‘A flood of Syrians has slowed to a trickle’: The use of metaphors in the representation of Syrian refugees in the online media news reports of host and non-host countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raith Zeher Abid ◽  
Shakila Abdul Manan ◽  
Zuhair Abdul Amir Abdul Rahman

Numerous studies have examined the manner in which minority groups, including refugees, are depicted in the media discourse of the host countries or the dominant majority groups. The results of such studies indicate that media systematically discriminate these minority groups and deem them as a security, economic and hygiene threat to the majority groups. Through the use of Lakoff and Jonson’s conceptual metaphor theory, this study compares and contrasts the representation of Syrian refugees in the online media discourse of not only host countries but also non-host countries, which, in this study, refers to nations that do not host Syrian refugees. The results show that statistical differences between the metaphors used by host and non-host countries only occur when using the metaphors that describe the entry of refugees and the burden they are inflicting on the host countries. This is clearly indicated by the p-values of the log-likelihood test.

Author(s):  
Janet Ho

AbstractThis study is a corpus-based examination of metaphors in the media coverage of the global financial crisis of 2008. Based on conceptual metaphor theory, it discusses how and why metaphors of


2020 ◽  
pp. 175048132098209
Author(s):  
Quan Zheng ◽  
Zengyi Zhang

Current problems and controversies involving GM issues are not limited to scientific fields but spill over into the social context. When disagreements enter society via media outlets, social factors such as interests, resources, and values can contribute to complicating discourse about a controversial subject. Using the framework for the analysis of media discourse proposed by Carvalho, this paper examines news reports on Chinese GM rice from the dimensions of both text and context, covering the period of 2001–2015. This study shows that media may not only construct basic concepts, theme, and discursive strategies but also generate an ideological stance. This ideology constituted an influential dimension of the GM rice controversy. By following ideology consistent with the dominant position of the Chinese government, the media selectively constructed and endowed GM rice with a specific meaning in the Chinese social context, making possible the reproduction and communication of GM rice knowledge and risks to the public.


Ricercare ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 56-71
Author(s):  
Mariia Mykhalonok

This article examines linguistic framing of Medellin as the city of the musical genre reggaeton in online media discourse, drawing on Fillmore’s frame semantics theory (1977). The most salient frames applied towards Medellin are those of centrality, home, and music, whereby the city’s global significance as a musical hub is emphasized through the terms belonging to the frame of world. The use of components from the frames of crime and drugs suggests that the drug-related past of Medellin is integrated into its new cultural profile. Another part of the new Medellin brand are the city’s residents themselves, who are credited with supporting local reggaetonero/as, and are typically referred to with overtly positive vocabulary from the frames of love, help, and home. Although some texts evoke negative stereotypes about reggaeton, the media mostly present the Medellin reggaeton scene through the frames of success, power, and business.


Author(s):  
Sefa Secen

Abstract Under what conditions do governments view and respond to the arrival of refugees primarily as a security threat? Comparatively analyzing the securitization of Syrian refugees in two host countries, Turkey and Lebanon, this paper proposes a domestic political context–based theory and typology of securitization. Based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the media data including mainstream national Turkish and Lebanese newspaper articles, this research first differentiates between different levels of securitization and finds that moderate securitization in Lebanon during the early years of the refugee crisis (2013–2014) coincided with an open border policy, inaction, legal ambiguity, and benign neglect. From 2015, a marked increase of securitization in Lebanon coincided with controlled borders, restrictive policies, and heightened tension. Securitization of Syrian refugees has followed a somewhat different trajectory in Turkey, where the state switched from non-recognition (2013–2014) to recognition (2014–2016) and then from recognition to integration (2016–present), while a decrease in securitization mapped onto this policy trajectory despite the opposition's and the public's increasing discontentment with the presence of refugees. Then, this paper argues that the low level of securitization in Turkey is an outcome of the incumbent party's Islamist political ideology that motivates transnational religious solidarity, whereas the high level of securitization in Lebanon is a consequence of elite divisions and the country's unique historical experiences with Palestinian refugees that engender competing security perspectives and agendas on Syrian refugees. Overall, this study demonstrates how contextual or domestic factors are key to explaining government attitudes toward refugee groups and contributes to our understanding of the sources and processes of securitization.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1467
Author(s):  
Shuyuan Zheng

This paper attempts to use the Framing Theory and the Conceptual Metaphor Theory to explain the surface frames and deep frames often used by Chinese state media in face of the COVID-19. It discusses how the official discourse achieves its purpose of inspiring based on the audience emotion , and enables the audience to be more determined and courageous to overcome the epidemic, which best displays the communication power news reports with regard to COVID-19. It is found that Chinese official media mainly use metaphorical frames such as WAR, COMPETITION, and BARRIERS, and non-metaphorical frames such as SOLIDARITY, CONFIDENCE, and VICTORY. News reports of Chinese state media fully highlights the unity of the Chinese people in fighting against the epidemic, which helps persuade the audience to understand and trust the Chinese government and to become more determined and courageous in the battle.


Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
М.Р. ГАБАРАЕВА

Средства массовой информации с развитием интернета из традиционных трансформировались в интернет-СМИ, в которые входят и новостные страницы в социальных сетях «Вконтакте», «Инстаграм», «Телеграм». Чтение новостей является одной из основных целей использования интернета и социальных сетей, что приводит к популярности агрегаторов новостных сообщений. Социальные сети отличаются от традиционных СМИ своей интерактивностью и большей зависимостью от читателей, поскольку успешность страницы зависит от вовлеченности аудитории, особенно от количества комментариев. Администраторы страниц заинтересованы в публикации новостей, вызывающих реакцию и споры. События, освещаемые на новостных страницах, затем переходят в другие сообщества, где продолжается их обсуждение. По отклику пользователей интернета на различные темы можно определять общее настроение общества. В дагестанских социальных сетях вопрос семейно-брачных отношений поднимается часто, к тому же эта тема стимулируется публикацией новостных сообщений о соотношении браков и разводов в республике. Так как большей частью активных пользователей социальных сетей является молодежь, анализ их мнений по вопросу семейных отношений может помочь в понимании будущего семьи в регионе. По результатам контент-анализа комментариев под постами о браках и разводах можно говорить о том, что, помимо личных, основными причинами как разводов, так и снижения количества заключаемых браков являются финансовая нестабильность, а также изменение общества и нахождение его на стыке архаизации и модернизации. Количество заключаемых браков в Дагестане снижается, тогда как количество разводов остается приблизительно на одном уровне, хотя СМИ сосредотачивают внимание в своих публикациях на разводах, формируя определенную картину мира у читателей. With the development of the Internet, the media has transformed from its traditional forms of newspapers and television into online-media, which also includes news profiles on the social networks such as Vkontakte, Instagram, and Telegram. Reading news is one of the main purposes of using the internet and social media, which leads to the popularity of news aggregators. Social networks differ from traditional media in their interactivity and greater dependence on readers, since the success of a profile is based on the engagement of the audience namely, of chief relevance is the number of comments. Administrators of social media profiles would more likely publish news that generates reactions and controversy. Events covered on the news profiles are then transferred to other social media pages, where they continue to be discussed. The general mood of the society can be determined by the response of Internet users to various topics. The issue of family and marriage relations is often raised in Dagestan based social media profiles and pages. This topic is stimulated by the publication of news reports on the ratio of marriages and divorces in the republic. Since the majority of active users of social networks are young people, analyzing their views on the issue of marital relations can help to understand the future of the family in the region. Based on the results of the content analysis of the comments under the posts about marriages and divorces, we can say that, in addition to personal factors, the main reasons for high number of divorces and a decrease in the number of marriages are financial instability, as well as a change in society and its transition to modernization. The number of marriages in Dagestan is declining, while the number of divorces remains approximately at the same level, although the media focuses its attention on divorces, forming a certain picture of the world among readers.


ExELL ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-51
Author(s):  
Mersina Mujagić ◽  
Sanja Berberović

Abstract Applying MIPVU (Steen et al., 2010) to the corpus of media articles about the European migrant crisis in the period from August 2015 until March 2016 in English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, this paper analyzes the IMMIGRANTS ARE ANIMALS metaphor within the framework of the deliberate metaphor theory by considering the three dimensions of this metaphor, namely, the linguistic dimension of (in)directness, the conceptual parameter of conventionality, and the communicative dimension of (non)deliberateness. Specifically, the paper examines the use of the ANIMALS metaphor as a deliberate metaphor in the immigration discourse in English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. The paper aims to determine to what extent and in which situations the authors of the texts tend to divert the addressee’s attention to viewing immigrants in terms of animals. Using the IDeM protocol for the identification of deliberate metaphor (Krennmayr, 2011), the paper also focuses on the rhetorical potential and the effects of the use of deliberate metaphors in the media discourse. Such metaphors are often used in the media discourse to dehumanize immigrants and consequently reduce the addressee’s empathy for them.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Otto Santa Ana ◽  
Sandra L. Treviño ◽  
Michael J. Bailey ◽  
Kristen Bodossian ◽  
Antonio de Necochea

AbstractWe examine mainstream U.S. print news depictions of the 2006 immigration policy debate. Using critical discourse analysis informed by cognitive metaphor theory, we analyze a substantial sample of mainstream U.S. print news reports in May 2006, at the height of national attention on the “Great May Day” demonstrations across the country. We compare it to a second sample of print news media articles from October 2006, at the time of the passage of the 2006 Secure Fence Act. Mainstream print media represented immigrants with a noteworthy balance between human and nonhuman language during the time of the Great May Day marches. However, the media did not sustain a balanced representation of immigrants in the ensuing months. The conceptual metaphor immigrant as criminal is predominant during both periods. We explore the implication of the language used to frame the immigration policy debate.


Lege Artis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses

Abstract I discuss three large issues relating to media language. (1) How does conceptual metaphor theory affect the way we see the conceptual system that characterizes the main participants of communication in the media? (2) How do conceptual metaphors structure the language (and thought) used by the media? (3) Is the metaphorical mind of the participants of media communication a “self-contained” mind immune to the influence of context or is it affected by it?


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-141
Author(s):  
Lena N. Pavlova ◽  
Nikita A. Argylov

The issue of journalistic functions fulfillment by the modern mass media is considered. The authors examined a number of news reports in socio-political online media and found some cases where the classic functions of journalism such as informing and controlling were substituted by PR functions. The content analysis revealed an alarmingly large number of pseudo journalistic reports, which mainly aimed to create and maintain a positive image. The reason why journalism is losing its value is the lack of professionals representing the public interest. The analysis shown a high number of publications, based on (practically unchanged) press releases, that is common to a number of media and clearly illustrates the unprofessionalism of the authors of pseudo news. The regional media have to monetize its activity, so the matter of finance wins over the matter of beliefs. However, the media and, in particular, journalism is quickly losing public credibility. In general, we are witnessing the undermining of classical journalistic creativity and the merging of this concept with other wider categories of public relations.


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