Tolerated, threatening and celebrated: How Canadian news media frames temporary migrant workers

Abstract

Immigration scholars have long observed that migrant workers are paradoxically both welcomed and deemed threatening within the nation state. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which mainstream media outlets reinforce these perceptions. Using critical discourse analysis, we analysed 561 articles in three mainstream newspapers to ascertain the various discourses used to describe migrant workers and migrant work. Our analysis specifically found that a cluster of ‘hiring scandals’ led to an increase in coverage on migrant work, and affected the types of discourses used in reference to migrant workers. Prior to these scandals, migrant work generated minimal media coverage. Ultimately, we find that migrant workers are deemed tolerable to the nation‐state at certain time periods, deemed as threats in other time periods, and, in the current moment of the global health crisis, are deemed absolutely essential. Migrant workers are thus only 'conditionally included' in the state.