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Journal of Language and Politics 12:2 (2013), –. doi 10.1075/jlp.12.2.04mon
issn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
e representation of migrants in the
Italian press
A study on the Corriere della Sera (1992–2009)
Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
University of Milano-Bicocca
e research analyses media discourse on migration in Italy, regarded as a
means of reproducing and maintaining a racist interpretation of inter-group
relations. e theoretical framework is the Critical Discourse Analysis approach.
Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed on data consisting of
headlines and articles from the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, published
between 1992 and 2009. Overall, it emerged that discourse is built according
to themes and discursive strategies already identied by similar research based on
European media, indicating how this system of representations denes a
common sense of cultural belonging and a shared construction of ethnic
relations. e rather long time span considered in the study allowed us to focus
on how the discourse on migration in Italy might have evolved over time, but also
to identify any elements that may have remained unchanged.
Keywords: Racism; prejudice; migration; mass media; Critical Discourse
Analysis; Corriere della Sera; Italy
1. Introduction
e aim of this study was to analyse how media discourse on migration in Italy
is used to reproduce and maintain a racist interpretation of relationships among
groups.
Our theoretical framework was that of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA),
a broad approach that investigates how discursive practices represent, legitimise,
reproduce, and, occasionally, ght systems of social inequality (Weiss & Wodak
2003). Discourse and language are not powerful per se. ey are powerful when
a powerful social group controls and uses them as instruments to maintain and
legitimise its supremacy over others (Chilton 2004). erefore, the aim of CDA
is to understand the discourse strategies through which certain social groups
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
assert their power and domination over others. We can investigate these strategies
by analysing what is expressed in such discourse, and by examining what is le
unsaid with regard to certain issues (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001).
Criticality is the dening characteristic of CDA: it inuences all levels
of the research, such as the identication of a social problem, data selection,
methodology and analysis (KhosraviNik 2009). CDA is critical because it focuses
on analysing social problems (Fairclough & Wodak 1997) and because it pro-
motes the idea of research as a value-oriented activity. is approach embraces
the view that scientic research should be aimed not only at expanding theoretical
knowledge, but also at identifying strategies to change social phenomena (van
Dijk 2001).
One of the most relevant approaches in CDA is Teun A. van Dijk’s theory
of the discursive reproduction of racism, which provides the framework for this
research. According to van Dijk (2004, 1998), racism is a system of social inequal-
ity based on ethnicity in which an opposition is perceived between the in-group
(i.e. “White folk”) and the out-group (i.e. migrants and ethnic minorities). is
system, which establishes a relationship in which the White group dominates
the out-group, is based on two components: a cognitive component and a social
component. Referring to Moscovici’s theory (1984), van Dijk (2000a) dened the
cognitive component as a racist ideology that organises shared beliefs regard-
ing certain social groups. e social component consists of all discriminatory
social practices that marginalise and prevent the group of “Others” from access-
ing materials and symbolic social resources (van Dijk 2002). Access to symbolic
resources is controlled by the upper classes (i.e. the “elite”), who are believed to
be responsible for spreading a new form of racism called “daily racism” (van Dijk
1993). is new kind of racism pervades the daily lives of migrants and ethnic
minorities (van Dijk 2004). However, the discriminatory nature of such forms of
racism is not immediately recognisable, as it is based on explanations and inter-
pretations based on a social or cultural, but not a biological, matrix (Delanty,
Jones & Wodak 2008).
Both the social and cognitive components of racism include two dierent
levels. At the micro level, the social component includes discriminatory actions
through which racism is reproduced in the relations among individuals, whereas
at the macro level, racism is reproduced in the context of institutions, groups and
relations among groups.
According to van Dijk, discourse is the main instrument through which rac-
ist ideology is reproduced. In particular, media discourse is the most inuential
source for forming and spreading dominant ideologies (1991). e press plays a
fundamental role in the mass media: it is the main source used by certain elites to
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
learn about “ethnic events” and determine what other elites (e.g. journalists) “do”
or “say” (van Dijk 1993).
e press constructs and spreads racist ideologies by selecting certain sources
(van Dijk 1991; Pietikäinen 2003), referring to particular issues related to migrants
and ethnic minorities (ter Wal 2002), and using specic argumentative strategies,
such as topoi, arguments (Reisigl & Wodak 2001), and lexical styles (Teo 2000).
Together, these choices reproduce through discourse a basic schema that van
Dijk calls an “ideological framework” (2007), which is characterised by the con-
trast between an excessively positive image of the dominant group and the overly
negative representation of the dominated group.
In the context of CDA, many studies have investigated the semantic and
syntactic structures that characterise racist discourse as expressed in the media (see
Wodak 2009). Although most of these researches are based on qualitative analysis
strategies, some studies, such as the research presented in this article, integrate
both quantitative and qualitative data analyses (Baker, Gabrielatos, KhosraviNik,
Krzyżanowski, McEnery & Wodak 2008). In our research, quantitative analysis is
used to identify the main topics through which the press discusses migration and
migrants, as well as the evolution of these topics over time. Qualitative analysis is
used to examine the role of migrants as a source of information and the metaphors
used in media discourse.
With regard to semantic strategies, prior studies have indicated that some
topics characterise the discourse on ethnic facts in the press. For example, the
migratory process is framed by references to issues such as illegal arrivals of
migrants, national policies to control migration, the regulation of migrant arrivals
and staying permits, as well as expulsion and repatriation (van Dijk 1991). ese
issues are all depicted as a series of problems for the host country (ter Wal 2002;
van Dijk 1988). For instance, in the case of Italy, ter Wal (1999, 2001) showed that
during the 1990s, the matter of illegal migrants arriving from Albania received
considerable attention from the press and created a panic with respect to migra-
tion. e problematic nature of the issue is oen constructed through a sort of
number game strategy (van Dijk 1988) which uses statistics and numbers to lend
greater credibility to the arguments and to dramatize the extent of the phenom-
enon. As observed by KhosraviNik (2009), the topos of numbers does not in and
of itself lead to negative images of migrants. In fact, KhosraviNik’s research on
the representation of asylum seekers in the English press found that this topos is
also used on behalf of refugees, with the aim of calling for sympathy and aid for
their plight. us, one can argue that “the interpretation of negativity requires a
complex contextual sense-making apparatus which would include in itself (inter-)
discursive topics among several other relevant physical, emotional elements which
constitute a context of interpretation” (KhosraviNik 2009: 494). A recent study
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
examining the British press highlighted another method through which a threat-
ening image of the migratory process is constructed. is study identied “a new
tendency: the merging of the semantic concepts of ‘migrants’ and ‘asylum seekers’”
through the interchangeable use of these terms with very similar meanings and the
paradoxical coining of new designations such as ‘illegal asylum seekers’ or ‘illegal
refugees’ (Baker et al. 2008).
Another issue typically associated with migrants is crime and deviance. For
example, journalists oen portray migrants as the agents (but only rarely as the
victims) of violent criminal acts. Second, journalists tend to indicate the illegal
status and nationality of perpetrators when they report criminal acts committed
by migrants (van Dijk 1991). According to van Dijk (1993), this practice is the
most systematic method through which the semantic strategy of “over-complete-
ness” is implemented. at is, the discourse is full of details that do not contribute
new information, but that are useful for exaggerating the dierences between
the in-group and the out-group. Moreover, mentioning the migrants’ nationali-
ties activates a process of “ethnicising” crime and deviance (van Dijk 1991), as
though migrants and ethnic minorities were characterised by “criminogenic”
predispositions. is ethnicisation process also occurs by establishing a correla-
tion between specic ethnic groups and criminal acts. For example, during the
1990s, the Italian press portrayed Albanians as especially inclined toward the,
prostitution or Maa activities (ter Wal 1999), whereas Moroccans and Tunisians
tended to be associated with drug tracking (Dal Lago 1999).
Two other issues highlight the problematic images associated with migrants
and ethnic minorities. e rst is the issue of sharing the same physical space
and the same socioeconomic resources with migrants (ter Wal 2002; van Dijk
1991). For example, ter Wal found that from 1990 to 1995, the press particularly
emphasised news concerning the mobilisations of Italian citizens and police inter-
ventions against migrant settlements. e settlements were presented as a “social
pathology”, and the news insisted on describing the unsanitary conditions of the
buildings in which the migrants lived (ter Wal 1996).
e second issue is that of cultural dierences. Although less frequent than
those discussed previously, this topic contributes to creating an image of strong
contrast between the in-group and the out-group (van Dijk 1993). Attention to
cultural dierences results in judgements of “backwardness” and stereotypes with
regard to traditions, cultures, and religious beliefs that are dierent from those
of the in-group. Several studies show for example that Muslims are commonly
associated with fundamentalism, terrorism, and the denial of women’s rights
(Richardson 2004). ese denitions can lead to the legitimisation of discrimi-
natory practices, as pointed out in a research that analysed letters published in
English newspapers (Lynn & Lea 2003).
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
Regarding sources chosen by journalists when reporting the news, van Dijk
(2008) observed that reporters have few relationships with migrants and ethnic
minorities. In this respect, journalism is characterised by a degree of ignorance
concerning migration issues because their sources are other people’s discourse.
Some researchers have investigated the sources chosen to talk about migration-
related issues. Conducted in several European countries, these studies show a
general tendency to marginalise the voices of migrants even when they are the
protagonists of the narrated events. For example, ter Wal (2002) and van Dijk
(1991) analysed how the Spanish and British press have presented conicts
between police and migrants, or between migrants and native citizens. ese
researchers show that the voice of the out-group is marginal or absent in these
articles. Police forces and citizens’ committees who opposed the presence of
migrants and migrant activities were the most quoted sources. Similar results were
found in a research examining discussions broadcast on Dutch television regard-
ing multicultural societies (Leurdijk 1999, cit. in ter Wal 2002) and in a study
comparing le-wing newspapers and right-wing tabloids in England (Statham &
Morrison 1999).
Metaphors are central to critical discourse analysis because of their role in
constructing a coherent view of reality (Charteris-Black 2004: 28). Metaphors
operate by including new or unfamiliar social objects in familiar and read-
ily available categories of meaning (Santa Ana 1999). In this sense, metaphors
have ideological value because they “dene in signicant part what one takes for
reality” (Chilton & Lako 1995: 56) by favouring one mode of construction or
understanding of reality over another. Scholars have found that journalists use a
limited set of metaphors (Reisigl & Wodak 2001), such as references to war (e.g.
“invasions” or “arms”) or water (e.g. “waves”, “ows”, or “tides”) to describe the
problematic nature of the migratory process. Moreover a study on the American
press showed that animal metaphors are the most frequent in the discourse regard-
ing migrants, as a part of the process through which migrants are dehumanised
(Santa Ana 1999).
Within this theoretical and empirical framework, this research aims to study
the representation of migrants and migration in the Italian context by analysing
mass media excerpts from the early 1990s, when the phenomenon of migra-
tion started to grow and became increasingly visible in the media, to the end
of 2009 (see Colombo in this issue). We split this objective into four sub-goals:
to identify the main topics through which the press discusses migration and
migrants; to identify the evolution of these topics over by highlighting changes
and persisting views; to examine the role of migrants as a source of the informa-
tion presented by the media; and to analyse metaphors used to discuss migrants
and migration.
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press 1
. Method
.1 Corpus
e corpus consists of headlines and articles from the Italian newspaper Corriere
della Sera, published between 1 January 1992 and 31 December 2009, available
in the paper’s online archives. We selected the data by searching for the words
“immigrant”, “illegal immigrant”, “non-EU citizen” and “foreigner” in the articles’
titles. We also searched for the masculine, feminine, singular, and plural versions
of all these key terms.
We performed both quantitative and qualitative analyses. For the quantitative
analysis, the data set consisted of the articles’ headlines (6,900). Our decision to
analyse the headlines is based on the fact that headlines contain the information
that is cognitively and psychologically most important (van Dijk 1991). In his anal-
ysis of Australian newspaper headlines, Teo explains, “e function of the headline
or lead is to form a cognitive macro-structure that serves as an important strategic
cue to control the way readers process and make sense of the report” (2000: 13–14).
Table 1 shows the number of article headlines collected for each year.
For the qualitative analysis, the data set consisted of 50 articles selected on the
basis of the results of the quantitative analysis. is selection criterion has three
advantages. First, it substantially reduces the size of the data set under examina-
tion. Second, it identies the articles that are representative of the topics in the data
Table 1. Number of article headlines (1992–2009)
Ye a r Articles
1992 158
1993 173
1994 189
1995 336
1996 304
1997 341
1998 401
1999 383
2000 453
2001 374
2002 319
2003 533
2004 470
2005 383
2006 435
2007 496
2008 574
2009 578
Tota l 6900
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
set. Finally, because this criterion is independent from the researchers’ choices, it
reduces the risk of selecting the articles based on the researchers’ biases.
e Corriere della Sera is the most widely circulated Italian newspaper, and its
readership has a generally high cultural and economic prole.
. Data analysis
We integrated two methods of data analysis: a quantitative lexical analysis, which
we conducted using the T-Lab soware, and a qualitative discourse analysis.
Although CDA research is primarily qualitative in nature, “use of CL [corpus
linguistic] techniques is becoming increasingly popular in critical approaches to
discourse analysis” (Baker et al. 2008:275). e qualitative literature has empha-
sised the utility of integrating qualitative and quantitative methods (Bauer &
Gaskell 2000), and this integration of methods can help scholars overcome any
intrinsic limitations of each model.
More specically, quantitative analysis with the T-Lab soware is a word-driven
analysis in which inferences are based on frequency distribution (Colombo &
Montali 2010). erefore, interpretations are based on output, which is automati-
cally generated through statistical techniques. Computer-assisted quantitative
analysis has two major advantages. e rst is that the automatic nature of the anal-
ysis provides a reasonable degree of objectivity, as the researcher mainly – although
not exclusively – exercises his or her subjectivity while interpreting the data, but
not while selecting or coding it (Colucci & Montali 2008). e second advantage is
the speed of the data processing, even in the case of a large data set such as the one
used here. is type of analysis is useful if the researcher aims to obtain a map of a
data set’s contents by identifying keywords and clusters (Mautner 2007). However,
given its descriptive nature, quantitative analysis “is not sucient to explain or
interpret the reasons why certain linguistic patterns were found (or not found)”
(Baker et al. 2008: 293).
With the T-Lab soware, we performed a thematic analysis of elementary
contexts (TAEC) and an analysis of lexical correspondences (ACL).
TAEC allows us to identify signicant thematic clusters. For each cluster,
T-Lab indicates the typical vocabulary (i.e. the lemmas that characterise the cluster,
which are identied based on chi-square tests), the most important elementary
contexts (i.e. the sentences containing the most typical words), and the variable
that best characterises the cluster. In this case, this variable was one of the four
words (i.e. immigrant, illegal immigrant, non-EU citizen, and foreigner), whose
presence in the headlines was the criterion for their inclusion in the data set.
We used ACL to analyse the temporal trends of the identied topics. ACL
is a factorial analysis technique that allows one to extract new variables (i.e. the
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
factors) which summarise the signicant information contained in a textual data
set and relate this information to the extra-textual variables under consideration.
In our case, these variables were the years of publication, which went from 1992
to 2009. Each factor establishes a spatial dimension, which can be represented as
an axis line with a centre whose value is “0”. is dimension develops in a bipolar
manner towards the negative and positive ends, meaning that the lemmas and
extra-textual variables on opposite poles exhibit the greatest dierences.
To investigate the semantic strategies, we conducted a discourse analysis.
Specically, we analysed two issues: the sources cited in the articles and the meta-
phors used to discuss migrants and migration. We conducted these analyses on
the data set of the articles selected based on the previous thematic analysis of
elementary contexts. Each of the elementary contexts that the program identi-
ed as the most signicant for each cluster corresponded to the title of an article.
Discourse analysis is a collection of methods that exceed the descriptive level. In
addition, discourse analysis can provide depth to the analysis and build a criti-
cal interpretation that situates texts in relation to their production contexts and
reveals their ideological nature. In this area, some scholars have criticised the
methodology mainly because the process by which the analysed texts are selected
is oen not representative or is intended to conrm the researchers’ hypotheses
(Colucci & Montali 2008). us, both computer aided lexical analysis and dis-
course analysis have specic advantages and disadvantages, and their integration
has methodological justication and potential heuristic value.
. Results
.1 ematic analysis of elementary contexts
Five clusters emerged from the analysis. e typical vocabulary of each cluster
identied a specic subject area and each cluster was characterised by one or more
of the considered variables (one of the four words – immigrant, illegal immigrant,
non-EU citizen, and foreigner – whose presence in the headlines was the criterion
for their inclusion in the data set).
Cluster 1
e variable that characterises this cluster is illegal immigrant. Overall, the included
lemmas refer to the thematic area of illegal migrants arriving in Italy as well as
repressive actions and control exercised towards these migrants (see Table 2).
e media’s portrayal of the topic shows that the press emphasised stories in
which the illegal migrants had arrived by sea, as indicated by the prevalence of
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
words related to the sea (e.g. “landing”, “sea”, “ship”, “land”, “Lampedusa”, “ra”,
“boat”, “wave”, “shing”, “port”). is nding is particularly striking if one consid-
ers the statistics provided by the Ministry of the Interior (Ministero dell’Interno
2009). ese statistics state that less than 20% of illegal migrants arrive in Italy by
sea each year. A possible explanation for this choice lies in the newsworthiness
Table 2. e typical vocabulary of the clusters
Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4 Cluster 5
Die Assault Brawl Vo t e Italian
Landing To rape To wound Amnesty School
Sea Stabbing To kill Fingerprint Children
Ship Gang Quarrel Line Student
Massacre Prostitution Gun Government Integration
Judge Raped Stab To as k Boom
Land Peruvians Policeman Permit Record
Lampedusa Moroccans Shootout Decree To be born
Trackers Robbery Arrested Bossi To g row
Tir Wounded Bottle Quota Population
Wre c k To sentence To arrest Major Crime
Sink Drug tracking Drug Scalfaro To learn
Ra To b eat Fight Storace Nursery
To stop Drunk Battle Berlusconi Classroom
Boat Stab Moroccans Violante Teacher
Wav e Degradation Drunk Right Resident
To arrest Arrested Poles Application Language
Fishing boat Handcus South Americans Citizenship Census
To eject To ass a u l t Homicide Napolitano Family
Smugglers Albanians Policemen Document
Airplane Armed To vot e
Denounce Romanians
To control Knife
Trial Rape
Port
Tra g e d y
To reject
Puglia
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
of migrants who arrive by boat. Indeed their stories oen involve large groups of
people and they are characterised by a certain degree of drama. A second explana-
tion for this nding is the evocative power of arrivals by sea in the Italian cultural
context. Italian borders are mainly dened by the sea. Historically, threats of inva-
sion against the country have oen come from the sea. is association between
entry of illegal migrants and landing on Italian shores has a subtle negative valence
because this association is implicitly disguised as a mere chronicle of events.
e second element that characterises the media’s representation of this subject
refers to the dramatic nature of arrivals by sea. e press uses terms such as “die”,
“massacre”, “missing”, “wreck”, “sink”, “tragedy”, “drowning”, “victim”, “horror”, as
well as descriptions of human tracking (e.g. “trackers”, “smugglers”). us, the
arrival of illegal migrants is portrayed in terms of threat and fear fostering a nega-
tive attitude toward the migrants’ entry. is perspective is reinforced by the lack
of references to any reasons explaining why migrants le their countries. e only
exception is the lemma “refugee”, which indicates that some migrants come from
war zones.
One can interpret the discourse on actions implemented to counter illegal
migration within a similar framework. ese actions are dened through a
judicial lexicon (e.g. “blitz”, “arrest”, “denounce”, “trials”, “judge”) that empha-
sises the importance of repression (e.g. “eject”, “expelled”, “expulsion”, “hunting”,
“reject”, “controls”). By adopting a bureaucratic-judicial language, the problem of
migration is dened as a threat to public order, which legitimises the authorities’
repressive actions by concealing the discriminatory nature of these actions. Again,
it is worth noting that the discourse is constructed through the omission of some
signicant elements, such as the acts of hospitality and solidarity by Italian citizens
toward migrants who land on Italian shores.
Cluster 2
e variables that characterise this cluster are immigrant and non-EU citizen. e
out-group is dened unfavourably and in terms of the threat posed by its members
through their association with various forms of deviance (e.g. “drunks”, “degrada-
tion”) and crimes (e.g. “prostitution”, “robbery”, “drug tracking”, “rape”, “assault”,
“stabbing”, “beatings”) (see Table2).
We identied three discourse strategies emphasising the link between
migrants and crime.
First, the media focuses on crimes against persons, which usually have a
high emotional impact on readers. Similar to our previous observations on the
proportion of migrants entering by sea, the relevance attributed to these crimes
do not match the reality of the phenomenon. According to Ministry of the
Interior statistics, the crimes for which migrants are primarily prosecuted are
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
not crimes against persons, but rather robberies and drug tracking (Ministero
dell’Interno 2007).
Second, the media “ethnicises” crime and deviance (van Dijk 2008; ter Wal
2001). In these cases, the media refers to a few specic ethnic groups (“Moroccans”,
“Albanians”, “Romanians”, “Peruvians”) as the culprits responsible for the crimes.
Over time, this strategy causes people to automatically associate a certain ethnic
group with dangerous behaviour.
ird, the media oen refers to the agents of criminal acts as “gangs”. is term
underlines the danger posed to the out-group by emphasising the agents’ ability to
recruit, organise and coordinate their criminal acts. us, this strategy promotes
the idea that successfully prosecuting the members of this group is dicult.
Cluster 3
e variable that characterises this cluster is non-EU citizen. Cluster 3 is also
dened by the media’s portrayal of non EU-migrants as a threat (see Table2).
e press constructs this representation by referring to street violence, (“brawl”,
“wound”, “quarrel”, “knife”, “shootout”, “bottle”, “ght”). Similarly to the previous
cluster, we nd that the media ethnicises certain crimes by referring to specic
ethnic groups, such as Moroccans, Poles and South Americans. Regarding the
latter, we note that the press implements a strategy of generalisation (van Dijk
1998) in which journalists refer not to a single nationality but rather to an entire
continent.
e existence of a cluster related to these issues highlights their relevance
within the media discourse on migration. Given that this relevance does not
appear to be proportional to the seriousness of the issue in the Italian context,
we suggest that the media may cover these issues because of the readers’ interest
in these stories. At the same time, the media’s emphasis on these themes clearly
helps spread the idea that such crimes are common phenomena and that certain
migrants should be associated with such crimes. e circularity of this inu-
ence between the media and the readers strengthens this ideological framework
because the ideology appears to be grounded in facts, concrete episodes and news
stories rather than discursive and representational choices.
Cluster 4
e variable that characterises this cluster is immigrant. e thematic framework
of this cluster (see Table2) is the topic of citizenship rights. Specically, the media
focuses on two dimensions of citizens’ rights: the process of legalisation (“amnesty”,
“ngerprint”, “line”, “seek”, “permission”, “decree”, “regular”, “quota”, “law”, “applica-
tion”, “document”, “post oce”) and the migrants’ right to vote in local elections
(“vote”, “right”, “voting”).
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
e analysis of this cluster allows us to identify the ideological framework of
the subject. e lemma “amnesty” indicates a measure that is meant to legalise
an illegal act. However, an amnesty does not modify the law; it only states that
certain acts are to be declared ex-post legitimate, even though they remain ille-
gal. is framework has two main consequences. First, the media reinforces the
link between migration and illegality by stating that the entry and the presence of
migrants are acts against the law. e second consequence regards the uncertainty
that permeates the topic of migrants’ citizenship rights. Amnesty is a measure that
is at the discretion of each government and is subject to dierent negotiations
among various political actors. is is reected by the presence of the names of
centre-right and centre-le politicians who have played primary roles in den-
ing the rules of citizenship (“Bossi”, “Scalfaro”, “Storace”, “Vendola”, “Violante”,
“Napolitano”, “Dini”, “Berlusconi”).
e lack of references to the migrants themselves or to the organisations
involved in defending their rights highlights the discretion of the media’s choices.
Cluster 5
e variable that characterises this cluster is “foreigner”. e frame of the cluster
(see Table2) is the growing number of foreign children in Italian schools and
the related issue of language (“Italian”, “school”, “baby”, “student”, “integration”,
“learning”, “asylum”, “classroom”, “teacher”, “language”).
e lexical choice through which the subject is constructed aims to emphasise
both the size and the growth of the phenomenon, as demonstrated by the lemmas
related to surveys of the foreign population’s socio-demographic data (e.g. “boom”,
“record”, “born”, “marriage”, “grow”, “population”, “resident”, “census”, “presence”).
Similar to the “number game” suggested by van Dijk, this discursive strategy helps
construct a negative representation of migration, albeit dierently from previously
considered strategies. In fact, interventions aimed at implementing restrictions so
as to reduce the magnitude of the phenomenon and limit its potentially negative
eects are claimed to be necessary.
. Lexical correspondence analysis
e lexical correspondence analysis that we conducted on the data set of the
articles’ titles allowed us to identify the temporal evolution of the discourse on
migration. Figure 1 shows the rst two factors resulting from the analysis. e rst
and second factors explain 15.39% and 10.05% of the total variance respectively.
In the present analysis, we decided to focus on factor 1: the distribution of the
variable “year” shows a clear distinction between the period from 1992 to 2002,
which is located on the positive polarity of the horizontal axis, and the period
from 2003 to 2009, which is located on the negative polarity of the same axis.
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
e rst period (from 1992 to 2002) is dominated by discourses (see Table3)
regarding migrants arriving on Italian shores (“Puglia”, “ship”, “landing”, “army”,
“border”, “land”, “Sicily”) and the legalisation of migrants (“amnesty”, “decree”,
“registrar”, “document”, “ngerprint”, “police”, “policemen”, “oce”). By contrast,
the discourse in the period going from 2003 to 2009 focuses on the foreign chil-
dren in schools (“class”, “kindergarten”, “school”, “child”, “student”) and on the
migrants’ rights to vote as a means of achieving social integration (“vote”, “integra-
tion”, “to welcome”). From a historical point of view, this transition corresponds
to two stages of transformation of the Italian society. e rst concerns Italy’s
transition from being a country of emigration to becoming a country of immigra-
tion in the early 1990s. In the media discourse, this transition is objectied by the
image of thousands of migrants landing on the Italian coast, an image which fuels
the notions of threat and fear. Migrants are then treated as a problem of public
order and criminal law and are entrusted to the police or to the government. By
contrast, the second phase begins in the subsequent decade, when migration has
transformed from being a phenomenon of limited size and impact to being a
structural component of Italian society. e increasing number of migrants and
the presence of second- and third-generation migrants demand that the social
discourse address previously neglected issues.
2009
2008 2007
20052006
2004
2003
2000
2002
2001
1997
1999
1998
1995
1996
1993
1994
1992
1,0
0,0
–0,4 –0,2 –0,0 0,2 0,4
0,6
–0,6
–0,4
–0,2
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
–0,6
Figure 1. Lexical correspondence analysis: Graph of the rst two factors
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
At the same time, it is noteworthy that the only theme that emerges in
both periods is related to the crime and deviance of migrants and their related
experiences with police repression. In the rst phase, the discourse is focused on
crimes such as prostitution or robbery (“prostitute”, “robbery”, “brawl”), whereas
in the second phase, the issue of rape emerges (“rape”, “to rape”, “to be raped”).
us, we can argue that, despite the variability of the themes upon which the
discourse on migration is built, the association between migrants and crime
is the only consistent element that denes the negative representation of the
out-group.
Table 3. Lexical correspondence analysis: Positive and negative polarity of Factor 1
Positive polarity
1992–2002
Negative polarity
2003–2009
Lemmas Lemmas
Amnesty Classroom
Brawl Kindergarten
Puglia School
Albanian To rape
Polish Rape
Prostitute Blitz
Ship Security
Kurdish Child
Decree Tri a l
Landing To welcome
Register Student
Arrest Crime
Army Judge
Document Vote
Board Integration
Police Violence
Oce to be raped
Land To b eat
Policeman Rights
Sicily Prison
Robbery Gang
Fingerprint
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
. Discourse analysis: e sources
e articles tend to focus almost exclusively on the in-group’s point of view, even
when the topics are of direct interest to the migrants or concern their lives and
experiences.
With respect to the topic of migrant arrivals, the articles feature quotes from
in-group members, even though the migrants were the actual protagonists of these
events:
(1) “Tragedy at sea. 20 illegal immigrants dead and 7 missing. “Considering the
conditions of the sea, it was crazy to face such a journey” commented Captain
Ivano Baschieri, who leads the 28th Squadron of the Navy and coordinated the
recovery of survivors and bodies. We think it was a trip organized by Albanians
for a group of illegal immigrants from Greece: “Dinghies can be hidden behind
the small islands north of Corfu, and then they cross the Channel of Otranto”,
says captain Della Valle, from the Bari port oce.” (11 January 2004)
In the articles on this topic of migrant arrivals, in-group quotes have two discur-
sive functions. On the one hand, they show that the journey itself is extremely
dangerous, implying that only desperation can justify the risks. On the other hand,
these quotations provide a positive portrayal of the in-group, whose members
work to help migrants.
We can interpret the only two quotes from the migrants in a complementary
manner. Let us consider the rst migrant’s testimony:
(2) “ere were four of them when they le Sierra Leone, but only three arrived:
Gabriel, his Mom and his Dad. During the trip from Libya to Lampedusa, Gabriel
lost his little sister. She was only one year and eight months old: “She didn’t make
it, she is dead: we threw her into the sea”. Under the eyes of Gabriel. She was the
rst to close her eyes forever. Later, a 5-year-old girl and her 8-year-old brother
followed her to the bottom of the sea, not because of the waves or of the burns
from gasoline, simply because they were cold and hungry.” (30 November 1995)
e quote shows that even when the migrants are given a voice, they too focus
on describing the dangers of the journey, as do the various accounts given by in-
group members. In this sense, the migrants’ quotes are complementary to those
of the in-group.
e second testimony is recounted by a young woman who describes the
abuses by the human trackers who ran her trip:
(3) “She claims she is 22 years old. She repeats her name a couple of times, but it
is really incomprehensible. She tells a story which is not very dierent from those
of the others who are here. But this is her story, and it’s the only story she knows.
“I do not know why they did this, why we were thrown into the sea. ey shouted
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press 1
and they pushed us. I do not know what they were saying, but it doesn’t matter.
Why should words matter when you are being thrown away as a garbage bag?
ey treated us this way. We were picked up and thrown away”. ” (9 August 2000)
is second quote indicates that the manner in which the in-group’s testimonies
are presented dier from the manner in which the out-group’s testimonies are
presented. When introducing the woman’s statements, the journalist chooses
an expression that shows scepticism (i.e. “she claims she is”). Additionally, the
journalist includes the expression “she tells a story”, which may suggest that the
women’s report is not fully trustworthy. When the journalist points out that the
woman’s name is incomprehensible to him, he indicates the cultural distance that
exists between himself and the immigrant.
Direct quotes from migrants do not appear in the other articles analysed in
this study, as journalists only present the in-group’s perspective. For example, with
respect to the right to vote and dening procedures to regularise migrants, the
media gives voice to various subjects, all of whom are members of the in-group
(e.g. politicians, institutional representatives, and representatives of business or of
civil society). From a discursive point of view, these speeches are characterised by
a common strategy, that of comparison and contrast, which is one of the topoi of
the European discourse on migration (van Dijk 1991). A typical example of this
strategy is shown in the following excerpt:
(4) “Voting rights to immigrants: Brescia calls for caution. Paolo Zani, who has
worked as a taxi driver in Brescia for 34 years, says, “I have had to do with honest
immigrants, hard workers and family men, but I know that there are so many
drug dealers who live only from day to day. It is necessary to make distinctions”. ”
(23 November 2003)
e article uses an implication (van Dijk 1991) to suggest that an entire city is wary
of granting migrants the right to vote in local elections. e taxi driver’s words
conrm this point of view by comparing and contrasting dierent migrant groups.
is strategy is intended to justify discrimination between two types of residents:
Italians, who can vote, and migrants, who cannot.
In another article, a progressive political leader, Walter Veltroni, utilises
a similar strategy of comparison and contrast, although his speech is appar-
ently intended to support the migrants’ right to vote. Since the ‘good migrant/
bad migrant’ dichotomy is a common feature in racist discourse, this speech is
an interesting example of the ambiguity that oen characterises the language of
progressive leaders who try to propose innovations in favour of migrants by using
a discursive strategy typical of a racist ideological framework:
(5) “Veltroni writes a letter to Fini asking for ‘immigrants’ voting rights in local
elections’. e General Secretary of the Democratic Party writes that “is is not
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
the time for abstract discussions and ideological prejudice; voting rights and
ghting illegal immigration are two pillars of civil cohabitation, ensuring both
acceptance and legality”. ” (2 September 2008)
In the case of the articles on the topic of crime, the migrants are presented as
perpetrators of attacks against Italian citizens, or as victims of violence that is only
committed by other migrants. However, when the articles give voice to the vic-
tims, the victims are always Italians, as shown by the following excerpt:
(6) “Female student threatened and raped by an immigrant. “I was paralyzed
with fear.” Assaulted and raped in the street. “I had a knife to my throat, I was
afraid of dying.” e stranger grabbed her arm and dragged her away into the
parking lot. “I was not able to scream for fear”, Antonella said later. Deputy
Mayor Riccardo De Corato stated, “Since the beginning of this year, this is the
forty-third such episode, and in 37 of the cases, the perpetrator was a foreigner”. ”
(2 December 2009)
e quote from the deputy mayor establishes a close association between migra-
tion and crime by using statistics, which lend objectivity to the discourse. Further-
more, the quote from the Italian victim induces the reader to empathically identify
with her.
. Discourse analysis: e metaphors
ree typologies of metaphors emerge in the articles. ese metaphors express
dierent meanings, but they all portray the out-group in a negative manner.
In the rst typology, we nd that journalists use metaphors ‘of motion’ to
present the topic of migration, with words such as “exodus” to describe emigra-
tion, and “invasion” to depict the arrival of migrants in Italy. e following excerpt
illustrates this point:
(7) “Illegal immigrants: Emergency. 500 arrested in Chiasso. ere is a real
escalation of illegal immigration from Italy to Switzerland: border guards have
arrested 522 people, 429 of whom were intercepted while trying to enter illegally
through the Ticino border. More than a third of illegal immigrants, 148 as
communicated by the direction of the Fourth Customs district, had le the land
of’ former Yugoslavia, and in particular the Kosovo region. is is conrmation
of a well-known exodus.” (16 June 1997)
In this article, the metaphor is used in a dramatic context, which is established by
the use of the word “emergency” in the opening sentence. Additionally, the meta-
phor uses the “number game” strategy, which confers objectivity to the report, and
a list in which single episodes constitute a block.
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
e number game is one of the most popular strategies used in articles in
which the metaphor of motion appears. e following excerpt, which discusses the
so-called invasion of migrants in a school, illustrates this point:
(8) “In Milan one boy out of ve is enrolled in a private school. One in ve
students in public schools is a foreigner. It is almost automatic to link the two
data. e boom of private schools is a result of the invasion of foreign students in
the classrooms. However, reality is more nuanced. In fact, reading between the
lines of the research conducted by the City, it turns out that the great majority of
these “foreigners” are “true Milanese”. One out of two was born here, and Italian
is their mother-tongue.” (11 November 2009)
In this case, the journalist appears to tone down his rhetoric aer using the meta-
phor of an invasion, but in reality he ends up further emphasising the point. He
writes that reality is more subtle, but rather because the migrants have two central
traits in common with the in-group: their place of birth and their language.
e second typology is metaphors of war. e media utilises such metaphors
to describe the dangers of migration in several ways. In an article about the riots
among migrants in Milan, we nd a typical example of this:
(9) “Fights between immigrants: three wounded. e account sounds like a war
bulletin. Riccardo De Corato, hyperactive even in August, talks about “tribal wars
in the city”, and perhaps this expression is somewhat exaggerated, considering
that he holds the oce of vice mayor in a city that is not the capital of Burundi.”
(23 August 1997)
is case illustrates the same discursive dynamic described above, in which the
author appears to attenuate his rhetoric as described by van Dijk (1991). e
journalist initially appears to distance himself from the Deputy Mayor’s racist
expression, but then he states that in an African capital, tribal wars are a daily and
unquestionable fact of life.
We also nd metaphors of war in some articles about school, to describe the
danger caused by the presence of migrant students or children of migrants in the
classrooms:
(10) “Tuberculosis in a nursery school in Milan. It was reported by the local health
authority (ASL) in a kindergarten in San Siro, in the western suburbs of the city.
is is a nursery school where 6 out of 10 students are foreigners. It was a shock
to the parents. Here’s what a mother says, “Some schools, as well as being social
and cultural powder kegs because of high immigration, are now likely to become
biological bombs.” Tuberculosis was thought to be eradicated. It was considered
an infection of the past, a disease caused by poverty and lth. But it’s back, among
the school of the city that will host Expo 2015.” (29 June 2008)
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
In the rst part of the extract, the mother uses the image of a social and cultural
powder keg to convey the assumption that schools in which there are many chil-
dren of migrants are dangerous places. Moreover, one can observe that the article
does not mention the mother’s nationality or the nationality of the parents who
are said to be “shocked”. us, the journalist implicitly suggests that all of these
people are Italian parents and that they express a position widely shared by the
in-group. In the second part of the extract, the mother describes the danger posed
by foreign students through the metaphor of biological bombs, which is linked to
the concepts of infection and contamination. e journalist renders the metaphor
more credible and dramatic by contrasting the foreigners, who are associated with
poverty and pollution, with the Italians, who are organising the Expo, i.e. a symbol
of modernity and of inclusion in the club of rich countries.
To a lesser degree, we nd a third typology, consisting of animal metaphors.
e following extract, which recounts the deaths of a number of migrants who had
been locked in a ship’s cabin aer the captain discovered their presence, provides
a typical example of this:
(11) “Five illegal migrants died, suocated by smoke, burned like rats in a trap.
ey’d been holed up for days, scared, perhaps. Who knows what they whispered
to each other, fed on few supplies, resisting in the dark and stinky corner. When
they were discovered they decided to gamble it all, playing with re. It was the
only way to try to escape again or perhaps, consciously, to get admitted to hospital.
Anything to avoid being pushed back to the other side of the Mediterranean.” ”
(28 July 1998)
e negative connotations associated with the metaphor of rats are reinforced by
two elements. e rst is the writer’s cynical use of the expression “playing with
re”, which seems a callous way to refer to people who literally burned to death.
e second element is the journalist’s assumption that the migrants may have con-
sciously looked for a way to escape repatriation by seeking admission to the hospi-
tal. In so doing, the journalist reduces the desperation of their acts to a subterfuge
by which the migrants tried to escape an already sealed fate.
. Conclusions
Our quantitative analysis allowed us to map the main topics through which the
media portrayed migration. ese topics include the migration process, crime and
deviance, the rights of citizenship, and the presence of migrants in schools. e
rst two topics emerge in most of the studies conducted on these issues, whereas
the right to vote and the topic of schools appear less frequently. Our decision to use
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
a database that covers a long time span allowed us to better capture the richness of
the representation of the migration process.
Correspondence analysis showed how these themes developed in relation to
the broader political-historical context. ese themes are connected to two phases
of migration in Italy. In the rst phase, the media specically focused on migrant
arrivals. In the second phase, the migration process became an important struc-
tural component of society, and the media focused on topics relating to its stabili-
zation. Over the two periods, the media also focused on the subjects of crime and
deviance, which constitute both the initial frame through which the migrants are
viewed, and the only topic consistently associated with them. ese results led us
to two considerations.
e rst refers to Fairclough’s writing (1989: 54) on the inuence of media dis-
course: “A single text on its own is quite insignicant: the eects of media power
are cumulative, working through the repetition of particular ways of handling cau-
sality and agency, particular ways of positioning the reader, and so forth”. From
this point of view, the association between migration and criminality constitutes
both the core of the media discourse and its most substantial contribution to the
construction of a social representation of migration precisely because of the con-
sistency of this relationship over almost twenty years.
e second consideration is related to the problematisation of migration as
a characteristic that is common to all the identied topics. Specically, the press
refers to migration as an invasion, describes the migrants’ presence in schools as
a problem of social order and sanitation, presents migrants’ citizenship rights as
a controversial and potentially risky issue, and associates migration with the rise
of crime and deviance in Italian society. is interpretation of the lexical analysis
has also been conrmed by our analysis of the metaphors. In some cases, the
metaphors were explicitly negative (e.g. migrants were described as biological
bombs and animals). In other cases, we reconstructed the negative implications
of the metaphors by analysing the discursive contexts in which these metaphors
were used.
is general tendency to problematize migration bears two psychosocial con-
sequences. First, the media facilitates the “construction of fear” that characterises
xenophobic racism by “giving it form and relevance” (Delanty, Jones & Wodak
2008: 11). Second, as a discursive discriminatory practice, the problematisation
of migration justies the exclusion of migrants at dierent levels (Wodak 2009),
including cultural, professional and social. As stated by Billig (2006), in modern
racism, discrimination does not require that the actors be motivated by a con-
scious goal or intention, or that they use overtly exclusionary language. Rather, the
actors must use discursive and argumentative structures to show that the exclu-
sion is reasonable, natural or obvious. By problematizing migration, the media
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
construct a context in which imposing restrictions, bans, and censorship becomes
a reasonable means of overcoming the problems associated with the migratory
phenomenon. At the same time, given that the strategy of problematizing migra-
tion is not based on race, those who use such strategies can plausibly deny being
racist (van Dijk 2000b) and simply claim to be realists instead.
e comparison between the media’s representations and statistics showed the
ideological nature of the former. Specically, the media addressed the migratory
process mainly by narrating landings on Italian coasts. In reality, this process is
a marginal mode of arrival. Yet, this narration has a negative evocative power in
a country whose borders are mainly bounded by the sea. As regards the issue of
crime, journalists tend to emphasise the association between migrants and crimi-
nal acts against persons. is emphasis does not correspond to the statistics, but
it is motivated by the greater danger posed by these types of crimes to the average
reader. Given the key role of the press “in proliferating, topicalising, de- topicalising
and creating knowledge and/or beliefs” (KhosraviNik 2009: 478) on these topics,
such discursive choices construct a negative social perception of migration. In line
with this construction of the migration phenomenon, we did not nd any refer-
ences to the most numerous groups of migrants in Italy: Filipinos and Ukrainians.
Considering that historically these groups have always had a low crime rate, this
omission supports the tendency to dene migration based on a single aspect and
to remain silent on the others.
e research highlights some other relevant elements that are not mentioned
in the media discourse. For example, the reasons why migrants undertake such a
risky journey, the problems faced by migrants once they arrive in their new coun-
try and the migrants’ fundamental contribution to the economy and welfare of the
country. ese issues might lead people to identify and sympathise with the out-
group, especially considering Italy’s recent history of emigration. Other elements
that are not mentioned emerge from our analysis of the sources. All of the issues
covered by the newspapers exclude the migrants’ perspective, which conrms that
“the use of quotation becomes a gate-keeping device that admits only those in
positions of power and inuence, while shutting out the opinions and perspectives
of those deemed by society to be powerless” (Teo 2000: 18).
Overall, the results of this research show that the media discourse on
migration is constructed according to the same content and strategies identied
by other studies that have analysed this issue in other national contexts by using
CDA. KhosraviNik noted the stability of the racist discourse when he observed
that “an interesting point regarding xenophobic/discriminatory discourses in
various contexts and times is the striking similarities among these discourses,
both in terms of micro-linguistic features and macro-argumentative struc-
tures” (2009: 478). is social representation constitutes a common ideological
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e representation of migrants in the Italian press
background in Europe. erefore, a strategy to activate change should not be
conned to the national and local levels, but should operate at a transnational
level, to build a new European culture of migration that is supported by adequate
anti-discriminatory policies.
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Authors’ Addresses
Lorenzo Montali
Department of Psychology
University of Milano-Bicocca
Piazza Ateneo Nuovo, 1
20126 Milano
Italy
lorenzo.montali@unimib.it
Paolo Riva
Department of Psychology
University of Milano-Bicocca
Piazza Ateneo Nuovo, 1
20126 Milano
Italy
paolo.riva1@unimib.it
Alessandra Frigerio
Department of Psychology
University of Milano-Bicocca
Piazza Ateneo Nuovo, 1
20126 Milano
Italy
a.frigerio5@campus.unimib.it
Silvia Mele
Fondazione Giancarlo Quarta Onlus
via Baldissera 2/a
20129 Milano
Italy
s.mele3@campus.unimib.it
About the Authors
Lorenzo Montali, Ph.D., is Assistant professor in Social Psychology at the Department of
Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. His research interests are in the areas of the
social psychology of prejudice and discrimination, the social psychology of health, and the use
of qualitative methods in psychology.
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company
All rights reserved
Lorenzo Montali, Paolo Riva, Alessandra Frigerio & Silvia Mele
Paolo Riva is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at University of Milano-Bicocca. His research
focuses on social pain, or the hurting feelings caused by the perception of social separation.
Specically, he examines the impacts of short and long term episode of social pain on basic
needs satisfaction, aect, and antisocial behaviour.
Alessandra Frigerio is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Psychology, University of Milan-
Bicocca. Her research interests include qualitative research methodology and its application to
the eld of the social psychology of health and illness.
Silvia Mele took a degree in psychology at the University of Milano-Bicocca. She currently works
as a Researcher at Fondazione Giancarlo Quarta ONLUS, a non-prot civil society organization.
