News media can shape public understanding of societal issues by either reinforcing divisions or promoting awareness. This study explores how Belgian newspapers framed discrimination between 2019 and 2023. Based on a qualitative analysis of 52 articles and a broader mapping of 513 news items, we identified four recurrent frames: Normalization (treating discrimination as ordinary), Deflection (downplaying it by questioning victims’ sensitivity), Solidarity (emphasizing empathy and collective action), and Regulation (highlighting institutional responsibility). These frames vary along two dimensions: whether discrimination is acknowledged as a systemic problem, and where responsibility is attributed. The Regulation frame emerged most frequently, pointing to a dominant emphasis on policy and institutional responses. Taken together, this study contributes conceptual tools to better understand how discrimination is constructed in mainstream Belgian news discourse.
Steeman et al. (Mon,) studied this question.