Interview by: Ana Cristina Pereira and Sílvia Roque
Edited by: Camilla Morello
Abstract by: Laura Marquesan
Language editing by: Daniela S. Jorge Ayoub

Este podcast faz parte da série de 28 podcasts realizados sobre o caso português e italiano no âmbito do projeto de investigação de 36 meses (2018-2021)

(De)Othering: Desconstruindo o Risco e a Alteridade: guiões hegemónicos e contra-narrativas sobre migrantes/refugiados e “Outros internos” nas paisagens mediáticas em Portugal e na Europa, que pretendeu analisar criticamente representações mediáticas de migrantes, refugiados e “outros internos” em Portugal e na Europa, mapeando as suas interconexões com narrativas produzidas no domínio da segurança e no quadro da Guerra ao Terrorismo. O seu foco, uma análise de Portugal à luz de estudos de caso europeus profundamente afetados por ameaças terroristas (Reino Unido e França) e por fluxos migratórios/de refugiados (Itália e Alemanha), pretende investigar a construção de narrativas transnacionais de risco que permeiam a Europa independentemente da sua exposição “diferenciada”.

O projeto foi financiado pelo pelo FEDER – Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional através do COMPETE 2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) e por fundos nacionais através da FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Referencia Projeto: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029997)

----- English Version

This podcast is part of a series of  28 podcasts produced on the Portuguese and the Italian cases as outputs of the research undertaken in the 36 months project (2018-2021) (De)Othering: Deconstructing Risk and Otherness: hegemonic scripts and counter-narratives on migrants/refugees and ‘internal Others’ in Portuguese and European mediascapes that sets out to critically examine media representations on migrants, refugees and ‘internal Others’ in Portugal and across Europe while mapping out their interconnections with particular narratives in the field of security and within the War on Terror. Its focus – an analysis of Portugal in the light of other European cases affected by terrorist threats (United Kingdom and France) and by migrant/refugee flows (Italy and Germany) – aims to explore the construction of transnational narratives of risk pervading Europe regardless of the ‘differential’ exposure to them.

The project was funded by FEDER – European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE 2020 – Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), and by Portuguese funds through FCT in the framework of the project 029997 (Reference: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029997).

Catarina Santos is a journalist who won the Gazeta Multimédia award in 2015 for her report about migration and refugee crisis. In the beginning of this episode she talks briefly about the award, which held the possibility to go to Turkey to do the news follow-up. For her, the biggest challenge facing journalists and the media is to stir up curiosity and the desire to know more from readers. Since 2014, she has been engaged in this topic and, from her point-of-view, over time, people naturalize and trivialize death. The first vessel to sink on the European coast drew attention and sensitized the population, for this to happen again, an even greater number of deaths will be needed, and so on. Aylan Kurdi made an impact because it made many people imagine their children and grandchildren, because in general children end up sensitizing the population more. In this sense, she emphasizes that there is a part that is the responsibility of journalists and another that is also of the readers. Sometimes there is a lot of time and money invested in a journalistic piece and only little diffusion, because people are no longer interested in the topic. When she came back from Greece and from Lesbos, she had a lot of material, a lot of videos and stories, but she didn't quite know what to do with them, as society was already fed up with the topic of migration. From this came the idea of creating short videos, with reports from 5 or 6 people. The main idea was that it would be possible to give a face and a name to the numbers and thus, perhaps, sensitize more people and make the news broadcast more, although not everyone would read the texts, in addition to watching the videos.

In addition, Catarina emphasizes that media are also communication companies and therefore have interests and goals, many of them financial. Thus, to achieve these goals, there is a specific agenda that must be fulfilled and because of this, journalists do not have full autonomy to be developing their texts with time and depth. For her, the biggest challenge is to reconcile the company's interests with quality and informative content.