Gender and migration discourse in British newspapers

This paper focuses on the ways migrants are represented in terms of gender through gendered (and gendering) discourses (cf. Sunderland 2004). (Im)migration discourse is rightly a well-studied area (e.g. Baker et al. 2008, KhosraviNik 2014, Charteris-Black 2016, Drywood & Gray 2019). However, there are few studies specifically on the representation of gender and immigration in media (but note Blumell & Cooper 2019 and Liu 2021). Further research is still needed on intersecting aspects of identities and perceptions which together build complex phenomena of discrimination, fear and injustice – it seems that, in line with Blumell & Cooper (2019) and our own early findings, it is more acceptable for stereotypical gender roles to be perpetuated in immigration discourse than on other topics. <br />For this project we are looking at articles from six national UK newspapers. Here we focus on the analysis of the tabloids in our dataset (The Sun, The Mirror and The Daily Mail). We selected time periods when we were expecting a ‘spike’ (KhosraviNik, Wodak & Krzyzanowsky 2012 and KhosraviNik 2014) in media discourse on (im)migration (not necessarily on gender-related reporting), resulting in four two-week periods per publication. The first two-week period consists of the two weeks after the ‘Brexit’ referendum was announced (22/12/2016 – 07/03/2016); the second the two weeks following the referendum itself (23/06/2016 – 07/07/2016); the third between 22/12 and 07/03 2020; and the fourth between 23/06 and 07/07/2020. <br />Early findings indicate the not unexpected erasure of women in the data. Most commonly, people who migrate (or a specific type of people who migrate, such as refugees or economic migrants) are aggregated or collectivised as an impersonal mass (Van Leeuwen 1996). This does not constitute the representation ‘gender-neutral’ - (im)migration is largely represented as a ‘masculine' phenomenon associated with violence and threat, with some sympathetic depiction of women (and children) migrants as powerless victims. <br />