Media Securitization of the Migration Process on the so-called Balkan Route: Case Study – Serbia and North Macedonia

Abstract

The issue of migration received media attention in Serbia and North Macedonia when thousands of economic migrants and refugees tried to reach Western European countries through the Balkan route. The media of these countries did not have a clear picture of migration. Regional media have had experience only with the refugee flows since the Yugoslavian civil wars. But, a new wave of migrants and the huge media interest in the Balkan route has opened several questions: How to deal with the vast number of people trying to cross the borders illegally; On which criteria to classify the economic migrants or war refugees; How to protect human rights and also protect the local population; How to manage all that in globalized media networks. The goal of the paper is to show, through the Balkan route example, how the migrant issues in regional relations have taken a significant place in national and regional security strategies, and also, how this issue is securitized by the media in the Western Balkans. Theoretically, it will serve in the process of explanation of the media's role in the domain of identification and securitization of contemporary security challenges, in this case using the migration example.