Immigrant portrayal through 1970
In the 1970s, the portrayal of immigration showed increasing hostility driven by economic anxieties and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Anti-immigrant sentiment culminated in the 1971 immigration act, which ended the open-door policy for Commonwealth citizens and established discriminatory categories of “patrial” and “non-patrial”. This period also saw the rise of extremist groups like the National Front, who promoted white supremacist ideologies.
Media representation in the 1980s was widely recognized as negative and often prejudiced, focussing on key messages:
Restrictions: Coverage of “race” and immigration often focused on keeping immigrants out rather than on helping them adjust to life in Britain.
Criminalisation: The lines between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants started to blur. For example, sections of the press labeled Tamil refugees fleeing Sri Lanka as “bogus” asylum seekers, a term subsequently adopted by politicians.
Problematic framing: Immigrant and minority groups were often represented as “a problem, or just an oddity,” perpetuating the narrative that they did not belong in British society.