In this study, we offer a novel approach to research on migration reporting by focusing on the argumentative substance prevalent in different online outlets. Taking German refugee policy as our case in point we map the role that moral, ethical–cultural, legal, and pragmatic argumentations play within journalistic, partisan, and activist outlets; and how these coincide with incivility and impoliteness. Using dictionary-based content analysis on a data set of 34,819 articles from thirty online news outlets published between April 10, 2017, and April 10, 2018, we find that legacy mainstream media, partisan media, and activist media perform vastly different functions for the larger public sphere. We observe that human rights activist media perform an advocatory function by making the moral case for refugees, whereas corrosive partisan media at the fringe—particularly within the contra-refugee camp—often present opponents as inherently illegitimate enemies. Implications for public sphere theory and directions for future research on emerging and legacy media are discussed.

在这项研究中，我们通过关注不同在线商店中普遍存在的争论性物质，为移民报告研究提供了一种新颖的方法。以德国难民政策为例，我们绘制了道德，伦理文化，法律和务实论证在新闻，党派和激进主义者中所扮演的角色。以及这些与不文明和不礼貌相吻合的方式。通过对2017年4月10日至2018年4月10日发布的30个在线新闻媒体的34,819篇文章的数据集进行基于字典的内容分析，我们发现传统主流媒体，游击党媒体和激进主义者媒体在为媒体执行的功能上有很大不同更大的公共领域。我们观察到，人权活动家媒体通过为难民提供道义上的主张来行使提倡功能，而边缘地区的腐蚀性党派媒体（尤其是在难民营中）经常将对手视为天生的非正当敌人。讨论了公共领域理论的含义以及对新兴媒体和传统媒体未来研究的方向。