Owning the issues of crime and immigration: The relation between immigration and crime news and anti-immigrant voting in 11 countries

•News exposure to immigration and crime increases voters' likelihood to vote for anti-immigrant parties.•Effects are larger among voters' with an initial preference for anti-immigrant parties.•We studied 13 anti-immigrant parties in 11 countries.•We combined data from a media content analysis and a voter panel survey.

It is still not well understood how the media affect anti-immigrant party voting. In this paper, we argue and demonstrate empirically that mere exposure to immigration- and crime-related news is positively related to the likelihood that a voter casts a vote for an anti-immigrant party. On the basis of a media content analysis (N = 20,084 news items) in combination with a voter panel survey (N = 17,014 respondents) conducted in 11 European countries we find for several anti-immigrant parties that – ceteris paribus – exposure to news about immigration or crime increases voters' probabilities to vote for these parties. We discuss our findings in light of prior research on issue ownership, and their implications for the role of the mass media in established democracies.