The portrayal of Iraqi refugees in BBC online news reports (2012)‎ : a critical discourse analysis

Abstract EN

The continuous unstable political ،social and economic conditions have urged a number of Iraqi people to flee their homes to neighboring countries and Europe seeking refuge for safety and wellbeing.

this situation has placed Iraqis in the focus of western media news reports and how they are portrayed.

thus, media discourse plays a salient role in the representation of Iraqi refugees in the different political predicaments that Iraq has passed through.

this paper aims at identifying the strategies and categories that are used to represent Iraqi refugees in selected media news report along with the ideological viewpoints in terms of the dichotomy in-group and out-group.

to achieve these aims ،the researchers analyse one news report taken from British broadcasting corporation (BBC) in 2012 from the perspective of critical discourse analysis.

accordingly, the researchers adopt van leeuwen’s (2008) sociological categories of actor representation and van dijk (1998) ideological square.

the researchers select some categories from van leeuwen’s(2008) approach such as genericisation /specification, assimilation, individualisation, aggregation, dissociation, activation/passivation, nomination.

moreover, ideology also analysed in terms of in-group and out-group.

the study concludes that generic references represent most of the social actors in active roles in describing the main events related to the representation of the social actors.

ideologically, the Dutch government ،Hague court ،Dutch policemen and the Iraqi government are negatively represented and this shows the neutrality of BBC news reports in the representation of Iraqi refugees.