Media Framing of War Refugees in Croatian Online Media: A Case Study of Ukraine and Gaza

The objective of this paper is to analyze how Croatian online media frame war-related displacement by comparing coverage of refugees linked to the escalation in Ukraine (2022) and the Gaza Strip (2023). The study uses media-framing theory and interprets the coverage through a security-science distinction between two representations: refugees as populations exposed to endangerment, and refugees as potential sources of societal endangerment. This analytic distinction clarifies whether displacement is recognized as a security problem of protection or of control. A comparative content analysis was conducted on N=370 articles from the Index.hr, Jutarnji.hr, Večernji.hr, and Dnevno.hr, collected in the first 30 days after each escalation. The results show a pronounced visibility asymmetry, with Ukraine receiving far more coverage (N=342) than Gaza (N=28). Ukraine-related reporting is overwhelmingly humanitarian, with an occasional security layer focused on governance and institutional capacity. Gaza-related reporting is sparse, still predominantly humanitarian, and more closely anchored in conflict updates. Across both cases, explicit portrayals that cast refugees as a source of societal endangerment are empirically marginal. When “security” appears, it most often refers to administrative risk management or to the broader conflict-security context, rather than to a sustained attribution of threat to refugees.