How do the media frame the influx of refugees in Switzerland and what are the policy responses? Known as the process and practices of meaning negotiation and construction, framing plays a crucial role when it comes to understanding social problems, their construction and policy responses. To examine this question, which is critical to both scholars and practitioners, we take a microhistory approach to explore the media framing of refugee influxes to Switzerland on two recent occasions, 2015/2016 and 2022/2023. Using expert interviews, press articles and press releases, we conduct an interpretative, comparative case study and shed light on the process and practices of media framing of refugee influxes in Switzerland, as well as their consequences for public policy. By situating these cases in the broader history of framing of refugees in Switzerland, we show the patterns between contemporary and past practices of framing. Our analysis reveals an alternance between framing refugees as an opportunity, which enriches the country socially, economically and culturally and a threat to local identity and society well-functioning. We found a dichotomy between refugees portrayed as isolated individuals from Europe and groups of refugees portrayed as an overflow from outside of Europe, constituting a financial burden for the country. We discuss the implications of such binary framing for policy responses and present our contributions to framing theory, research on social problems and public policy.
