The multimodal construction of empathy in the representation of Ukrainian displaced people: The case of British television

Recent studies on the representation of Ukrainian Displaced People (UDP) in the press have highlighted a more positive depiction of UDP compared to other refugees (Bashri and Tedam, 2023; Sales, 2023, Prieto-Andrés, Fernández and López-Avilés, 2024). To date, however, there has been no systematic analysis of televised programmes focussing on this issue.

Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis lens (e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen 2001; Machin and Mayr, 2012), this paper analyses the representation of UDP in programmes broadcast on British television that focussed on the Ukrainian diaspora, and explores the multimodal construction of empathy. The corpus comprises 11 television programmes broadcast on BBC, ITV and Sky channels between 13th March 2022 and 1st March 2024.

The data is analysed both quantitatively through the ELAN software and qualitatively. In relation to the multimodal construction of empathy, the quantitative analysis will provide details regarding: i) the distribution and frequency of the social actors (van Leeuwen 1996) represented; ii) the distribution and frequency of framing techniques in the moving image mode (distance and camera angle); iii) the distribution and frequency of the sound mode (diegetic vs. non-diegetic) and the music mode. The quantitative results are considered both within each programme and comparatively to the corpus. The qualitative analysis will interpret and explain the data by placing the programmes within the socio-political context in which they were produced, distributed and received: here differences and similarities between the different media producers (BBC, ITV and Sky) will also be highlighted.

A final discussion will focus on how the refugees can be multimodally constructed in a positive way. The goal of the project is, therefore, to support the design of a media semiotics blueprint for the positive representation of refugees and migrants more broadly.