Dr. James Dennison

Public communication has the potential to do enormous good for humanity. Regarding migration, public communication can be used to meet widely agreed-upon policy objectives such as safe, orderly, and regular migration. Moreover, it can help governments uphold democratic legal- and rights-based policy frameworks against nefarious forces and contribute to maximising the potential benefits and minimising the potential costs of migration to origin, transit, and host country populations, as well as to migrants themselves. In line with ongoing research from the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the EUROMED Migration programme on how to use public communication to re-balance migration narratives and protect the rights, safety, and opportunities of migrants, this report asks how we can use persuasive communication to achieve policy goals regarding irregular migration. It gathers lessons learned and provides practical recommendations, with a particular focus on the Euro-Mediterranean region and the activities of the European Union.

Emotions are regularly cited as vital components of effective strategic communication in the world of migration and beyond. However, until this report, there was relatively little guidance about how emotions should be used in migration policy communication. Emotions are vital to persuasion because attitudes have a cognitive (thinking) component and an emotional (feeling) component. Moreover, eliciting emotions causes involuntary but predictable physiological and behavioural reactions. Emotions can be used in communication to make one’s messages more resonant and impactful on both attitudes and behaviours, supporting policy objectives via persuasion.

Communicators should choose the desired emotional reaction according to the desired physiological and behavioural reaction using existing psychological schema, one of which this report analyses with 32 separate emotions and physiological reactions. Eliciting unsuitable emotions may have adverse reactions from audiences. Communicators can use this report’s recommendation and framework to ensure that the emotions, physiological and desired behaviours of their campaigns are aligned and thus effective. Narratives, personal-based messages, facial expressions, body language, and aesthetics can be used to create emotional resonance and reduce psychological distance. Frames, ordering (“emotional flow”), intensities, and certain combinations can also be used to elicit different emotions with predictable outcomes.

Emotions should be used to make one’s argument more resonant but the argument should not be simply based on the emotional reaction—the “appeal to emotion” logical fallacy. Indeed, for emotion-based communication to work, it should also use facts, values, identities, and efficacy. Emotion-based communication in the field of migration, although widely used, is largely untested—communicators should test different approaches but also can take lessons from other fields such as corporate, health, and climate change communications.

This report critically analyses 10 examples of good emotion-based migration communication, highlighting the different emotions and physiological reactions that they are likely to induce, and to what extent these are in line with the communication campaign’s stated objectives.

This report draws on recent scholarly advances to better specify what narratives are and to explain variation in their popularity before considering how their effects on immigration policy preferences varies. The study then considers the popularity of eight simple migration narratives — four positive, four negative — in eight countries across the Euro-Mediterranean region today using recent World Values Survey data. Finally, the extent to which belief in each of these narratives affects one’s preferred immigration policy is tested.

The report forms part of the Phase III Euromed Migration Communications Study. This chapter considers how and why these dramatic changes in the importance of the issue, or salience of immigration, occurred in European politics. It combines findings from various scientific sources to produce a theoretical framework that explains how salience affects electoral outcomes, both in terms of turnout and results, and ultimately public policy via emotional activation, exposure to information and evaluation of politicians.