Who is a refugee? The motive of double standard in French- and Dutch-speaking media during the war in Ukraine

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5902/2179219474077

Keywords:

Ukraine, Corpus Linguistics, Media Discourse, Migration Studies, Refugee

Abstract

The invasion of Ukraine triggered an unprecedented reaction of solidarity from European governments. This article aims at studying the discursive moment of the war in Ukraine, with a focus on the debate that compared the reception of Ukrainians in the present day and of other refugees in 2015. The goal is twofold: first, to objectify the initial intuition that Ukrainians were unanimously considered as deserving refugees; second, to examine the arguments that underlaid this framing. To achieve this goal, a large corpus of media discourse covering three European neighbouring countries (Belgium, France and the Netherlands) was collected and analysed through Corpus Linguistics.

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Author Biographies

Laura Calabrese, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Laura Calabrese currently works at the Research Centre of Information and Communication (ReSIC), Université Libre de Bruxelles. Laura does research in Communication and Media and Discourse Analysis.

Cécile Balty, Université Libre de Bruxelles

PhD student at the Université libre de Bruxelles under the supervision of Laura Calabrese. She works with mobilization speeches that help migrants.

Valériane Mistiaen, Université Libre de Bruxelles

PhD student in information and communication at the Free University of Brussels and at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Valériane Mistiaen works on the denomination of people on the move in media discourse.

Amandine Van Neste-Gottignies, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Amandine Van Neste-Gottignies is a post-doctoral researcher at ReSIC (Free University of Brussels). His research focuses on communication with migrants.

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Published

2024-04-04

How to Cite

Calabrese, L., Balty, C., Mistiaen, V., & Neste-Gottignies, A. V. (2024). Who is a refugee? The motive of double standard in French- and Dutch-speaking media during the war in Ukraine. Fragmentum, (61), 92–111. https://doi.org/10.5902/2179219474077

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