The Shifting Boundaries of Inclusion: A Comparative Study of Minoritized Group Coverage.

In different European contexts political discourses have increasingly shifted toward conservative, exclusionary and illiberal positions, reshaping the conditions under which minoritized groups (MGs) are represented in the public sphere (Štětka & Mihelj, 2024). For this study we focus on Poland and Germany as two countries that illustrate two distinct trajectories within this broader trend: Poland is currently re-liberalizing while Germany faces the rise of an illiberal political party. Exploring the implications of illiberalism for communicative spaces, recent scholarship has articulated the term “illiberal public sphere” as a space where traditional and new media promote and amplify illiberal actors and views. In these contexts, news media become central sites in which inclusion and exclusion are negotiated or challenged, influencing the social belonging, legitimacy, or rights of MGs. News media influences how MGs enter public debate, and the platforming of exclusionary views has been found to impact MGs’ lives. Despite the importance of the media in this dynamic, research has focused mainly on the U.S. and the U.K. and analysis tends to span short time periods and singular media types. Comparisons of MGs' representations between countries are not common, and neither are between-group comparisons. To address these gaps, this paper asks the following questions: 1) How do minoritized groups representations differ between German and Polish news media? 2) Are there patterns in the representation of minoritized groups across 10 years? and 3) How do broadsheet and tabloid outlets differ in the extent to which they platform or challenge exclusionary portrayals of MGs? This paper uses computational text analysis to compare the representation of groups considered polarizing (migrants, LGBTQ+ people) and non-polarizing (disabled people) in Polish and German broadsheet and tabloid newspapers of different political leaning over ten years. We analyze salience, stance and topic distribution of articles about MGs because these aspects are tied to their visibility and their positioning as targets of support or opposition, contributing to dynamics of inclusion or exclusion. The study examines the conditions under which MGs become visible and how their portrayal varies across different media formats in countries with illiberal leaders who are platformed in their public spheres. By tracing changes in the salience, stance and topic distribution of different MGs over time, the paper offers empirical leverage for understanding if and how illiberal views become articulated in news coverage.