Visual representations of the «Refugee Crisis»: a socio-hermeneutic analysis of visual texts in three Spanish newspapers

Authors

  • Jessica Nohemí Muñoz Reyes

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5944/ts.7.2021.31228

Keywords:

refugees, migrant crisis, visual representations, socio-hermeneutic analysis, photojournalism, audio-visual methodology

Abstract

This study analyses the diversity of visual representations generated through photographs published by the newspapers ABC, El Mundo and El País, from May 2015 to May 2016. Starting from a universe of 228 visual texts, codified according to their iconological-iconographic description, I obtained a sample of 30 images after a successive selection process. Afterwards, using a socio-hermeneutic analysis was possible to identify a system composed of five discourses, receiving the following names: the alarmist discourse of the invasion through massification; the discourse of pity or compassion through personification, protection and rescue; the incriminatory discourse through criminalization; the discourse of innocence through childhood; and the spectacularization and exclusion through the dissemination of misery. In addition, analysing the interactions between them, it became evident that mainly two discourses were predominant during the period analysed, offering a transformation in the way refugees were represented. Favouring the stigmatization of otherness, either legitimizing the message of «uncontrollable crisis», or pointing them out as defenceless and victimized subjects.

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Published

2021-07-23

How to Cite

Muñoz Reyes, J. N. . (2021). Visual representations of the «Refugee Crisis»: a socio-hermeneutic analysis of visual texts in three Spanish newspapers. Tendencias Sociales. Revista de Sociología, (7), 45–82. https://doi.org/10.5944/ts.7.2021.31228

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