Public discourse on pandemic is largely framed by media, which in course of time becomes the 
common narrative of the tragic times. But media too is framed by rules, norms and interest groups, which find expression the way news, stories, and the narratives, are covered and ‘prepared’ for mass consumption. From narrating the trials and tribulations of work, migrants in their journeys from urban centres to rural pockets, to labelling the overseas returned migrants as ‘Covid Bombs’ were some of the portrayals that emerged during an international webinar organised by Delhi-based Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT). The international webinar, “Media Narratives on Migrants During COVID-19”, was attended by more than 218 participants including policy makers, academicians, researchers, journalists and others.
Dr Pedro Oiarzabal, Social Innovation Research, Arima Social Lab, Spain, who moderated the webinar, shared that both media and the government of Spain played a positive role during the trying times. While media brought forth the terrible sufferings of migrant workers, the government had been issuing monthly pay checks to people who were out of job and had no support system. Oiarzabal said that media was quick to raise the issue of loss in rural economy because of mass migration of workers. As a result, the rural economy of Spain was collapsing. This also created an unprecedented case leading to shortage of manpower in production of fruits and vegetables. “Spaniards do not want to work in rural hard job sector, which was hitherto looked after by the migrant works,” he said. This has led to shortage in production and supply of rural commodities.
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Prof. Stephany H. Donald, University of Lincoln, UK, who was one of the panellists, differentiated various types of narratives that emerged in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic. She spoke about media coverage of three related issues namely the long-term Chinese residents in the UK, the migrant crises in various sectors and overall narrative about them vis-à-vis their media coverage. Prof. Stephany said that a spike in key workers’ arrival in the UK was responded with radicalised narrative. The narrative related to long-term residents like doctors, nurses and health workers were positive. While the ongoing narrative related to Chinese migrants, who were seen by some groups with ‘fear’ was not adequately reported.
It was the humanitarian works of people and health workers, which formed the main narrative in the mainstream media alongside racialised, and discriminatory aspect of new arrivals that were blamed for bringing in the virus along with them.
Prof Stephany emphasised the colonialist history in mainstream narrative during the pandemic times.
Highlighting visa access to British nationals in Hong Kong, she said that there were some 315,000 people who had arrived from Hong Kong into the UK. In 95 per cent of the cases, their families were not issued visa. She also highlighted the contradictory narrative related to migrants in the media after passing of a Bill on May 18 related to arrival of 25,600 key workers in the UK.
Elaborating on the media coverage of Sri Lankan Gulf returnee migrants, Dilrukshi Handunnetti, Executive 
Director, Centre for Investigative Reporting, Sri Lanka, highlighted the discriminatory and derogatory narrative that had shaped in the media. Such coverage was more gender discriminatory as women were not seen as equal partners and recipient of social benefits back at home in Sri Lanka, despite the country having a Migrant Returnee Policy which was passed in 2015. Dilrukshi said that 40 percent of migrant workers in the Gulf were domestic workers and a large number of them were women who have problem accessing health and hygiene facilities. The dominant narrative about them in media was negative, generalised and stereotyped, which makes them easy victim in accessing COVID-19 treatment. She brought forth the case of woman domestic workers who had come from Kuwait and after coming to Sri Lanka she had died. The Kuwait authorities did not take any responsibility of her wellbeing in such difficult times when she was in the host country.
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Dilrukshi said that the dominant narrative related to migrant workers, who had come from the Gulf, was predominantly negative and they were labelled as ‘COVID Bombs’ by the media. The local TV news channels and print media both responded with fear and there were voices of sending them back to where they had come from. Sri Lanka is a remittance economy and there was no heroism attached to their struggle once they had landed in Sri Lanka, Dilrukshi said. There was no sympathy or empathy towards them, neither from the media nor from the public.
Most media organisations followed one-sided coverage of the pandemic-induced return migration.
The dominant narrative, especially related to women workers, was discriminatory and generalised and despite the country having returnee policy, they were deprived of their due rights in general and health facilities in particular, she said.
R.K. Radhakrishnan, Associate Editor, Frontline magazine, while speaking on the occasion, brought forth the issues of international and internal migrant workers, both of whom were seen desperate to return home. Radhakrishnan said that there were 10 million Indian workers in the six Gulf countries and out of which 1.2 million were from the state of Kerala alone. He said that they have been a major source of foreign remittances, which touched US$ 180 billion last year. As more and more cases of COVID-19 were reported from the Gulf, there was real fear palpable among the blue-collar workers. The condition of undocumented workers, who were running out of money in an alien country, was worse as they had no support system. Both the groups of international and internal migrant workers were seen with suspicion in their receiving places as a transmitter of coronavirus. The stigma continued to be attached and so are the responses from the communities. While highlighting the role of media in COVID-19 coverage, Radhakrishnan said the pandemic-induced economic slowdown has led to a large number of media persons losing their jobs, and those who have been on the field have suffered grievously because of COVID-19 infection during the course of their reporting.
Ismail Einashe, Senior Journalist, Lost in Europe, UK, said that migrant works are the most marginalised community in their receiving countries and had to face lots of hardship during the course of their journey back home. Many of them were stuck because of closed borders and as a result they were neither able to live there nor allowed to go home. He highlighted the cases of Ethiopians and Libyans stuck in various places including Greece. He said that it was unfortunate that COVID-induced lockdown was cashed in by some of national governments for setting up political agendas as was evident in Greece, which has a right-wing political party in power. Likewise, Austria used the opportunity to suspend the rights of people and close its borders finding an excuse in the pandemic. Zimbabwe has come out with policies, which is targeting migrant workers, he said.
Einashe said that as a result of lockdown hundreds of Nigerian girls have been held back in Sicily. A similar narrative has also emerged in other countries like Spain, Italy and South Africa where hundreds of migrant workers are spending their lives in confinement and quarantine. He said that there have been cases of media framing in the COVID-19 pandemic coverage. Media coverage were found to be discriminatory and serving the cause of a particular class of people. It has led to reactionary and binary framing in terms of fake news and its propaganda in social media.
(Note: This is the Part 1 of the two-part news article of the GRFDT webinar on “Media Narratives on Migrants During COVID-19”)
