"Who are they & why are they here?" A media analysis of the negative portrayal of immigrants in the mainstream Greek press

• Main Author: Malafouri, Eleni Ioanna
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS) 2015
• Subjects: Media; media portrayal; otherness; Greece; immigrants; public sphere; superiority; inferiority; identity; stereotyping; others; newspaper; representation; Social Sciences; Samhällsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23911

Eleni-Ioanna Malafouri, International Migration and Ethnic Relations, University of Malmö.Abstract of Master's Thesis, Submitted 22 May 2015: Who are they and why are they here? A media analysis of the negative portrayal of immigrants in the mainstream Greek press. This study is an initial attempt to investigate the negative depiction of immigrants in the mainstream Greek press of the 2000s. Our goal is to identify the dimensions of negativeimage-making and discuss the dichotomy of the ''identity'' and the ''otherness'' projected in the contemporary press. In order to accomplish that, data, collected from selected articles in a number of best-selling Greek newspapers, were scrutinised with regards to their content, style of writing, presentation as well as their readability and triggering of a wider social discourse at the time of their publication. Using a retroductive approach, to wit travelling back and forth from the general phenomenon to specific incidents, we showed that via the presentation of the negative association of the immigrants with a) criminality, b) the obscure market and c) their unworthiness to bear national symbols, the mainstream Greek press intensifies the presence of certain dichotomies. Such dichotomies, as they appeared in the text and presentation of the articles, are the “identity” versus the “otherness”, “we” versus “they”, as well as one’s race “superiority” versus the “inferiority” of the other, “locals” versus “immigrants”.