The dismantling of the 'Jungle' of Calais in October 2016. A critical discourse analysis of the Daily Mail and The Guardian

Abstract

In this research I explore how two newspapers from the United Kingdom (UK) covered the dismantling of the ‘Jungle’ of Calais that officially started on October 24, 2016. The articles, published between October 17, 2016 and November 5, 2016, were retrieved from the Daily Mail – a right-leaning newspaper – and The Guardian – a left-leaning newspaper. The main objective of this research was to show how the ideology of both newspapers influenced their positioning on the question but also to see how migrants were portrayed in the Daily Mail and The Guardian. This research is qualitative and applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The main CDA method used here is the frame analysis. Our framing method is based on the framing methods of Semetko & Valkenburg (2000) and Helbing (2014), that provided our method with six frames: conflict, human interest, economic consequences, responsibility, nationalistic and moral-universal. The results show that the Daily Mail and The Guardian covered differently the dismantling of the ‘Jungle’ of Calais. Both newspapers were influenced by their respective ideologies: the Daily Mail had an apprehensive discourse towards immigration and used more often the economic consequences frame and nationalistic frame to criticize immigration and the situation in the Calais camps while The Guardian had a more open discourse towards immigration and used more often the human interest frame and the moral-universal frame to show empathy towards immigrants. The results also demonstrate that two main ‘images’ of migrants emerged in the articles: the ‘threatening men’ and the ‘vulnerable women and children’. Those findings show the importance of ideology in discourse and that newspapers portray migrants in specific ways that can be harmful for migrants. In our research, this portrayal can especially affect asylum seekers stranded in Calais who are already in a vulnerable position. It is therefore important to be critical and deconstruct every kind of discourses, especially dominant discourses that target groups in a vulnerable position.