Media Discourses of the rescue and landing of migration by boat in the Italian News Media

Ho pubblicato, insieme a Marco Bruno, il saggio Media Discourses of the rescue and landing of migration by boat in the Italian News Media nel volume “Contemporary Boat Migration. Data, Geopolitics, and Discourses” curato da Elaine Burroughs and Kira Williams (Rowman & Littlefield International, London, 2018, 9781786605146, pp. 137-155)

Abstract

Due to the characteristics of migratory phenomenon in Italy, the arrival by boat of immigrants and refugees represents a “media icon” of the whole migration issue. The news-report on this topic are paramount in the construction of political polarization regard the management of fluxes; seemingly, they support the prevalent discourse frame of emergency and social alarm (or, sporadically, the pietistic or the rescue ones).
Through the collection, processing and analysis led by the authors (via mixed methods: content analysis, lexical analysis, frame and discourse analysis), as well by the review of research carried out by many media scholars over almost 30 years, this chapter aims to analyse how media discourse builds the representation of boundaries and the construction of space in the Italian News Media. This representation is constructed around a dual system, a two-side narrative: 1) the buzz, the background noise that daily landings feed, and 2) the plain attention to a tragic emergency (crisis)