Abstract
The present comparative study focuses on the British anti-migrant media discourse of two key periods of migration policy - before and after Brexit. The methodological basis of the work constituted the theory of social actors of van Leuven (2008), the conceptual opposition “us” and “them” by T. van Dijk (1989), and the agenda-setting theory of M. McCombs and D. Shaw (1972). Using a comprehensive analysis of the selected material and the methods of modern computer linguistics, the authors set themselves the task of identifying changes in the tonality of media discourse, key strategies for representing migrants as social actors, and analyzing the media agenda of various political stance with regard to the recent referendum. The data obtained demonstrate the prevalence of the criminalization strategy of migrants in conservative media and their victimization in liberal media both before and after the referendum. However, after the Brexit, there is a shift from a clearly negative tone of media texts of both views to more neutral rhetoric. An analysis of the agenda shows that significant political events unambiguously affect the number of publications in the media in general. However, the strategies used to represent migrants are predefined by the political views of publications.
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