Discrimination in discourse: using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar to analyze the depiction of refugees in Público

Abstract

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in 2015, nearly one million people from countries like Libya, Syria and Iraq, and from some politically unstable African nations, have risked themselves crossing the Mediterranean sea to seek a better life as refugees in Europe. This population flow was one of the most commented subject in European media during the year. This article resorts to the categories of Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar (1996; 2006) in order to analyze the depiction of refugees in the photographs contained in Público’s online news during the first half of October 2015. The analysis of 13 images shows there is a recurrent representation of refugees as groups, not individuals, nomads, in high risk and subordination situations.