Key Communication Strategies of Creating the Image of an Immigrant in the Spanish Media Discourse (on the Publications of El País)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of coverage of the issue of immigration to Spain on the material of the daily social–political newspaper El País which refers to the quality Spanish press. The research carried out within the framework of Media Linguistics using the method of linguistic analysis of the text and the method of cognitive analysis demonstrated a very interesting fact of imbalance between the actual immigrants’ perception in the Spanish society and a certain image artificially created in the media space. The analysis of publications, more than 300 during the year 2019, that were selected according to the theme of publication: national immigration policy, immigration, crimes involving immigrants, immigrants and the Spanish society revealed two key strategies for covering the topic of immigration – the strategy for creating a negative image of the immigrant and the strategy of solidarity. The author managed to identify a sharp dissonance between the real perception in Spain of immigrants and the image of the «enemy» spread by the Spanish media.