African Journalism Studies
Volume 37, Issue 1, 2016, Pages 1-20

Visibility without voice: Media witnessing irregular migrants in BBC online news journalism (Review)

Horsti K.*
  • a Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Abstract

In the analysis of journalistic representation of irregular migration to Europe, rather little attention is given to the variation of modes and genres of journalism. Most studies focus on text in 'old media' and the news genre. This article analyses affordances of different modalities and genres of online journalism in framing irregular migrants. Media framing in BBC online news coverage of a mediatised conflict in Spain, defined as a 'migration crisis', is analysed with multimodal social semiotics. While mediation makes global audiences witness tragedies at Europe's borders and online journalism affords more voice and deliberation for migrant sources, the frames of threat and victim dominate the news stories. Frames that depict migrants as surviving heroes who provide for their families emerge in feature genres. © 2016 iMasa.

Author Keywords

Media witnessing Online journalism Europe'Africa border News images Media conflict News frame Immigration

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84966389249&doi=10.1080%2f23743670.2015.1084585&partnerID=40&md5=d9d639871ca73404516851e4d8f1cda2
DOI: 10.1080/23743670.2015.1084585
ISSN: 23743670
Cited by: 10
Original Language: English