The social representation of migrants in the press (original) (raw)
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Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 2021
This paper investigates migrant representation patterns according to media political orientation, analyzing the coverage of key-events by liberal/conservative online newspapers of France, Greece, Italy, UK. From our textual and visual analysis, it is possible to recognize slight specificities between liberals and conservatives, but not indicative of a deep change of narratives. In both, we registered a prevalence of the "acceptance frame", an infrequent use of negative tones in texts and aesthetic topic in images, among the "topics of suffering" by Boltanski. Moreover, a domesticity approach limiting the possibility of new narratives of Europe and the rest of the world emerges.
MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF IMMIGRANTS IN ITALY: FRAMING REAL AND SYMBOLIC BORDERS
The " need " to build walls and barriers, restore boundaries, restraining " waves " of refugees and migrants, appears one of the most urgent priorities involving European countries. In Italian media and political debate this theme has been very important in last years also regard a peculiar kind of border, the maritime one, for the centrality acquired by Lampedusa and other coasts, also as symbolic space of construction of relationship with the " Other ". On the other hand, the media defined also " symbolic internal borders " , by focusing on certain themes or images of migrations. The contribution aims to explore and deconstruct the main mechanisms of representation and news-media construction of immigrant image in Italy. Through frame analysis (mostly carried out with qualitative and non-standard methods) will be enlightened three main discursive dimensions: a) the so-called " landing emergency " (as external border); b) the central interest on crime news where immigrants are protagonists, and c) the cultural-religious dimension of immigration (both as internal border). Reflection on media representations of migration can only move from the assumption implied that policies are largely influenced by the public discourse that develops on a certain theme, in terms of agenda building and agenda setting 2. What is more, even the methods of presentation of social problems in the public arena start with considerations and interests of a political kind. Attention to the media sphere appears so decisive, taking shape as the field in which these
“Человек. Культура. Образование” [Human. Culture. Education],, 2020
Social representations of “diversity” appear to be mainly influenced by the information conveyed by the mass media in their dual role as mediators of reality and opinion leaders, often becoming a “distorted reflection” of reality. News about arrivals of migrants in the Mediterranean, as well as violent or terrorist events, can be a few examples through which the public opinion constructs a specific image of the Other. At the same time, using words such as illegal immigrant, refugee, emigrant, may help in reinforcing an image able to reduce socio-cultural distances – or, conversely, to expand them. In this sense, public opinion will tend to juxtapose their own frames of interpretation to those proposed by the media, re-building a specific kind of reality filtered by the media. In support of the above, this paper aims at introducing a proposal for the development of a vocabulary of [the] media based on an analysis of the words used by some of the most popular Italian newspapers to represent the Other: the frequency and use of the words in news headlines can illustrate, by way of example, how the media, in some cases, are instruments able to spread among the public stereotypes and attitudes that can in turn lead to a narrowing and / or opening of relations towards the Other.
When words hurt: the representation of migration in the Italian media
The aim of the paper is to analyze the way the Italian media picture immigrants and the possible consequences. An inappropriate use of words such as “clandestino” or “extracomunitario” and describing the migration process as an invasion can hurt the people they refer to and contribute to create stereotypes among the Italian population.
The representation of immigrants in the Italian press
This paper uses corpus-assisted discourse studies to explore the representation of foreign migrants in the Italian press. Presenting a para-replication of extensive research on the representation of migrants in the British press, the importance of identifying accurate translation equivalents in crosslinguistic studies is briefly discussed, and the constructions of immigrati, clandestini,extracomunitari and stranieri are analysed from a linguistic, discursive perspective. Subsequently, the different nationalities which collocate with these terms are briefly examined, and in particular the lexical items cinese/cinesi are studied in greater detail, with reference to moral panic stories.
Migration Policies in the Italian Newspaper Communication: A Case Study
2023
Communication and migration are a duality involving both manifest and latent actions of individuals in societies that are imbued with multiple cultures. This article investigates the effects of this duality on cultural changes, specifically on the language used by the media to represent migration. We will examine the situation before and after several “milestone” laws or agreements that have marked the political and social context of migration in Italy over the past few years. Through an analysis of the language used, we aim to determine whether and how the media (specifically, the newspaper La Repubblica) has modified its representation of migration and the aspects that pertain to issues of general interest associated with this phenomenon
Investigating the representation of migrants in the UK and Italian press
In this paper I look at the ways in which migrants are represented in the press in the UK and Italy. To date there has been relatively little cross-linguistic discourse analysis using corpus linguistics (as addressed in Freake 2011) and therefore this case-study offers an opportunity to consider some of the issues that may arise. Within the case-study, I focus on the representation of migrants in the Italian and UK press by adopting a three stage methodological approach. In the first stage, emic accounts of racism and xenophobia are analysed to provide a background of the newspapers’ own conceptualisations of these notions/labels. In the second phase, the number of references to nationalities which collocated with refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, migrants (and Italian equivalents) were calculated and this information was subsequently used to identify any mis-match between the estimated numbers of migrants from a given country and the amount of attention that they receive in the media. In the third stage, the representations of the foregrounded nationalities were analysed and the resulting representations of migrants were then compared to the newspapers’ stated stance towards racism. Moral panic narratives were found in the UK tabloid and the Italian regional press and these were not substantially challenged in the national press in either country. The findings also showed how these newspapers made extensive use of attribution in order to include racist discourses.
Media and Politics in the representation of the European Migration Crisis
The European “migration crisis” might be the political and identity challenge of the early 21st century for the European Union. In fact, what continues to be addressed as an emergency is already a “new permanent” condition, since from 2011 migrants flows from the Middle East and North Africa have not ceased. We believe that to understand this phenomenon and the corresponding European response it is important to look at it from different angles. In particular, assuming the perspective of the “mediatisation of politics”, according to which political institutions considerably are dependent on and shaped by mass media, we think that analyzing how the media picture this migrants flows essential to understand the logic behind the European response. We propose ourselves to interpret the discourse of the media on migration and the political decisions that have been taken during the last three years, understanding what kind of relationship exists between these two actors. To do that we chose to study events that had some kind of resonance on the media and pinpoint the political response that followed. We would like to point out that the hierarchization of specific issues, the choice of a certain lexicon, of a frame of narration and the decision to report or omit some data and information, may have consequences on the way events are perceived by the general public and on the responses that the society expects by political elites. We chose to concentrate on the Italian media for two reasons: first, in the debate on the migration crisis, positions of European Member States are still relevant and possibly the main drivers of decisions; second, Italy has been one of the main protagonists of the debate at European level, due to the fact that it is one of the principle ways of access for refugees and migrants trying to enter the EU. Our analysis will take into consideration articles from the two most important Italian quality newspapers: La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera.
The Cultural Construction of Migrant Women in the Italian Press , e-cadernos 16: 66-91
This contribution focuses on the migrant women’s portraits that emerge in the Italian press. This discursive arena is dealt with by paying attention to what is taken for granted in the discourses about migrant women and their reproductive rights and behaviours. The analysis is based on a dataset of 634 newspapers articles, published between June 2005 and July 2012, and include both partisan, non-partisan, and religious press. It highlights the culturalization of migrant women, mainly portrayed as victims, and points to the high risk of xenophobic manipulation and political instrumentalization of migrant women’s rights
This work explores how the local press in Piacenza, a small town in Northern Italy, contributes to reinforcing and normalising damaging narratives around the town’s most ethnically-diverse neighbourhood. I have focused on how the press uses sensationalist titles to report on neighbourhood incidents whilst offering wide coverage to local far-right, anti-immigration parties. By doing so, I addressed what I believe is a current gap in both literature and empirical research. In Italy, in fact, studies on how ethnically-diverse neighbourhoods are portrayed by the local press have so far provided little insight into the local media’s role in disseminating information and normalising far-right, anti-immigration discourses, especially in the context of small towns. I have employed critical discourse analysis across a series of newspaper articles as well as the feedback of anonymous participants to uncover recurring repertoires of discourses that connect media narratives on the local level with those expressed by the national press around the topic of ‘ethnically-diverse neighbourhoods’. This has enabled me to demonstrate that dysfunctional images of these neighbourhoods in small Italian towns heavily depend on alarmist media narratives and on the normalisation of extreme-right, xenophobic discourses which are perpetuated by the national and local press.