Keyword – national elections

Farkas, Eszter – Farkas, Attila:

“Ukrainian migrants, migrant migrants”

After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, a partially different government communication and media discourse on immigration emerged in Hungary, the Hungarian government communicating a significantly more inclusive narrative about the refugees arriving from Ukraine than before. Based on the “model minority” myth, our research aim was to find out whether this different media and political environment has led to changes in individual attitudes, too. To answer this question, we conducted focus group discussions in which we presented different types of media content to the participants and asked them to reflect on the issue of immigration. Our findings suggest that different attitudes towards different groups of migrants from Ukraine and from the Arab and African countries can be captured mainly by the usage of the word “migrant,” which justifies the effectiveness of changing government communication.

Keywords: focus group, immigration attitudes, model minority myth, national elections, war in Ukraine