A Bio-Political Construction: The Representation of Refugees and Migrants. From the ‘Reel’ to the ‘Real’

The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent information communication technologies affect public perception. An analytical review of innovative methods and applications of ICT’s will be made. A deep analysis comparing local and global mainstream media coverage will be used to gauge the effects of the normalization of war and political strife imagery on public perception. Specifically a subset of migrants (e.g., Palestinian, Syrian) will be examined to assess the effects of this phenomenon on the refugee population in Lebanon. The results of this open-ended research endeavour will advance knowledge in human perception by gaining a better understanding of how communication technologies of the past and those of today compare the influx of Syrian refugees in Lebanon to that of Palestinians. Moreover, it questions how this migration influences the application of laws (that have been on the books but never applied), and what comparison can be made between media coverage of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 as opposed to Syrian refugees in today’s post-modern mobile and satellite connectivity? Specifically, this study’s scope revolves on how media representation facilitates negative or positive feelings towards the plight of refugees.