Linguistic and visual strategies for portraying immigrants as people deprived of human rights

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe majority of news items on sub-Saharan immigrants in the Spanish press refer to their arrival by jumping the fences of Ceuta or Melilla or landing in small boats at the Spanish coast. The data in this article consist of all the news items published on the arrival of sub-Saharan immigrants in Spain by jumping the fences of Ceuta and Melilla, items that appeared in the digital editions of the two most popular Spanish newspapers, El País and ABC, from 1 January 2012 to 1 January 2015. The principles of critical discourse analysis and visual grammar are used to deconstruct the linguistic and visual portrayal of sub-Saharan immigrants when they try to enter Spain by jumping the fence. This research reveals that the immigrants jumping the fence at Melilla are represented as wild and dangerous. There is no reference to their human rights. The study thus aims to provide a visual analysis of the way in which the arrival of these immigrants is represented visually in two serious newspapers. In this way, the study aims to unveil visual ways of negative representation of immigrants, who are portrayed as dangerous invaders.