Sub-Saharan Migrants in Moroccan Print Media: Discourses of Violence, Security, and Illegality before and after the Migration Reform

Abstract

Morocco currently occupies a curious position as both a country of transit and a country of installation for migrants originating from Sub-Saharan countries. Even though the new migration policy reform has provided migrants with some new rights, public opinion is still unready to shape and reshape their perceptions of 'black’ African migrants. The situation of those migrants has grabbed media attention, especially in newspapers; hundreds of articles and reports have been written in newspapers, criticising or denouncing the phenomenon. Although the currently available body research has tended to neglect the linguistic ways in which such media convey meaning along the side of their use of images, little attention has been paid to language-based media. As such, this paper scrutinises (i) the depiction of Sub-Saharan migrants in Moroccan print newspapers headlines before and after the migration reform, and (ii) it considers how reports on ‘black’ African migrants in Morocco may lead to propagating stereotypical acts and xenophobia towards this category. The study examines the topics covered and reveals the patterns used in the coverage of related topics, such as illegality and violence, before and after the new migration policy in 2013. With these objectives in mind, this study is based on qualitative data of news items and reports from the two daily printed newspapers, Assabah and Almassae. Relying on Critical Discourse Analysis and Content Analysis has demonstrated an overgeneralisation of Sub-Saharan migrants in news headlines in general. The results also show a dramatic change in the thematic coverage during the selected period.