Gender and immigrants’ representation in UK newspapers in times of ‘crises’

(Im)migration discourse is a well-studied area. However, there are few studies specifically on the representation of gender and immigration in media (but note Blumell & Cooper 2019 and Liu 2021). This empirical paper is situated within the field of Critical Discourse Studies. It contributes to the growing, yet limited scholarship on gender and immigration media discourse by illuminating the representation of gender through gendered (and gendering) discourses (cf. Sunderland 2004).

We focus on immigration media coverage in six national UK newspapers during the Brexit referendum and the ‘refugee crisis’ globally due to conflicts. We focus on four two-week periods per publication. The first two-week period consists of the two weeks after the ‘Brexit’ referendum was announced (22/12/2016 – 07/03/2016); the second the two weeks following the referendum itself (23/06/2016 – 07/07/2016); the third between 22/12 and 07/03 2020; and the fourth between 23/06 and 07/07/2020.

Here we discuss data from the first and second two-week periods from The Sun newspaper (both from 2016) using discourse-historical approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2016) and Van Leeuwen’s (1996) framework of the representation of social actors.

Blumell, L. & Cooper, G. 2019. Measuring gender in news representations of refugees and asylum seekers, International Journal of Communication, 13: 4444-4464.

Liu, S. 2021. Gendering immigration: media framings of the economic and cultural consequences of immigration, Feminist Media Studies: 1-18.

Reisigl, M., & Wodak. R. 2016. The Discourse-Historical Approach, in Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage: 23-26.

Sunderland, J. 2004. Gendered Discourses. Palgrave: Macmillan.

Van Leeuwen, T. 1996. The representation of social actors, in Caldas-Coulthard, C. & Coulthard, M. (eds) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge: 32-70.