Media, migrants and human rights

The alarmism caused by the use of catastrophic headlines and words on major means of communication as soon as the arrival of migrants along the coasts of Southern European countries intensifies, is a recent phenomenon. Media immediately start talking about an “invasion”, an “emergency”, even about a Barbarian conquest of Europe. Is this news well-founded? And whether it contains some truth or not, what are the consequences of its “entrance” in the homes of the Europeans? It is evident that means of communication produce effects because they are not just technologies; they are also relation and mediation. In other words, they are something more than a tool and this “more” is represented by their content, their possibility to spread messages, to reach a wide public, to become themselves a cultural product. Means of communication exercise a power: the power to transmit news. And this power produces effects.