Master’s dissertation Critical Discourse Analysis: Media Representation of the Refugee deals with the issue of distorting the reality of refugees through media coverage during the time of the »refugee crisis« in 2015 and 2016. Through a historical framework, it addresses the prevailing Europe-Islam conflict, which has become firmly entrenched in European as well as national identity. The mentioned antagonism is reinforced through the Slovenian national identity on the basis of the mythological perception of the Slovenian »Other«, represented by the Turk in the Balkans. Texts in the media represent the building blocks of national identity and are thus filled with negative perceptions of foreigners. National identity is always formed on the basis of differentiation. The methodology of the empirical part is represented by a critical discourse analysis, with respect to the Fairclough’s model of media text analysis. The texts of the printed and online issues of the Slovenske novice newspaper during the period of the commonly named New Year’s Eve attack in Cologne, were selected for the case study. Based on the analysis it was found that Slovenske novice newspaper generally depict refugees as a threat. A threat to security, the welfare state, cultural norms and the established Western way of life. The media discourse is therefore negative and deceiving and as such reproduces stereotypes, xenophobia and islamophobia. The report of the New Year’s Eve attack on women represents »white« men as the victims of said incident. The arrival of refugees was shown to endanger the property of »our men«- these are »our women«. Refugees are thus portrayed as thieves of »our wives«, hence the European woman is portrayed as a commodity, and such discourse reinforces the proprietorial and patriarchal attitude towards women.
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