Framing conflict in the Syrian Refugee Crisis

Abstract

This paper analyses the multimodal representation of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2016 in two European newspapers, The Guardian from the UK and El País from Spain, in order to unveil which strategies are used, both in headlines and photographs, to construe a specific conceptualization of the two opposing groups involved, European citizens (us) and Syrian immigrants (them). For this purpose, a sample of 50 online news items combining headlines and images were collected from each newspaper, and two different but complementary analyses were performed, both within the socio-cognitive framework of multimodal discourse analysis. First, the image schemas present in both the texts and photos were identified, quantified and interpreted. Then, the framing devices of the news items on the Syrian crisis were examined, particularly the dimensions of subject choice and distance. By means of these multimodal construal strategies, image schemas and framing devices, the study unravels the most pervasive socio-cognitive frames used by the Spanish and British press, namely conflict and morality.