The Influence of the Media upon Immigration Politics in the UK

Abstract

The question as to what drives immigration policy is much-debated. The conventional wisdom holds that in Western Europe, since labor migration policy constitutes such a major component of overall immigration policy, special interests are able to influence policy largely beyond the scrutiny of public opinion. Recent scholarship has questioned this depiction, making the claim that in the UK, it is government elites who have the power to develop policy in relative autonomy from both the public and organized civil society. This paper challenges both viewpoints by examining the role that the media plays in mobilizing public opinion toward more restrictive policy. In particular, it demonstrates that heightened media focus on issues such as the number of new immigrants entering the UK, unemployment, rising public service costs, and agency scandal has impacted the way policy can now be debated and that this has actually helped produce concrete policy reform in some areas.

Keywords: Immigration, Western Europe, UK, media and politics