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Part of
Representing the Other in European Media Discourses
Edited by Jan Chovanec and Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 74] 2017
► pp. 183–206

Chapter 8
Representations of Eastern Europeans in the UK in reader comments of two British online newspapers

This chapter examines a sample of reader comments on parallel articles from two online quality dailies published in the UK at different points in 2014, telegraph.co.uk and theguardian.com, concerning the post-2004 migration from Eastern European countries to the UK. Remaining within critical discourse studies, in particular the discourse-historical approach, it sets out to analyse the representations of Eastern Europeans “below the line,” ie., in reader comments. The chapter finds that while Eastern European immigrants tend to be represented as problematic in what is a predominantly utilitarian frame of reference, these representations intersect with a problematisation of UK’s position in the EU and arguably externalise anxieties caused by the precarious economic situation in the UK.

Keywords: discourse-historical analysis, reader comments, online newspapers, Eastern Europeans, Daily Telegraph , Guardian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research context
  • 3.Corpus overview
  • 4.Methodological framework
  • 5.Quantitative overview and analytical discussion
    • 5.1Subgroups among Eastern Europeans
    • 5.2Dominant themes in the corpus
      • 5.2.1“The Polish flood”: Movement and number
      • 5.2.2“Sullen car washers”: Work and number
      • 5.2.3“Begging Bowl Corporation”: Problematic activities
      • 5.2.4“Tax-paying, lovely people”: The characteristics and identity of immigrants
  • 6.Summary of findings and concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • References
Published online: 23 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.74.09pap
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