Explicating the role of facts and narratives in the contemporary migration management: global and European efforts

Images, narratives and conceptual inventions are prominent parts of migration and immigration politics and constantly used as tools of framing the issue anywhere. The emergence of the hybrid media space has made the need to control and define the agendas with carefully selected strategies ever more a prominent feature of governance as well. It is no longer possible to ignore the contemporary channels of information as crucial sites of power struggle in the politics of migration. In recent years, international organisations have also become more active in recognising the role of narratives and discourses in global, regional and local debates. It has also been recognised that the various campaigns of spreading disinformation are not only harmful for individuals with migrant backgrounds, but also reproduce migration and immigration as polarising political topics in international arenas of cooperation. In the 2018 Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration (United Nations General Assembly 2018, A/RES/73/195), the first outlined objective is to “Collect and utilize accurate and disaggregated data as a basis for evidence-based policies” (p. 7/36). Furthermore, objective no 3 is to “Provide accurate and timely information at all stages of migration”, which refers to the state’s role as a responsible provider of information in all their activities, i.e.” for and between States, communities and migrants at all stages of migration” (p. 10). At the same time, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has engaged with the debate on false information, narratives and construction of images by with a publication of a report and toolkit of discussing migration and human rights, entitled “10 keys to effectively communicating human rights” (FRA 2018). The aim of the publication was not only to support human rights defenders and activists, but also to influence in the way human rights had become to be seen something only belonging to the few. This article aims at analysing these efforts as part of a larger movement to strengthen the legitimacy of the international rule-based system. It addresses the conflicting views of the EU members states in the process of negotiating for the GCM and the difficulty of dealing with migration as a political issue within the Union. The objective is to show how the states as the responsible actors in the international system are trying to deal with the challenge of false facts, use of media space and public agenda settings.