My mum works with the Refugee Council in the UK and one of the things they have to do almost constantly is try to balance out the llies that are printed about Asylum seekers in the media. The attitudes of the British Public to Asylum seekers was shown in a very interesting poll.....There were a great deal of commonly held misconceptions which had come ( or so it certainly seemed) mainly from the tabloid press.
If you spend anytime amongst the asyylum seeker and refugee communities in the UK I doubt you would have much doubt that the tabloid media can have a damaging effect. I have watched very closely the sea change which the council is attempting to effect and its a slow process. I have seen some feel good stories on local news and in newspapers which I know are trhe Council's doing in an attempt to stem the tide of anti asylum seeker sentiment.
In the UK the media have sold so many fearbased stories of brtian being "swamped" by bogus asylum seekers that the general temperature of the country is so against them that the very words "asylum seeker" carry with them them a massive stigma. There is little kindness shown to people who have struggled across half the world to get to a place of safety, and the word "Bogus" slips to the front of most people's minds when they hear "asylum seeker" because there has been a diet of such caveats for 20 years in the national media.
Interestingly in the Poll, it was discovered that the people displaying the most ignorance and hostility on this issue were the young. People under 20 did not come out looking good. I wonder if this is because they have had an anti asylum agenda in the main news media throughout the entirety of their lives?
Poll gauging public attitudes to asylum seekers