Mass media and border securitization in Europe: Investigating the metropolitan “Mediapolis” in an era of right-wing populism

Abstract

Mass migration of non-Europeans into Schengen Europe and the terrorist attacks perpetrated in the name of Islam in various cities in the European Union have led to a series of mediated public debates on the control of the nation-state border over the past few years. Right-wing populist parties have been prominent in structuring these debates. However, can the urban media, and specifically the commercial ones often accused of sensationalism, be considered as tools that promote the securitization and progressive closure of the state border within Schengen Europe? Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the representation of non-European migration and terrorism by a metropolitan commercial paper in borderland France, the current article shows that reporters can be instead instrumental in the definition of a “Mediapolis” that is a debordered, global, and moral space of mediated appearances helping to deal with international crises. The promotion of this Mediapolis is presented as the result of multiple spatial and temporal conditions in a series of interconnected cities contained in the French nation-state.