VICTIM OR THREAT? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF REFUGEES IN FINLAND TANJA MARIA MIKAELA KAUPPILA - DIVA PORTAL
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Victim or threat?
A comparative study of media representation of refugees in Finland
Tanja Maria Mikaela Kauppila
International Migration and Ethnic Relations
Bachelor Thesis
15 Credits
Spring 2022
Supervisor: Eline Wærp
Word count: 11 0152 Abstract This thesis examines the media representation of refugees in the Finnish national news company YLE by comparing media discourses from two different refugee situations. The cases compared are the 2015 refugee crisis and the inflow of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. The material of the analysis consists of YLE’s news articles about the two refugee situations. The articles are analyzed with the help of tools from critical discourse analysis, and the results are theorized through the concepts of securitization and victim-pariah nexus. The findings suggest that in the media discourse of 2015 refugees were portrayed more as a threat, but the differences were not so significant as what could be assumed from the previous research concerning the topic. The findings, together with the theoretical framework, show that the 2015 media discourse represents more clearly the traditional victim-pariah nexus found in previous research, while the 2022 discourse represents a new discourse normalizing refugees. Keywords: Refugee, securitization of migration, media representation of refugees, Finland, critical discourse analysis
3
Table of contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 4
1.1 Aim and Research Questions .................................................................................................. 6
1.2 Scope....................................................................................................................................... 6
2. Previous Literature ................................................................................................. 7
2.1 Media representation of refugees............................................................................................ 7
3. Theoretical framework ........................................................................................ 11
3.1 Securitisation theory ............................................................................................................. 11
3.2 Victim/Pariah nexus.............................................................................................................. 13
4. Methodology & Research design ......................................................................... 14
4.1 Research design .................................................................................................................... 14
4.2 Method .................................................................................................................................. 15
4.3 Analytical framework ........................................................................................................... 16
4.3.1 Text ..............................................................................................................................................17
4.3.2 Discursive practice ......................................................................................................................17
4.3.3 Social practice .............................................................................................................................17
4.4 Material ................................................................................................................................. 18
4.5 YLE ....................................................................................................................................... 19
4.6 Delimitations and reflectivity ............................................................................................... 19
4.7 Validity and Reliability......................................................................................................... 20
5.0 Results ................................................................................................................ 21
5.1 analysis ................................................................................................................................. 22
5.1.1 2015 Refugee situation ................................................................................................................22
5.1.2 2022 Refugee situation ................................................................................................................25
5.2 Comparison ........................................................................................................................... 26
6.0 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 28
References ................................................................................................................ 314
1. Introduction
In the 21st century, migration and especially refugees, are a topic that has been gaining a lot of
attention in the media (Petersson & Kainz, 2017). Especially after the population movements
caused by the Arab spring, refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Europe have been in the
spotlight in many countries. Since 2015, the media representation of refugees has also been
researched extensively, and many researchers (Xu, 2021, Kotilainen & Pellander, 2021) have
concluded that a "victim-pariah" dual image of refugees has dominated the media in Europe. By
this, researchers mean that refugees are often portrayed in the media either as helpless victims or
as a threat to society.
In Finland, the refugee influx in 2015 received vast media attention. The discourse revolved
around the legitimacy of the refugees and the possible security concerns connected to them. Over
30 000 refugees entered Finland, which was one of Europe's highest numbers compared to the
country's overall population (Pöyhtäri et al.,2021:82). All over Europe, the majority of the media
represented the situation of incoming refugees as a "crisis" and used expressions such as "wave of
refugees" to describe the people coming to Europe (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2016). In Finland,
in the first weeks of the situation, empathy and willingness to help were highlighted in the media
discourse, but it was soon replaced with fear and skepticism in the public debate (Lönnqvist,
Ilmarinen, & Sortheix, 2020:176). As a reader, one could observe the media discourse shift
during the year, and the media attention shifted from sympathetic to a more critical tone.
Seven years later, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe is facing
another influx of refugees. After the first four weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over 4
million Ukrainians have fled their country as refugees (UNHCR,2021). According to estimates in
the media, about 11 000 Ukrainian refugees had arrived in Finland in the first four weeks of the
war, and nearly 80 000 are expected to arrive during the year (Tikkala & Gertsch, 2022).
Ukrainian refugees have been discussed in the Finnish media extensively from the start of
the war. The media coverage about the Ukrainian refugees has been dominated by news about
Finnish citizens' willingness to accommodate refugees in their homes (MTV, 2022; Leiwo, 2022)
or personal stories about the refugees arriving. Within a couple of weeks from the start of the war
in Ukraine, some news companies have also started to publish opinions that criticize the treatment
the Ukrainian refugees have received compared to other refugees. For example, the Finnish5
national news company YLE published an article where asylum seekers from the Middle East and
Africa expressed their disappointment to the Finnish society, given that Ukrainian refugees have
received better treatment in the society in their eyes (YLE, 2022). This article was widely shared
and peaked the public’s interest on this topic. Moreover, there has been a lot of public debate
about whether the media has taken a different approach to reporting refugees coming from
Ukraine versus the refugees arriving from the Middle east in 2015. For the first time in Finland's
history, Finland also grants temporary protection to all refugees coming from Ukraine without
any individual hearings (Migri 2022). This decision is based on an EU directive about temporary
protection, and it is also the first time this directive has been used in the EU (Migri,2022). This
decision has increased the conversation about the equal treatment of refugees in Finland and
whether the Ukranian refugees are being treated better than the refugees that arrived before them.
Observing these first weeks of the refugee influx from Ukraine, it has become a relevant
question to ask whether refugees are portrayed differently in the media, depending on which
conflict they are fleeing and the origin of the refugees. There seems to be a common notion that
the refugee situation in 2015 with Syrian refugees was portrayed very differently compared to
how the case with the Ukrainian refugees at the moment is portrayed and that the refugees in
2015 were met with more fear and skepticism (YLE, 2022). But are there really differences in the
portrayal of these two situations, and if so, what are the differences? This study aims to shed light
on the possible difference in the approach the Finnish media take covering two different refugee
situations, especially concerning the level at which the refugees are connected to security issues
as a topic.
In this thesis, the word refugee is used to describe the people arriving in Finland in both of
the cases compared. While newspaper coverage or politicians might use words such as migrant,
asylum seeker, and refugee mixed, these words carry different meanings. For example, Pace &
Severance (2016) claim that instead of using the word refugee, using the migrant can be utilized
as a way to delegitimize somebody's right to protection. To avoid delegitimizing people's right to
be seen as a refugee and receive protection based on this status, in this paper, the word refugee is
being used to describe all the people arriving in Finland seeking asylum.6
1.1 Aim and Research Questions
The aim of this thesis is to compare media discourses about refugees from the Finnish national
media company (referred to as YLE) in 2015 and 2022 and analyze possible differences in the
media representation of refugees between these two situations. The aim is to analyze the
differences, especially regarding the level of securitization and in which ways the incoming
refugees are portrayed as threats or as victims in both cases. The analysis is open also to any other
possible differences between the discourses. The purpose of the thesis is to provide new
information regarding the media representation of refugees in Finland. There is not an extensive
amount of research done in Finland that compares media discourses on two different refugee
situations, and the purpose of this thesis is to create more information to this gap in research.
This thesis analyzes 24 news articles from the Finnish national media company YLE. The
study uses qualitative research design and discourse analysis to analyze YLE’s news articles from
specific periods. To reach the aim of the study, this study has the following research questions:
1) How does the media discourse in YLE differ between the 2015 refugee influx and the
refugee inflow from Ukraine in 2022, and how are refugees portrayed as security issues
or victims in each case?
1.2 Scope
The media discourse around the 2015 refugee crisis is widely discussed and researched in
Finland. Still, because the situation with the Ukrainian refugees is so recent, it has not been
studied yet. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to provide new information regarding this
topic. Comparing media discourses about two different refugee situations is also not studied
extensively in Finland’s context, and therefore this thesis is situated to provide more information
on this topic.
The aim is to analyze media discourse in the YLE from the first six weeks of both
situations to ensure the analyses can be comparable. Because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has
lasted now only six weeks, I can analyze articles from the beginning of the situation. Therefore,
also with the 2015 situation, only articles from the six first weeks from when refugees started to
arrive in Finland are analyzed. Since the discourse around Ukrainian refugees might also shift
later on, this paper focuses only on answering questions regarding the first six weeks of both7
media discourses. The comparison of the media discourses as a whole is left for other studies that
have the opportunity to study this topic when enough time has passed from the start of the
discourse about the Ukrainian refugees and hopefully from the end of the war.
This thesis does not desire to answer the question of why there might be differences in the
media representations of these two refugee situations. Understanding the underlying reasons why
these two situations might be represented differently would require a different kind of research
design, and the answers cannot be found just by analyzing news articles. Therefore, this thesis
focuses on analyzing and identifying how the media discourses differ.
.
2. Previous Literature
The following section provides a short overview of the previous research on media representation
of refugees. It will first describe the literature on the international context and then move on to
give an overview of the research on Finland’s case. Lastly, it contains an explanation of where
this thesis is situated in the research field.
2.1 Media representation of refugees
Migration as a topic has gained a large amount of media attention in the past decade (Petersson
& Kainz, 2017). Especially since the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, refugees have become a more
popular topic in the news, and several studies have been made about the media discourse around
the subject. Since the political discussion around migration is connected to how migrants are
portrayed in the media, research about media representation of refugees also becomes important
(Horsti, 2013).
In an international context, there is a wide range of research about the media representation
of refugees. A study by Venir (2016) focused on the media representation of Syrians in 2015 in the
British news media. Venir (2016) states in her research that Syrian refugees were overall
represented in a positive light in the media. While Syrian refugees were seen as "real" refugees,
they were clearly distinguished from other refugees, who were not seen as deserving (Venir, 2016).
Parker (2015), on the other hand, found in his study that in UK and Australian media,
refugees were portrayed as "unwanted invaders.” His article viewed data from the UK and Australia
from 2001 to 2010, and he found that in both cases, refugees were portrayed as something the8
countries needed to defend themselves from. Some studies (Abid et al., 2017, Petersson & Kainz,
2017) have also shown a trend of using words of natural phenomena to describe refugee
movements. For example, Abid et al. (2017) discovered that several natural metaphors were used
to describe a large number of Syrian refugees entering a country both in Western and Arab media.
These metaphors presented refugees as uncontrollable and threatening to the host countries'
systems (Abid et al. 2017:138).
There is also an extensive pool of research concerning the securitization of migration in the
media. Researchers such as Wilmott (2017) and Gray & Franck (2019) have researched the media
representation of refugees in Europe after 2015. Like many other scholars, they have confirmed
that refugees have become increasingly securitized in the media. This securitization has been
constructed through visual representation (Wilmott, 2017) or, for example, with metaphors used
to describe the refugee influx (Abid et al., 2017). Overall, it can be said that the previous
research shows refugees have been securitized in the media discourse.
Although a lot of the research concerning the securitization of migration in the media is
focused on Europe and especially on the securitization of migration after the 2015 refugee crisis,
there is plenty of research that shows that the trend is worldwide. Pugh & Moya (2020) presented
in their paper that in Ecuador, migration is also getting increasingly securitized in the media.
They claim that the press in Ecuador had two most common narratives while talking about
migrants; the victim or the villain (Pugh & Moya,2020). Especially refugees arriving from
Venezuela were often connected to violence and crimes in the country (Pugh & Moya, 2020).
Choi & Park (2020) researched the securitization of Yemeni refugees in South Korea and
connected the phenomenon to the Western media discourse during the so-called refugee crisis in
2015. They claimed that the securitized discourse from the Western media was echoed in the
media of South Korea, which also affected the policies directed at the Yemeni refugees (Choi &
Park, 2020).
There is also some comparative research done about media representation of refugees
between countries. For example, De Cock et al. (2018) compared the news coverage of the
refugees in 2015 in Swedish and Belgian media. Their study found out that in Belgium, the
representation varied depending on the region. Still, in both cases, the number of refugees
speaking for themselves was little. They also noticed that the Belgian press highlighted the role of
refugees' religion more than the Swedish newspaper (De Cock, et al., 2018). A similar9
comparative study was done by Xu (2021), who compared the media representation of refugees
between the UK and the Canadian press. He concluded that in both cases, refugees were
portrayed in a "victim-pariah" context that reflected the results of previous similar studies (Xu,
2021).
In the context of Finland, the media representations of refugees has been researched to
some extent, and most of the studies focus on the representation of refugees during the 2015
refugee crisis. The theme of refugees became more visible in the Finnish media the first time in
the 1990s when Finland received many refugees from Somalia (Horsti, 2013). Horsti's (2007)
study is one of the few about media representation of refugees before the 2015 refugee crisis.
Horsti (2007) analyzed several hundreds of news articles published in 2002 about refugees and
asylum seekers. She points out that, in general, the themes of control and illegality were often
present in the media discourse about refugees (Horsti,2007: 156). Horsti (2007) states in her
study that refugees as a topic only made it to the news if the situation was connected somehow to
high political figures or the case involved some kind of "illegality. Otherwise, the theme of
refugees wasn't visible in the media. This indicates that the media discourse around refugees is
highly securitized in Finland.
Kotilainen & Pellander (2021) published an article examining the political debate around
refugees in Finland throughout history. Their article states that the media representation of
refugees in Finland throughout history is more complex than the traditionally portrayed
victim/threat divide. They concluded that in Finland, the viewed deservingness or
undeservingness of the refugees is often connected to global politics, race, and appearance
(Kotilainen & Pellander, 2021). An example of this is the questioning of the legitimacy of the
asylum seekers in 2015 because of their clothing and smartphones. These attributes connected the
asylum seekers in a higher hierarchy than the classical notion of a poor, suffering refugee, and
therefore their need for asylum was questioned (Kotilainen & Pellander, 2021:14). Kotilainen and
Pellander (2021) hypothesize this classic notion is connected to the Finnish history of Karelian
refugees fleeing from the Soviet Union during the war. The representation of the Karelians
contain images of people fleeing on foot, sleeping on the ground, and starving. These images
have stayed in the Finnish media as the classic example of refugees, and refugees that don't
resemble this image are seen as undeserving ( Kotilainen & Pellander, 2021).10
Pöyhtäri et al. (2021) have also researched the media presentation of the 2015 refugee
crisis in Finland and its effect on the public view of the situation. Their study concluded that the
crime and other threats were over-highlighted in the media discourse about the refugees. Pöyhtäri
et al. l. (2021) also connect this media discourse to the social media conversation of the public,
where the discussion about the refugees often gets polarized. They emphasize that the way
refugees are discussed in the mainstream media affects the public debate on social media, and,
later on, also the political debate (Pöyhtäri et al.,2021).
It can be learned from the previous research that refugees as a topic have been securitized
in Finland even before the 2015 refugee situation. The research shows that the themes of
illegality and crimes were highlighted when it comes to the framing of refugees in the media. It's
also revealed that the image of refugees is "classed" in the Finnish media. These notions are
relevant to this thesis, and this research can be seen as a continuity of this conversation. While
most of the research has focused on the media representation of the 2015 refugee situation, this
thesis aims to provide new information and a comparative aspect about the current refugee
situation in 2022.
There is clearly a gap in the research when it comes to comparing media discourses about
different refugee groups in Finland. Research on media representation of refugees in Finland
revolves around the 2015 refugee situation, and some articles look at the history or political
debates about this topic. There are not many articles comparing the representation of two
different refugee situations. Internationally there have been comparative studies about the media
discourse about the 2015 refugee situations in different countries or different newspapers.
Nevertheless, little or no research has compared news coverage of different refugee situations in
the same country and the same media company. Therefore, this study is situated to complement
some research done about media representation of refugees arriving in 2015 and fill a gap in
research when it comes to comparing discourses about two different refugee situations. Since
there are comparative studies about media representation of refugees in different countries, this
research tries to offer insight on reaching media discourse inside one country, but about different
situations.11
3. Theoretical framework
This section contains a brief overview of the theory and concepts used in this thesis's analytical
framework. Firstly, the securitization theory and its key concepts are introduced. This is followed
by presenting the concept of victim/pariah-nexus and how it can be used as a help to analyze the
articles.
3.1 Securitization theory
The securitization theory emerged from the so-called “Copenhagen School,” consisting of authors
such as Buzan and Wæver (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2014). Authors of this school
described securitization as “shifting an issue out of the real of “normal” political debate into the
realm of emergency politics by presenting it as an existential threat” (Peoples & Vaughan-
Williams, 2014:94). Furthermore, Buzan et al. (1998:24) define securitization as a process where
an “issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying
actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure.” They claim that any topic in society
can be placed on a line from nonpoliticized to securitized. This means that all topics can be seen
as something neutral that does not require it to be discussed as a political issue, or it can be
presented as something that needs political attention and procedures (Buzan, et al., 1998). For
example, migration can be presented as a natural habit of people moving, or it can be presented as
a phenomenon that is threatening societies culturally, economically, politically or socially.
Some key concepts connected to the securitization theory are a securitizing speech act and
a securitizing move (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2014:94). Wæver (1995) claims that
securitization is always initiated by securitizing speech acts, which means simply stating
“security” in relation to some topic. Securitizing move again refers to an attempt to categorize
some topic as a security threat (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2014:94). One of the key elements
of the securitization theory, according to the Copenhagen school approach, is that securitization is
always constructed through discourse (Buzan et al., 1998). More than a response to an actual
threat, any topic can be securitized just by the way it’s presented in a discourse (Buzan et al.,
1998, Wæver 1995 ). This gives the securitization theory a constructivist aspect (Peoples &
Vaughan-Williams, 2014:95). Furthermore, Wæver connects securitization strongly to language
and utilizes a theory called speech act theory to help explain how securitization is produced by
speech (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2014:95). According to Wæver (1995), always when we
say certain things, we also execute an action.12
Buzan et al. (1998) do not view ambivalent arguments as an actual securitization but rather
as a move of securitization. For a topic to be actually securitized, the arguments require a certain
amount of agreement from the audience (Buzan et al., 1998:25). Therefore, it is not enough if, for
example, the media or politicians make specific comments about a topic such as migration. It also
requires an echo from the public for the topic to be viewed as securitized. When a bigger
proportion of the public accepts the arguments, policy changes concerning the topic will also be
accepted (Lazaridis & Tsagkroni 2015). This thesis does not look into the fact of how the public
receives the discourse about migration and will therefore only apply the securitization theory to
see if the discourse contains securitizing moves.
This paper utilizes securitization theory as an analytical framework to identify if and how
securitization is produced in the media discourse regarding refugees arriving in Finland. Since,
according to the Copenhagen school approach, securitization is always constructed through
discourse and the so-called “speech acts,” securitization theory is used as a theoretical framework
to analyze securitization from media discourse in this thesis. The process of securitization in a
discourse can be identified with the help of the aforementioned concepts of securitizing speech
act and securitizing move. Besides these concepts, concepts of referent object and securitizing
actor are utilized. According to Buzan et al. (1998:38), referent object refers to things that are
seen as being threatened and have the legitimate claim to survive. Securitizing actor again refers
to the actor who securitizes an issue and poses it as a threat to the referent object (Buzan et al.,
1998:36). These concepts are used as tools to identify securitization or the lack of it from the
news articles. Besides this, they’re also utilized to analyze how, by whom, and on whose behalf
the securitization is produced.
With the methodological tools, this thesis uses securitization theory to identify and
understand possible securitization or the lack of it in the media discourse around refugees. In this
thesis, this means looking at which words are used to describe refugees. Are refugees connected
to security problems by linking the two things with words, or are refugees used to excuse some
emergency measures in society? The concepts of securitization theory also help to identify
through the language who are possibly portrayed as the referent objects and who are the
securitizing actors.13
3.2 Victim/Pariah nexus
In previous studies about refugee representation in the media, the concept of victim/pariah nexus
has been brought up to describe the divided presentation of refugees in the media. This term
describes the duality of media representation, where refugees are often presented either as victims
deserving of protection or as migrants that could be a threat to society (Xu, 2021, Kyriakides,
2017). This victim/pariah duality goes hand in hand with the divides between
deserving/undeserving and migrant/refugee definitions (Avraamidou & Eftychiou, 2022). This
means refugees have to constantly negotiate their position and prove their deservingness as "real
refugees" instead of "voluntary economic migrants" to not to be seen as a threat to the society
(Avraamidou & Eftychiou, 2022:229). For example, Kyriakides (2017) claims that exchanging
the word "refugee" for "migrant" can be used in the media as a way to delegitimize refugees'
rights to their status and protection.
This divide also shows in the media coverage of refugees and splits it into positive and
negative representations of refugees (Avraamidou & Eftychiou, 2022, Kyriakides, 2017). On the
negative side, the portrayed refugees are being securitized and portrayed as a threat to culture,
economy, or health, for example (Avraamidou & Eftychiou, 2022: 230). On the positive side, the
media discourse focuses on humanitarianism and portrays the importance of helping refugees
(Chouliaraki et al., 2017).
In this thesis, especially Kyriakides' (2017) notion of how this duality affects the
securitization of the refugees is important. Kyriakides (2017:934) claims that to accomplish this
role as a deserving refugee, especially the refugees from non-western areas, have to fit in into an
ascribed identity of a "non-threatening victim". If they don't manage to fit this identity of a
victim, they are presented as possible threats to society (Kyriakides, 2017:934). Therefore, this
concept is tightly connected to securitization. Looking at which refugees are perceived as a
threat/pariahs and which ones are victims can help understand the possible different levels of
securitization connected to different refugees. According to Avraamidou & Eftychiou (2022), as
the discourse about refugees moves from the victim to threat-nexus, it simultaneously also moves
from humanitarianism to securitization. Therefore, the representation of refugees as a threat and
securitization are closely intertwined and using both of these as a theoretical framework can help
understand the phenomenon better.14
In this thesis, this concept of victim/pariah nexus can be used to observe different
approaches the media takes on presenting refugees. At the level of language, the concept can help
to view, for example, how different words the media uses to describe refugees create a picture of
their deservingness and, therefore, refugees' role as a victim/threat. This duality can also help
analyze refugee situations' media coverage and investigate if the articles fall somewhere in this
victim/pariah-nexus.
4. Methodology & Research design
The following section provides information about the research design, ontological and
epistemological standpoint, and methodological framework of this study. Starting from the
research design, this section will then move on to present the chosen methodological framework.
Lastly, the material and delimitations of this study will be discussed.
4.1 Research design
This study follows the research design of qualitative research. For example, a qualitative
approach can be utilized when one wants to research the meaning that people or media attached
to a certain social phenomenon (Creswell & Creswell, 2018:41). This research is a comparative
case study which refers to selecting a few numbers of cases and trying to find similarities or
differences between them (Moses & Knutsen,2019). The Core idea of a comparative case study is
to collect a lot of data from a couple of cases (Moses & Knutsen, 2019:117). In this research, this
means selecting only two refugee situations and comparing the similarities and differences
between these two cases. Unlike in some research designs, in comparative studies, the selection
of cases is not arbitrary, and the control of the study is formed by choosing the cases (Moses &
Knutsen, 2019:117). This study contains elements from both deductive and inductive approaches.
While there is an assumption and hypothesis that the media discourse differs between these two
cases in terms of securitization, the themes of how they differ is build inductively during the
research.
This study reflects a constructivist world view. Instead of wanting to observe something
naturalists might refer to as "the real world,” constructivists rely on the idea that everything is
constructed by social actors (Moses & Knutsen,2019:5). The chosen topic of media15
representation, the theory of securitization, and the method of critical discourse analysis all reflect
a constructivist worldview and therefore fit together as a framework of the thesis.
In securitization theory, this is reflected in the idea that security threats are socially
constructed through discourses (Buzan et al., 1998). In critical discourse analysis, one of the key
points is also that things are constructed through discourses, and discourses can constitute reality,
and therefore it contains a constructivist ontological and epistemological underpinning. The paper
focuses on researching media's interpretations of the topic, so it does not try to observe the
"objective real world" but focuses on how we perceive a phenomenon. The whole topic holds an
assumption that the world depends on how we perceive it and therefore, already has a
constructivist approach to it.
4.2 Method
The method of this study is critical discourse analysis, often referred to as CDA. There are
several different approaches and views about CDA, but some main ideas are common for all the
approaches (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:56). Generally speaking, CDA covers methods to analyze
discourse interactions and different social phenomena (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:56). Critical
discourse analysis aims to provide information about the discursive element of a social
phenomenon and is often used to analyze topics such as mass communication (Jørgensen &
Phillips, 2002:56). Some of the core ideas shared by all the approaches are, for example, that acts
of discourse are an important part of constructing the social world and that discourse is both
affected by the social world, but it also shapes it (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:57). In the context
of this study, it means that while media discourse about refugees might be affected by the public
opinion and political debate around it, it also affects these.
Critical discourse analysts also believe that acts of discourse also affect power dynamics
between groups (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:58). The "critical" in the critical discourse analysis
could be said to be the fact that the method aims to reveal and discuss the impact of discourses in
maintaining and creating power relations and unequal dynamics in the social world (Jørgensen &
Phillips, 2002:58). Discourse analysis, in general, contains the idea that language always reflects
reality, and it is never neutrally produced (Boréus & Bergström, 2017:196). Fairclough describes
some of the main points of CDA as being that "discourse is a social action,” it addresses social
problems, and that "power relations are discursive" (Fairclough, 2003).16
This paper utilizes Fairclough's approach to CDA. An important element of Fairclough's view is
that discourse both molds social phenomena and power structures but is also shaped by them
(Fairclough, 2003:11). Fairclough focuses on the text-driven analysis that unites both detailed
linguistic analysis and macro-level analysis of social structures and relations (Jørgensen &
Phillips, 2002:59). In Fairclough’s view, just linguistic analysis alone is not enough to reveal
information about the relationship between discourse and the social world (Jørgensen & Phillips,
2002:59). He thinks discourse analysis also demands this macro-level social analysis to research
power dynamics and the connection between discourses and different phenomena and structures
(Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:59). Fairclough approaches texts as elements of the social world that
are in the process of reflecting the social developments and affecting them simultaneously
(Fairclough, 2003:10).
Fairclough’s take on CDA helps to answer the questions of this study because it allows us
to critically examine the language and media discourse around refugees. Since the aim of the
study is to research the possible differences between media discourses about two refugee groups,
CDA's ability to study power dynamics and societal structures is relevant. This method,
combined with a theoretical framework, helps to study whether there are differences in how the
Finnish media discusses refugees depending on their origin and the situation.
4.3 Analytical framework
As a tool for analyzing the news articles, this thesis uses Fairclough’s three-dimensional model.
The three-dimensional model is based on the thought that every act of discourse is at the same
time a text, a social practice, and a discursive practice (Fairclough,1992:4). Therefore, the
analysis of discourse is also divided into these three dimensions that can be analyzed separately.
All these dimensions and their analyses are further explained in the next section. The aim of the
model is to act as an analytical tool for discourse analysis (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:63). The
core idea on which the model is based is that texts can never be understood just as separate pieces
because they are always a part of a broader context (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:63). Fairclough
created the method to be able to connect linguistic text analysis to a more macro-level analysis of
the social world (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
Because of limited time and space, I apply the analysis only to the first and third levels of
Fairclough's model in this thesis. This means analyzing the discourse as a text and as a social17 practice. According to Fairclough (1995), although the model contains three different levels of analysis, each one of them can also be analyzed separately. This method was chosen for the paper because it is one of the most developed tools in CDA, and it allows for analysis of the articles from several different levels. 4.3.1 Text This level focuses on the text and its linguistic features. According to Fairclough (1992:81), analyzing text can be divided into four main domains; “vocabulary, grammar, cohesion and text structure.” In this paper, I will focus on analyzing the vocabulary and cohesion of the articles. By focusing on the vocabulary of the text, one can focus on, for example, what different words are used about some agent of or phenomenon and the importance or meaning of these words on a political level, for example (Fairclough,1992:77). In this thesis, analyzing vocabulary is used to observe which words are used to describe refugees in both cases. Analyzing cohesion in a text means paying attention to how and which things are connected in the text to create larger thoughts (Fairclough,1992:77). In this paper, paying attention to the text's cohesion can help answer the question; are refugees linked to security threats in the media. Analyzing cohesion can, for example, reveal if the rising number of refugees is linked to possible security concerns by presenting causality between these two things by word choices. 4.3.2 Discursive practice The second dimension of the three-dimensional model focuses on discursive practice. The Discursive practice refers to the ways the text/speech is produced and consumed (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:62). Due to the limited time and space, this section is left out of the analysis. 4.3.3 Social practice The third and last dimension of Fairclough’s model is discourse as a social practice. In this dimension, the discourse is placed in a broader context regarding power relations and ideology (Fairclough, 1992:86). Ideology or power relations can be observed from a discourse, for example, when some idea becomes naturalized or viewed as “common sense” by using a certain language (Fairclough, 1992:87).
18
This last dimension is aimed at linking the linguistic analysis to a wider social context, and it
needs to be combined with theories to be able to do that (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). In this
paper, the theory of securitization and the concept of victim/pariah-nexus will be used as a
support to connect the analysis to a wider social phenomenon. Analyzing this third dimension, the
researcher can consider whether the discourse reproduces some existing ideologies of power
constructions or maybe reshapes them (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002:62). In this thesis, this third
dimension can help to analyze if and how the securitization of refugees is reproduced in the
articles being analyzed for this paper. The concepts of securitization and victim/pariah nexus will
help identify how the discourse possibly differs between the 2015 refugee situation and the
current refugees from Ukraine. It is in the dimension where the “critical part “of CDA is
introduced and where the conclusion of the analysis emerges (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
Therefore, in this part of the analysis, the results of the linguistic analysis are connected to a
wider discourse present in Finland.
4.4 Material
This study aims to analyze news articles about refugees from the Finnish national media company
YLE during the 2015 refugee situation and the 2022 refugee inflow from Ukraine. In total, 24
articles analyzed: 12 articles from 2015 and 12 from 2022.
The timeframe for this study is limited to the first six weeks from the beginning of media
attention of both of these situations. Because the Russian war in Ukraine has only lasted six
weeks at the time of the study, the timeframe of selected articles is the first six weeks from the
start of the invasion of Ukraine, February 24th. 2022. Determining the start date of the media
attention on the 2015 refugees is more difficult because it started gradually compared to the
situation with Ukrainian refugees. Therefore, I have chosen as a start date the date of September
5th, 2015, when the German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to let the refugees stuck in
Hungary travel to and through Germany (YLE Uutisluokka, 2020). This was a turning point for
the refugee situation in Finland because it quickly increased the number of refugees arriving in
Finland, and since this date, the number of refugees and media attention about them grew
exponentially in the coming days (Migri,2017).
To find relevant news articles from this six-week timeframe from both of the situations, this
study utilizes specific keywords. The chosen articles are derived from YLE’s online news19
archives using the following keywords: asylum seekers, refugees, asylum, migrants, immigrants,
and refugee crisis. The before-mentioned words are used in Finnish. With the help of these
keywords, relevant articles regarding refugees arriving in Finland are identified, and after this,
two articles per week are randomly selected from YLE’s news archives.
Short (less than five sentences) purely informative articles, for example, about the number
of refugees arriving, are excluded from the results because of the short amount of text that would
not contain enough material to execute a proper analysis. Additionally, although YLE also has
news articles in English and Swedish, this study utilizes only articles written in Finnish. This is
because I want to focus specifically on the media discourse directed to Finnish people and not so
much on how the discourse is presented to the international audience of the newspaper. To limit
the amount the articles analyzed, the articles are randomly chosen from the articles found with the
aforementioned keywords within the timeline. Two articles are randomly chosen from each week
of the timeline. Both regular news articles and editorial pieces are involved in the articles because
I want to have a sample of both more opinionated pieces and pieces that are supposed to be
written from a neutral perspective to get a wider scope of the discourse.
4.5 YLE
YLE (Yleisradio Oy) is a Finnish national broadcasting company that is owned by the Finnish
state. YLE’s role and goal are outlined in the Finnish law, and its named tasks in the law include
providing news and knowledge for everybody in Finland and, therefore, also to support
democracy (Laki Yleisradio Oy:stä 1993/3§7). YLE has a nationwide reach, and it has been voted
the most trusted media company in Finland for several years in a row (Karvinen, 2018). YLE is
considered to be politically neutral, and it is supposed to provide a variety own of opinions from
different perspectives. These factors make YLE an interesting choice for analysis and are the
motivations to study specifically YLE’s articles. There is no other newspaper in Finland that
would be owned by the government and have a role defined in the law. Because of this unique
position YLE has in the Finnish society, I’ve made the choice to focus only on YLEs articles.
4.6 Delimitations and reflectivity
This paper only views material from the first weeks of the media attention regarding both refugee
situations. Because of this, the results are limited to only reflecting the media discourse from the20
initial responses to a refugee influx, and it doesn’t provide answers regarding a long-term media
discourse and possible developments in it. If we look at a media representation of refugees from a
situation like the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, it is possible that the media representation can
change over time. Therefore, this paper cannot provide answers about long-term media attention.
This limitation of the timeline was chosen to make sure the results of the two cases are
comparable and therefore increase the validity of the paper. By choosing a wider timeframe for
the articles on the 2015 refugee situation, it would be possible to get a broader view of the
evolution of the media discourse, but because this is not possible in the case of Ukrainian
refugees, comparability of the cases is prioritized.
Since the material of this study is also limited to news articles from only one media
company, it cannot be said to give answers about the whole media discourse in Finland. The
articles are limited to this one media company due to the limited timeframe, and the unique
position this news company holds in the Finnish society. It wouldn’t be reliable to say the result
reflects the whole media discourse in Finland by looking at articles from just one news company,
and therefore this goal is left for broader studies.
During the research, it is important to recognize one’s possible biases as a researcher. It is
possible, that one’s background and previous experiences affect the research (Creswell &
Creswell, 2018: 260). This means recognizing my own potential bias and my presumptions of
YLE as a media company, which might affect the way I’m reading the articles. Because I have
followed the media discourse concerning the refugees in 2015, memory of the media discourse at
that time could reflect my ability be neutral in my analysis.
4.7 Validity and Reliability
In qualitative research, validity could be defined by the question, is our way of measuring
something actually measuring the thing we intended to measure? (Bhattacherjee,2012:55).
Reliability, again, can be defined by; how accurately and consistently we are measuring the topic
(Bhattacherjee,2012:55). The validity and, more precisely, internal validity in this paper would be
therefore asking the questions, are media articles a good place to search for answers to my
research question, and is discourse analysis the best way to do it. The internal validity of this
paper is strong because news articles allow us to view a wider picture of the discourse as it was at
the time of both refugee situations.21
External validity refers more to the fact that the results of the research can be generalized
to a wider context (Moses & Knutsen,2019). The external validity of the paper is suffered from
the fact that this paper uses only one media company as a source of the material. This means the
results can’t be generalized to reflect a wider media discussion in Finland that would include
newspapers with different political stances. Since the study focuses only on the first weeks of
media attention in both of the cases, it also can’t provide answers from a long-term media
discourse. Therefore, the results can only reflect the beginning of news attention in both
situations. The small sample of articles analyzed in this paper also affects the generalizability of
this thesis. Because of the limited timeframe, this paper contains analysis only from a small
sample of articles, and therefore the results can’t be generalized. However, the meaning of
qualitative studies is often to understand one case in-depth rather than create results that can be
widely generalized or be representative (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
By sharing the process openly and stating that the findings might be conflicting or
complex, the reliability of the research can be increased. Therefore, the process of the analysis
and what is included in it are clearly stated to increase the reliability of the study. Because
anybody can access the same articles and the sources used in this paper, the study can be easily
replicated, and these factors increase the reliability. The articles analyzed in this paper are listed
in the end of the thesis, so the reader can access them if needed.
5.0 Results
The following section contains an analysis separately from both cases and a comparison of these
analyses. First, the articles about the 2015 refugee situation are analyzed, followed by an
analysis of the articles about refugees from Ukraine in 2022. Both analyses follow Fairclough’s
three-dimensional model, analyzing the articles first as a text, and then as a social practice. In
both stages, the theory of securitization and the concept of victim/pariah-nexus are applied to the
analysis. The quotes from the articles are translated from Finnish to English by the author. The
section is concluded with the comparison of the analyses.22
5.1 Analysis
5.1.1 2015 Refugee situation
Overall, all the articles analyzed from the 2015 timeframe had a considerably neutral tone, and
they did not include strong claims or opinions. Some of the articles contained discourse that can
be seen securitizing refugees. In total, five out of the 12 articles analyzed contained language that
connected the presence of refugees or the rising number of them to security concerns. These
articles contained language that could be called securitizing moves, or securitizing speech acts in
Buzan et al.'s (1998) viewpoint. The rest of the articles focused on refugees as receivers of help
from the Finnish society, and some of them were written from the refugee's perspective.
Applying Fairclough's three-dimensional model to this analysis, the discourse will be first
analyzed as text. Focusing on the vocabulary and cohesion in the text, some main points rose
from the articles. Firstly, the vocabulary used to describe the refugees was mixed, but the term
"asylum seeker" was used in the majority of the articles. In the articles that contained some
amount of securitization, the word "crisis" and "emergency" were used often in connection with
describing the number of refugees arriving in the country. The situation of the refugees arriving
was in most of the articles referred to as a “refugee crisis,” and the housing for the refugees was
called “emergency housing.” Many articles using these terms messaged the feeling of urgency
and highlighted the refugees as a crisis for the Finnish society.
Also, in the articles where the topic was that there, in fact, is no security threat from the
refugees, the words "insecurity, "danger,” and "threat" were used frequently to connect refugees
as a topic to security. One example of this was an article about a discourse between a police
officer and citizens of a village in Finland, who were worried about the incoming refugees that
would be located in the city. The goal of the article was to present the police officer debunking
the claims made about the refugees, but in fact, this was one of the articles that contained the
most securitizing speech out of these 12 articles. Looking at the cohesion and the vocabulary of
this article, refugees were highly securitized by bringing up words like "conflict,” "sexual
crimes,” or "threat" when talking about refugees. The article contains questions like “Which
portion of the sexual crimes made in Turku are done by asylum seekers?” and “Nearly 100
asylums seekers are being accommodated in Heinänokka. How is the safety of people living near
Heinänokka and others living near a receptions center being secured?” (Koskinen,2015). Even
though the purpose of the article was not to claim that refugees are a security issue, for example,23
just these questions can be seen as securitizing speech acts since they state “security” or “sexual
crimes” in connection to the topic of asylum seekers.
Analyzing the cohesion of the articles, there were also some ambiguous connections made
between the theme of refugees to security concerns. The most common was connecting the
arriving refugees to the "lack of resources" in the Finnish society. This was not done in one
sentence by writing it directly, but for example, the article would begin with sharing a refugee's
story in an emergency shelter in Finland and end up sharing some officials' concerns about the
ability of the society to receive these refugees. In one article, the rising popularity of women's
self-defense courses was indirectly connected to the refugee situation. The article explained first
that the course is meant for women to prepare themselves for different kinds of threats and then
stated, “The refugee crisis and the increase of instability in the society can be seen in the number
of people attending the course” (Huttunen, 2015). This kind of ambivalent argument could also
be seen as something (Buzan et al., (1998) refer to as a securitizing speech act. By connecting the
refugee crisis to the number of people attending the course, the article gives the impression that
women are preparing themselves for the possible attacks from refugees.
The referent objects in these five articles that contained securitizing moves or speech acts
were, for example, citizens of a certain village, the Finnish society, or women in the case of one
article. In three out of these five articles, the Finnish welfare state was presented as a referent
object whose stability and resources a large number of refugees were ostensibly threatening. This
was done by, for example, stating the costs of the refugees or lack of housing for them. A clear
example of this was an article that was named as “People of Orimattila are wondering about
refugees – Who is going to pay the expenses?” (Autio, 2015). In this article, refugees were not
presented as a physical threat, but rather their cost to the Finnish society was brought up.
In the articles that did not contain any securitizing language and presented the refugees in a
positive light, the language revolved around the verb "helping.” Helping as a topic was brought
up a lot either as Finnish society or people giving help, or the refugees being thankful to receive
help. For example, one article talks about local churches offering their spaces as emergency
accommodation, and the headline of the article is “The accommodation of asylum seekers in
churches continues as long as there is need for it” (Kettunen, 2015). This headline highlights the
fact that help is offered, and the article does not contain any securitizing speech. The majority of
the articles had this perspective. Nevertheless, this article also contains a hint of the victimizationYou can also read
