Preface, MIGRANTS, CULTURAL IDENTITY AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION

Abstract

This work, which has been conceived in a user-andenvironmentally friendly digital format, focuses on the issue of migrants and refugees from the perspectives of both media representation and cultural identity. This theme is undeniably central because of the high influence of media representations and collective perceptions on migration policies. In these times of global risk, political decisions repeatedly comply with highly popular opinions, which are predominant within a given society. This is where the role of media becomes crucial, as they not only mediate the relationships between societies and migrants' problems, but they also maneuver them. Some of the greatest living sociologists concur in considering risk as a key element in the structuring and modifying of praxis, which refers to our communities' political and daily life. Antony Giddens identifies in the "risk culture" one of the main factors to understand the phenomena at the basis of our current age. Ulrick Beck even goes as far defining our modern society as the "risk society", considering that communities decide their political, social and economic actions according to what might happen in the future.