DefinePK

Abstract

This paper explores how forced displacement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) functions as both a military strategy and a narrative weapon. Moving beyond the notion that displacement is a collateral outcome of conflict, it argues that state and non-state actors deliberately use forced migration to achieve political, territorial, and demographic goals. Crucially, the media plays a parallel role in this process: through framing, selective coverage, and discursive binaries such as ‘victim’ versus ‘threat,’ media narratives shape global perceptions and international responses to displacement. Using case studies from Syria, Gaza, Sudan, and Yemen, the paper examines how traditional and Western media often sanitize or securitize displacement, thereby legitimizing impunity. At the same time, it highlights the growing power of citizen journalism and digital activism, as displaced communities and local reporters use social media to reclaim their narratives, document atrocities, and resist invisibility. By analysing both the complicity of mainstream media and the resistance of marginalized voices, the paper reveals that displacement is not only executed by bombs and policies, but also by headlines and algorithms. It calls for a reframing of displacement as a fundamentally political act, both physical and symbolic, that must be confronted through critical media literacy, legal accountability, and the amplification of self-representation by displaced populations.