The way refugees are portrayed in the comment sections of Norwegian online newspapers : a critical discourse analysis of readers’ comments on articles discussing the ‘European refugee crisis’

• Main Author: Lien, Anders Nima Jafarnejad
• Other Authors: Lund, Ragnhild
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: NTNU 2016
• Subjects: Critical discourse analysis; Refugee crisis; VDP::Social science: 200; Fridtjof; Fridtjof Nansen
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2449794

This thesis analyses how refugees are portrayed in the comment sections of Norwegian online newspapers during the “European refugee crisis”, with a primary focus on events occurring from 2015. It applies a Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) framework, and finds that commenters perceive refugees as threats due to both economic and cultural anxieties. By reading the data qualitatively and quantitatively, it becomes apparent that xenophobic and “racial” language has been used consistently after the Paris terrorist attacks on 13 November, while discursive aspects focusing on the threat to “our economy” were more prevalent prior to this date. Through examining to what extent the language used by commenters correlate with different forms of discourse, elite discourse in particular, the study finds that the fear of refugees is legitimised through well-established Western discourse, typically related to the portrayal of migrants and refugees as the “Other” and the influence of Orientalism and Islamophobia. In order to move away from a situation where refugees’ mobility is consistently delegitimised, the thesis suggests that a similar approach to the one introduced by Fridtjof Nansen in the 1920s should inspire the international community.