The Evacuation of the Idomeni Refugee Camp: a Case of Discursive and Iconographical Representation on Digital Media

By using the Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper focuses on the visual and textual representation of refugees in the online version of two influential newspapers in Greece. The analysis examines the particularities and significance of news coverage of a critical event in Greece and Europe during 2016 that is the evacuation of the Idomeni refugee camp. The results show that in the media representation of refugees and asylum seekers, cultural clichés and the perpetuation of an essentialist discourse emerge systematically in a vicious circle. Through their representational frames, both newspapers reveal a tendency to more a homogenization of views and explanations than to provide a plurality of opinions. Using an institutional and generalist approach based on monodimensional formats, they thus contribute to perpetuating a dispositive suitable for pre-existing social representations and stereotypes.