Counteracting Dominant Discourses about Migrations with Images: a Typology Attempt

• Main Author: Elsa Claire Gomis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Centre for Studies and Research Mediterranean Knowledge 2019-12-01
• Series: Journal of Mediterranean Knowledge
• Subjects: migration; images; funnel of causality; motifs
• Online Access: http://www.mediterraneanknowledge.org/publications/index.php/journal/article/view/149

This article examines a series of art and media images which have contributed to counteracting dominant discourses about migrations. Through recourse to recent research in political science and psychology, it suggests that both the genre of the images and the very nature of their message contribute to shapingopinions and public policies. Specifically, it emphasises how the recurrence of certain motifs helps to diffuse a feeling of anxiety about the migration “crisis”. By doing so, this article updates the “Funnel of Causality”,a theoretical tool elaborated by political scientists to analyse voting behaviour that is now used to understand attitudes toward migrations. In this scheme, the media effect, in which images play an increasing part, is consideredto be of minor importance, whereas moral values appear to be crucial. However, the present article shows how these very values are fostered and conveyed by certain images, particularly those of fictional nature.