only confirmed by the European Commission on publication of the Monitoring Report on 26 September 2006.

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2. The sample included news articles, editorials and letters. 3. Gallup International Poll (September 2006), reported by Dnevnik (12 September 2006). Bulgarians preferred work destination was Spain, then Germany, the USA, Greece, Brazil, Canada, France followed by the UK and Ireland.

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