DISCOURSIVE STRATEGIES OF THE TV INFORMATION IN THE DISCOURSE ABOUT MIGRATIONS, SOME LINGUISTIC POINTS REGARDING THE ITALIAN CASE
Abstract
Mass media and journalism played an important role in the reproduction of stereotypes and biased interpretation of the migratory phenomenon. The main goal of this contribution is to verify the consistency of the discourse about migration in Italian journalism over different media. Therefore, in this study the authors will focus on documentaries screened by the Italian National Public Television (Rai).
The corpus is composed by three movies: two by Valerio Cataldi and one by Amedeo Ricucci. Cataldi’s movies were produced and aired by Tg2 under the patronage of UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). They depict two different aspects of migrants’ experience. In La neve la prima volta, the author focuses on the stories of four survivors from the Lampedusa dump occurred on 3 October 2013, which caused 366 deaths. Quando Youssef si mise in cammino narrates the story of Yousef and his three friends in their journey from Afghanistan to Austria in search of asylum. Similarly, La lunga marcia by Amedeo Ricucci follows the journey of Syrian refugees in their attempt to reach Europe during summer of 2015.
The three movies cross a wide set of issues regarding migration in Italy and the EU, such as the construction of European external and internal borders; policies and practices of migrant management; human rights; racism and prejudice towards foreigners.
The main goal of the contribution is to employ the means of discourse analysis to reflect on multimodal discourse about migration and its role in the social construction of refugees and migrants.
Keywords: discourse, migrations, racism, mass media, documentary.
Downloads
References
Angelone, A. & Clò, C. (2011). Other visions: Contemporary Italian documentary cinema as counter-discourse. Studies in Documentary Film, 5(2), 83–89.
Ardizzoni, M. (2013). Narratives of change, images for change: Contemporary social documentaries in Italy. Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 1(3), 311–326.
Aufderheide P. (2007). Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beattie, K. (2004). Documentary Screens: Non-fiction Film and Television. New York: Palgrave.
Benelli, E. (2010). The “other” from another shore: Identity at sea in Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti. In G. Russo Bullaro (Ed), From terrone to extracomunitario: New manifestations of racism in contemporary Italian cinema. London: Troubador Publishing, 219-239.
Binotto, M. and Martino, V. (Eds.) (2004). FuoriLuogo: l’immigrazione e i media italiani. Cosenza/Roma. Pellegrini/RAI.
Bond, E., Bonsaver, G. & Faloppa, F. (Eds.) (2015). Destination Italy: Representing migration in contemporary media and narrative. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Bruno, M. (2012). Andare oltre gli stereotipi. La figura del migrante nell’informazione italiana e le ricerche per la Carta di Roma. In F. Cristaldi & D. Castagnoli (Eds.), Le parole per dirlo: Migrazioni, comunicazione e territorio. Perugia: Morlacchi, 49-79.
Cataldi, Vittorio (2014). La neve la prima volta, Roma, RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana/Unhcr.
Cataldi, Vittorio (2015). Quando Youssef si mise in cammino, Rome, RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana/Unhcr.
Dal Lago, A. (Ed.) (1998). Il nemico e lo straniero: materiali per l’etnografia contemporanea. Genova: Costa & Nolan.
Dal Lago, A. (2009). Non-persone. L’esclusione dei migranti in una società globale. Milano: Feltrinelli.
De Mauro, T. (1991). Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Fairclough, N. (1995a). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London-New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995b). Media discourse. London: Arnold.
Ferrante, D. & Piasentier M. (2013). Mare Nostrum: Biopolitica e alterità in Terraferma di Emanuele Crialese. The Italianist, 33(2), 307-313.
Ferrari, C. & Ardizzoni, M. (2009). Beyond monopoly: Globalization and contemporary Italian media. Lanham MD. Lexington Books.
Gabrielatos, C. and Baker, P. (2008). Fleeing, sneaking, flooding: A corpus analysis of discursive constructions of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK Press, 1996-2005. Journal of English Linguistics, 36(1), 5-38.
Hill, A. (2007). Restyling Factual TV: Audience & News, Documentary & Reality Genres. London and New York: Routledge.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Loshitzky, Y. (2010), Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Maneri. M. (1995). Stampa quotidiana e senso comune nella costruzione sociale dell'immigrato. Tesi di dottorato, Trento, Università di Trento.
Mengaldo, P. (1994). Il Novecento, Bologna. il Mulino.
Nichols, B. (2001). Introduction to documentary. Bloomington. Indiana University Press
O’Healy, Á. (2010). Mediterranean passages: Abjection and belonging in contemporary Italian cinema, California Italian Studies, 1(1), 1-19.
Orrù, P. (2015) Razzismo quotidiano: la rappresentazione dello straniero nella stampa italiana (2000-2010). Tesi di Dottorato, Cagliari: Università degli studi di Cagliari,
http://veprints.unica.it/1175/1/PhD_Thesis_Orr%C3%B9.pdf.
Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. (2001). Discourse and discrimination: Rhetorics of racism and antisemitism. London and New York: Routledge.
Richardson, J. E. (2007). Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Richardson, J. E. & Colombo, M. (2013). Continuity and Change in Anti-Immigrant Discourse in Italy. An Analysis of the Visual Propaganda of the Lega Nord. Journal of Language and Politics, 12(2), 180-202.
Ricucci, Amedeo (2015). La lunga marcia, Rome, RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana.
Rossi, F. (2006). Il linguaggio cinematografico. Roma: Aracne.
Russo Bullaro, G. (Ed.) (2010). From terrone to extracomunitario: New manifestations of racism in contemporary Italian cinema. London: Troubador Publishing.
Ter Wal, J. (2001). Minacce territoriali, socio-economiche e di sicurezza. L’immagine degli immigrati nella stampa quotidiana’. Incontri, 16, 67-78.
Van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News as discourse. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2000). Ideology and discourse: A multidisciplinary introduction,
http://www.discourses.org/UnpublishedArticles/Ideology%20and%20discourse.pdf, Consultato il 22 gennaio 2016.
