Refugees’ dehumanization in the Spanish media: A corpus-assisted study within the semantic preference framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gema Alcaraz-Mármol ◽  
Jorge Soto-Almela

AbstractThe dehumanization of migrants and refugees in the media has been the object of numerous critical discourse analyses and metaphor-based studies which have primarily dealt with English written news articles. This paper, however, addresses the dehumanizing language which is used to refer to refugees in a 1.8-million-word corpus of Spanish news articles collected from the digital libraries of El Mundo and El País, the two most widely read Spanish newspapers. Our research particularly aims to explore how the dehumanization of the lemma refugiado is constructed through the identification of semantic preferences. It is concerned with synchronic and diachronic aspects, offering results on the evolution of refugees’ dehumanization from 2010 to 2016. The dehumanizing collocates are determined via a corpus-based analysis, followed by a detailed manual analysis conducted in order to label the different collocates of refugiado semantically and classify them into more specific semantic subsets. The results show that the lemma refugiado usually collocates with dehumanizing words that express, by frequency order, quantification, out-of-control phenomenon, objectification, and economic burden. The analysis also demonstrates that the collocates corresponding to these four semantic subsets are unusually frequent in the 2015–16 period, giving rise to seasonal collocates strongly related to the Syrian civil war and other Middle-East armed conflicts.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
DR. RANI ERUM

The Syrian crisis is one of the most extensive issue of Middle East. The enduring fight among Baathist regime and factions of rebellion groups created a humanitarian dilemma in the country. Since 2011 the people of Syria are in complete despair, every dawn increases the intensity of their misery. The high amount of civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure turned the country in to complete turmoil. Every day thousands of Syrian entre in Greece and Turkey for refuge and security, many among them died during this process which regularly shows on television screens but regional and internal actors are looking completely disable to do any significant effort to settle the conflicts among opponents of crisis. Therefore, the peace prospects are not very hopeful because the ongoing clashes frequently sabotage every effort between the combatants. This study design to discuss the reasons, consequences and effects of civil war on Syrians and enlightened the direct and indirect role of regional and Western powers in the past seven years.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tia Mariatul Kibtiah

The dynamics of conflict in Syria has influenced the energy security in the region. United States and Europe both have strategic interests on Syrian for securing the flow of oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe and preserving peace and harmony in the region. This article contends that Syria plays a strategic role in maintaining the stability of oil production from the Middle East. Even though the production of oil in Syria declined drastically from 400,000 barrell per day to 25,000 barrell per day, but most of those products are at the hand of opposition, including the jihadist of ISIS, in the Northern and Southern area of Syria. In addition, the presence of foreign fighters in Syrian civil war have fueled the conflict and affected the stability of the region. Syria needs at least 30 years to recover from current conflict and it needs oil productions as the vital factor. This article is based on interviews conducted in 2012 to 2013 in Jakarta and analysis of documents.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraheem Alsaeed ◽  
Carl Adams ◽  
Rich Boakes

Electronic Government (hereafter eGov) is a transformative agent upon political and civic activity: it involves the provision and use of information and services by citizens, businesses and governments; and thus has the potential to increase civic efficiency and transparency; to facilitate interaction between public, private and government entities; and ultimately to promote democracy and political stability. Academic literature covering transformational eGov activity in times of geopolitical instability (such as that which Syria is currently facing) is uncommon. We selected thirty-five papers for review, each covering aspects of eGov relevant to the Middle-East Arabic Countries and Syria, for the period between 2000 and 2013. This paper exposes five categories of challenge (Syrian Civil war and Instability, Human, Political, Infrastructure and Organisational) faced by eGov implementations in Middle-East Arabic Countries/Syria and proposes further work to investigate these.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1899-1912
Author(s):  
Abraheem Alsaeed ◽  
Carl Adams ◽  
Rich Boakes

Electronic Government (hereafter eGov) is a transformative agent upon political and civic activity: it involves the provision and use of information and services by citizens, businesses and governments; and thus has the potential to increase civic efficiency and transparency; to facilitate interaction between public, private and government entities; and ultimately to promote democracy and political stability. Academic literature covering transformational eGov activity in times of geopolitical instability (such as that which Syria is currently facing) is uncommon. We selected thirty-five papers for review, each covering aspects of eGov relevant to the Middle-East Arabic Countries and Syria, for the period between 2000 and 2013. This paper exposes five categories of challenge (Syrian Civil war and Instability, Human, Political, Infrastructure and Organisational) faced by eGov implementations in Middle-East Arabic Countries/Syria and proposes further work to investigate these.


2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-258
Author(s):  
Nandan Unnikrishnan ◽  
Uma Purushothaman

Russia has re-emerged as a major player in the Middle East once again, mainly because of its military intervention in the Syrian civil war in September 2015. This article throws light on Russia’s civilizational links with the region and what its aims in the region have been over the years, including the during Cold War. While Russia’s foreign policy towards the Middle East was passive in the tumultuous years following the fall of the Soviet Union, over the last few years, it has begun reorienting and recalibrating its policy towards the region. This article discusses Russia’s current aims in the region and its global ambitions, linking these to its intervention in the Syrian civil war, paying particular attention to the close ties that Russia has with Syria. This article attempts to explore whether Russia’s presence in the region is sustainable. It also explains the consequences of Russia’s intervention for the region and for Russia itself.


2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 767-778
Author(s):  
Michael Gasper

Over the last few years there has been much scholarly interest in sectarianism and minorities in the Middle East. New scholarship has appeared against the backdrop of communal violence in Iraq triggered by the US-led invasion, the intensifying Saudi–Iranian rivalry, the rise of extremist groups such as ISIS that have made sectarian violence a centerpiece of their ideology, and the ongoing Syrian Civil War.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoram Evron

Since the early 2010s, there have been mounting calls in China to intensify its role in the Middle East. But seeing the region as highly turbulent, Beijing seems to restrain its political involvement there. So what role does China actually strive for in the Middle East? To answer this question, the article first presents China’s discourse on its future role in the region; next, it analyzes China’s involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the Syrian civil war, focusing on three diplomatic initiatives it has made concerning these issues. The argument here is that China strives to be part of major processes in the Middle East and attempts to advance its values and interests there, but in a unique pattern of big-power involvement in the region, it tries to achieve this without intensive investment of political, economic, and military resources.


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