#refugeesnotwelcome: Anti-refugee discourse on Twitter. Issue 5 (October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kreis, Ramona
• Is Part Of: Discourse & communication. Volume 11:Issue 5(2017)
• Page Start: 498
• Page End: 514
• Publication Date: 2017-10
• Subjects: Critical discourse studies -- discursive strategies -- European migrant crisis -- hashtag -- ideologies -- political online discourse -- racist discourse -- refugees -- Twitter; Discourse analysis -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; 401.405
• DOI: 10.1177/1750481317714121
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1750-4813

Abstract

In this study, I examine the online discourse of the European refugee crisis on the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. Specifically, I analyze 100 tweets that include #refugeesnotwelcome, and explore how this hashtag is used to express negative feelings, beliefs and ideologies toward refugees and (im)migrants in Europe. Guided by critical discourse studies, I focus on Twitter users' discursive strategies as well as form and function of semiotic resources and multimodality. Twitter users who include this particular hashtag use a rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion to depict refugees as unwanted, criminal outsiders. These tendencies align with current trends in Europe where nationalist-conservative and xenophobic right-wing groups gain power and establish a socially accepted discourse of racism.