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Developing New Identities in Social Conflicts: Constructivist perspectives
Edited by Esperanza Morales-López and Alan Floyd
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 71] 2017
► pp. 107–132

Chapter 6
Media representations of recent human migrations to the United Kingdom and other Western countries

In the present study, I consider Western media discourse concerning human migration as construction. Its language is shown to be ideologically slanted to the disadvantage of migrants. Mainstream media outlets during recent decades have reported on events in such a biased and selective way that they are emplotted within a narrative where the world is divided into an in-group of “us” and an out-group of “them,” in this case of autochthonous populations and migrants, respectively. My analysis is centred on the labelling devices, metaphors and transitivity devices used in this genre. I conclude that the language so used in mainstream media outlets influences public understanding of current affairs, but that the increasing diversity of media outlets favours a trend toward greater diversity of opinion.
Keywords: immigration, media discourse, labelling, metaphor, transitivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Media discourse as construction
  • 2.The Master Narrative of Western media as applied to human migrations
  • 3.Human migration: Realities and media discourse
  • 4.An analysis of linguistic devices used to describe human migration
    • 4.1Methodology
    • 4.2Linguistic devices and human migration: Labelling, metaphors, transitivity
      • 4.2.1Labelling
      • 4.2.2Metaphors
      • 4.2.3Transitivity
  • 5.Interpretation and conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.71.06flo
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