Mid-market papers use term, banned by the Associated Press, more often than tabloids or broadsheets, according to study
Mid-market newspapers, including the Daily Mail and Daily Express, labelled immigrants as "illegal" in 10% of the stories they wrote about migration in the past three years, according to a study by Oxford University.
Researchers found that the mid-market titles, which include the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express, were more likely to use the term "illegal" to describe immigrants than their tabloid or broadsheet competitors.
The mid-market papers used the contentious phrase before the word "immigrant" in 10% of all their articles on the topic, compared with 6.6% of tabloid articles and 5% of broadsheet articles, according to the analysis of 58,300 national newspaper articles on immigration between 2010 and 2012.
Use of the phrase "illegal immigrant" has been controversial for some time, with some complaining that it dehumanises the person it seeks to describe. The world's biggest newsgathering agency, Associated Press, banned the phrase from its reporting earlier this year as other organisations – including USA Today, the LA Times and the New York Times – urged writers to avoid using it outside direct quotes.
The study found that asylum seekers are most commonly described in newspapers as "failed". Refugees, on the other hand, are depicted as "fleeing" an area and often associated with international crises, by use of the terms "war", "camp" and "UN".
Researchers Dr Scott Blinder and William Allen, of Oxford University's Migration Observatory, said: "The predominance of 'illegal' as a modifier of immigrants, and to a lesser extent migrants, clearly stands out. 'Illegal' far outnumbered any other modifier of immigrants, across all three publication types.
"Aside from the political controversies around this very phrase, it is worth noting that immigrants with legal status far outnumber those without it, according to the best estimates of the size of both types of migrant populations."
Researchers described as "striking" their finding that eastern Europe and the European Union have emerged as the main geographic reference point in stories about immigrants and migrants, particularly in tabloids such as the Sun and Daily Mirror.
"Mid-markets and especially broadsheets included a wider variety of geographic terms, but in tabloids the EU and eastern Europe were the only geographic terms that consistently collocated with immigrants and migrants," the researchers said in the study, Migration in the News: Portrayals of Immigrants, Migrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees in National British Newspapers, 2010 to 2012.
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Mid-market newspapers, including the Daily Mail and Daily Express, labelled immigrants as "illegal" in 10% of the stories they wrote about migration in the past three years, according to a study by Oxford University.
Researchers found that the mid-market titles, which include the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express, were more likely to use the term "illegal" to describe immigrants than their tabloid or broadsheet competitors.
The mid-market papers used the contentious phrase before the word "immigrant" in 10% of all their articles on the topic, compared with 6.6% of tabloid articles and 5% of broadsheet articles, according to the analysis of 58,300 national newspaper articles on immigration between 2010 and 2012.
Use of the phrase "illegal immigrant" has been controversial for some time, with some complaining that it dehumanises the person it seeks to describe. The world's biggest newsgathering agency, Associated Press, banned the phrase from its reporting earlier this year as other organisations – including USA Today, the LA Times and the New York Times – urged writers to avoid using it outside direct quotes.
The study found that asylum seekers are most commonly described in newspapers as "failed". Refugees, on the other hand, are depicted as "fleeing" an area and often associated with international crises, by use of the terms "war", "camp" and "UN".
Researchers Dr Scott Blinder and William Allen, of Oxford University's Migration Observatory, said: "The predominance of 'illegal' as a modifier of immigrants, and to a lesser extent migrants, clearly stands out. 'Illegal' far outnumbered any other modifier of immigrants, across all three publication types.
"Aside from the political controversies around this very phrase, it is worth noting that immigrants with legal status far outnumber those without it, according to the best estimates of the size of both types of migrant populations."
Researchers described as "striking" their finding that eastern Europe and the European Union have emerged as the main geographic reference point in stories about immigrants and migrants, particularly in tabloids such as the Sun and Daily Mirror.
"Mid-markets and especially broadsheets included a wider variety of geographic terms, but in tabloids the EU and eastern Europe were the only geographic terms that consistently collocated with immigrants and migrants," the researchers said in the study, Migration in the News: Portrayals of Immigrants, Migrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees in National British Newspapers, 2010 to 2012.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email media@guardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.