The Rise of Far-Right in Europe: Refugees Crisis and the Role of Mass Media

Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on Management, Economics, and Finance

Year: 2019

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd.icmef.2019.11.732

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The Rise of Far-Right in Europe: Refugees Crisis and the Role of Mass Media

Apostolia Gkika and Gregorios Siourounis

 

 

ABSTRACT: 

This article assesses the degree and the channels through which European mass media coverage of random arrivals of refugees to European soil, and in particular in Greece, are associated with the voting intentions of European citizens for far right parties. This paper challenge cross-sectional findings that refugee flows in Greek islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos between 1 January 2016 and 28 April 2019 have indirect effect on voting intention for far-right party via media coverage. The analysis uses fixed effects as well as time dummies to capture both time invariant and time variant country specific characteristics. The panel estimates imply that cumulative refugee flows in Greek islands have stronger effect on opinion poll for far-right parties in Europe by media coverage.

Keywords: refugee flow, European Union, voting behavior, far right, rolling polls.