Symbolic bordering: The self-representation of migrants and refugees in digital news

Chouliaraki, Lilie

doi:10.1080/15405702.2017.1281415

Cited by 95 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The role of visual reporting on human mobility crises has been extensively researched (King and Wood, 2001;Wright, 2002Wright, , 2004 with literature on the recent crisis growing fast (Berry etal., 2015;Chouliaraki, 2017;Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2016;Giannakopoulos and Anagnostopoulos, 2016;Malafouri, 2015;Musarò, 2017). As in broader studies of the media representation of migration (e.g.…”

Section: Victimhood and Threat: A Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: a visual typology of European news

Chouliaraki

Stolic

2017

Media, Culture & Society

Self Cite

211

160

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In this paper, we analyse how news images of the 2015 Syrian refugee ‘crisis’ visualise refugees and how, in so doing, they mobilise various forms of moral responsibility in ‘our’ mediated public life – various practical dispositions of action towards the misfortunes of migrants and refugees at Europe’s border. On the basis of empirical material from European news (June-December 2015), we construct a typology of visibilities of the ‘crisis’, each of which situates refugees within a different regime of visibility and claim to action: i) visibility as biological life, associated with monitorial action; ii) visibility as empathy associated with charitable action; iii) visibility as threat, associated with state security; iv) visibility as hospitality, associated with political activism; and v) visibility as self-reflexivity, associated with a post-humanitarian engagement with people like ‘us’. In conclusion, we argue that, important as these five categories of visibility are in introducing public dispositions to action towards the vulnerable, they nonetheless ultimately fail to humanise migrants and refugees. This failure to portray them as human beings with lives that are worth sharing should compel us, we urge, to radically re-think how we understand the media’s responsibility towards vulnerable others.

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Section: Victimhood and Threat: A Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: a visual typology of European news

Chouliaraki

Stolic

2017

Media, Culture & Society

Self Cite

211

160

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“…Our conceptualization of European news as symbolic bordering relies on this performative understanding of journalism, whereby news narratives open up diverse 'fields of the perceptible' and, in so doing, position 'us' and refugees within normative relationships of emotion and action; telling 'us' how we should feel and relate to them (Chouliaraki, 2017). (Fraser, 2010), this right refers only to the normative dimension of 'voice as value'.…”

Section: Journalism As Performativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This body of research falls within a broader category of migration and media studies literature, which engages with the portrayal of refugees in the media (van Dijk, 1991;Wright, 2002;Gross et al, 2007;Triantafyllidou, 2013;and, for the recent crisis, Giannakopoulos, 2016;Musarò, 2017;Berry et al, 2015;Gillespie et al, 2016;Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017;Chouliaraki, 2017;Chouliaraki and Stolic, 2017). v Despite its internal diversity, this field is defined by a strong critical perspective on the language used to represent the refugee across a range of public genres.…”

Section: Refugees In the Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In its function to 'rhetorically identify and control' mobility, bordering entails the symbolic power to name and authorize who is accepted as one of 'us' or shares 'our' humanity and who does not. European journalism can, in this light, be seen as a practice of 'symbolic bordering': a linguistic practice that works in tandem with Europe's territorial borders, insofar as it regulates the symbolic construction of refugees as human beings -voicing or silencing them, humanizing or vilifying them (Chouliaraki, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Voice and community in the 2015 refugee crisis: A content analysis of news coverage in eight European countries

Chouliaraki

Zaborowski

2017

International Communication Gazette

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214

149

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Drawing on a Content Analysis of 1200 news articles on the 2015 refugee 'crisis' across eight European countries, we address the question of whether and how refugees 'speak' in the news. To this end, we categorized the language of these articles in terms how they narrated the subjects, status and contexts of voice. Our analysis establishes three different linguistic practices through which the voice of refugees is managed in the news -what we call practices of 'bordering': bordering by silencing, by collectivization and by de-contextualization. In light of these findings, we reach two conclusions. First, the distribution of voice in European news follows a strict hierarchy -one that relies on specifically journalistic strategies of selection and ordering yet reflects and reproduces broader hierarchies of the European political spheres. Second, this hierarchy of voice leads to a triple misrecognition of refugees as political, social and historical actors, thereby keeping them firmly outside the remit of 'our' communities of belonging.

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“…At a time when commentators and academics alike are referring to a "refugee crisis" [e.g. 4,8,28,41], the mobile phone is increasingly seen as holding multiple functions -navigator, digital archive of memories, news provider, platform for citizen journalism and activism, communicator that challenges proximity and presence, aid distributor, and site of artistic expression.…”

Section: Mobile Phone Use In Refugee Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

In a New Land

Coles-Kemp

Jensen

Talhouk

2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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Framed within the theoretical lens of positive and negative security, this paper presents a study of newcomers to Sweden and the roles of mobile phones in the establishment of a new life. Using creative engagement methods through a series of workshops, two researchers engaged 70 adult participants enrolled into further education colleges in Sweden. Group narratives about mobile phone use were captured in creative outputs, researcher observations and notes and were analysed using thematic analysis. Key findings show that the mobile phone offers security for individuals and a safe space for newcomers to establish a new life in a new land as well as capitalising on other spaces of safety, such as maintaining old ties. This usage produces a series of threats and vulnerabilities beyond traditional technological security thinking related to mobile phone use. The paper concludes with recommendations for policies and support strategies for those working with newcomers.

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Symbolic bordering: The self-representation of migrants and refugees in digital news

Cited by 95 publications

References 30 publications

Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: a visual typology of European news

Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: a visual typology of European news

Voice and community in the 2015 refugee crisis: A content analysis of news coverage in eight European countries

In a New Land

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