Not as innocent as it seems?

Immigration has become one of the most divisive political issues in Europe and around the world. In Germany, Europe’s largest refugee hosting country, public attitudes have reached a low point. Besides increased “real-life” exposure to immigrants, exposure to all sorts of messages centered around immigration and refugees may be behind this worrying trend. While prior research has investigated the effects of specific subjects of the immigration discourse, such as specific frames or statistical information, it remains unclear how “neutral” reporting on refugee migration impacts public attitudes. We fill this gap using data from an original survey experiment conducted in Germany in May 2023. The findings suggest that a sober (neutral) video providing basic background information on Syrian refugees reduces humanitarian concerns for this refugee group, increases the perception of security threats and lowers the willingness to support refugee camps abroad. The results are driven by West German residents. Qualitative data reveals that, although the video is indeed perceived as “neutral”, it triggers security-related associations among West Germans, seemingly eroding concerns for refugees’ wellbeing. Conversely, East Germans, while starting from a slightly more negative base level, more frequently express indifference. Finally, merging our survey data with administrative data on the foreign population in respondents’ counties reveals that larger percentage increases in real-life immigration exposure mitigate the treatment effect.