From firearms to facemasks: The visual securitization of migration in Italy, Malta, Libya and Niger

This article examines the visual governance of migration across the Central Mediterranean Route by analyzing the pictures chosen by Italian, Maltese, Libyan and Nigerien newspapers to illustrate undocumented human mobility. To tackle the challenges attached to images’ polysemic nature, we focus on one category of photographs: those portraying border security forces interacting with migrants. We then zoom into the equipment used by these personnel, examining whether they display weapons and/or wear biohazard protection. Our coding shows that pictures portraying security forces in biohazard clothing were became widespread in European newspapers well before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, becoming a routine since the 2014 Ebola outbreak. By becoming a trope in European media coverage of irregular mobility, border enforcement routines like the use of biohazard suits have turned into a visual discourse framing undocumented migration as a health threat no less than written texts. Conversely, biohazard clothing is largely absent the pictures used by Libyan and Nigerien papers, where pictures portraying migrants’ interactions with border enforcement personnel are scarce. These outlets, however, more frequently portray security forces carrying weapons, shaping visual discourses that may frame human mobility as a physical threat rather than a health risk.