By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online community affairs reporter

Negative images: Asylum seekers stereotyped in media

The first report of its kind says negative reporting in UK newspapers triggers hostile actions because it increases community tension.

The trial research in London tracked press stories on asylum seekers and levels of racism in parts of the city.

The team suggests the two are linked - and that unreported harassment may be increasing.

The report, commissioned by London Mayor Ken Livingstone after reports of increased harassment in the capital, studied the relationship between the media and street events in two London boroughs, neither of which can be identified.

Between August and September 2003, the team from Kings College London monitored press reports on asylum seekers and refugees in a number of national, local and community newspapers.

At the same time, they asked nine organisations to monitor racist incidents and conducted a series of in-depth focus group interviews with Londoners from different backgrounds.

In one week, there were 56 stories about asylum seekers in the papers monitored. The papers publishing the most stories were The Sun, News of the World, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

'Fear and tension'

Academics say they found "clear evidence" that negative, unbalanced or inaccurate reporting in newspapers was likely to "promote fear and tension" between people of different backgrounds in London.

Local newspapers were found to present a more balanced view of events.

MOST COMMON HEADLINE WORDS Arrested, jailed, guilty Bogus, false, illegal Failed, rejected Source: Icar research

The team said stories on unspecified alleged influxes of asylum seekers, or suggestions of criminality, were causing apprehension and fear among the general public.

Some articles and their contents were presented in ways likely to alarm readers, they said.

In some circumstances, these tensions appeared to prompt wider harassment; language used in racist incidents appeared to mirror themes current in the newspapers under study.

Active racists were also found to be re-using some press reports in some incidents of intimidation.

In one of the monitored areas, the rate of reports from asylum seekers to a formal racism hotline was so out of proportion to their numbers in the local community, the researchers concluded they were being deliberately singled out for harassment.

Overall, asylum seekers were most likely to encounter hostility linked to negative reporting if they lived in poor areas where locals believed they may be competing for decent housing.

'Unbalanced, inaccurate'

Kirsteen Tait, director of the college's Information Centre about Asylum Seekers and Refugees (Icar), said: "Assessing the precise impact of the media on people's understanding of the world and on their actions is very challenging.

NEWSPAPERS MONITORED The Sun, The News of the World Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday Telegraph titles Independent titles Times/Sunday Times London Evening Standard Metro (Free commuter newspaper) Two ethnic minority newspapers Four local weeklies

"This study shows that some press coverage is unbalanced and inaccurate in ways that are likely to increase tension, and that local tension makes racial harassment more likely.

"Media representation matters to people, not only in everyday conversations but on the streets of our cities.

"We recommend that statutory authorities and others need to find, in co-operation with the press, clearer and more factual ways of presenting information to the public."

London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the research was evidence of the media's impact on public perceptions of asylum and refugees.

"I am concerned that the report finds relentless repetition of inaccurate and hostile language in some sections of the press.

"As we have seen most recently, certain members of the media are all too ready to whip up hysteria without a care for damage they might cause to communities throughout the country."