Shifting views on irregular migration during a time of socio-political change: A critical analysis of press and social media discourses in the UK, 2015 - 2018

The cross-border movement of people repeatedly leads to political controversy in countries across the world. In Europe, migration became a paramount public concern after the arrival of the unprecedented number of 1.2 million migrants in 2015. Most of these individuals were labelled ‘irregular’ due to their lack of valid travel documents. European states have various policy measures in place to combat irregular migration. In particular, the United Kingdom has a long-standing tradition of restrictive policies since the mid-1960s. However, little knowledge exists on public views towards irregular migrants and how people regard the state’s responses, with most previous research limited to newspaper analyses. These studies emphasised a widespread negative portrayal of migrants as cultural and security threats. Social media presents an additional rich source to traditional media, but its potential to unveil the public discourse on irregular migration remains largely untapped. This research examines the online press and social media discourse on irregular migration between 2015 and 2018 in the British context. This time period is significant as it covers the heightened public interest in migration following the so-called ‘migration crisis’ in Europe. Moreover, migration was a crucial factor influencing the outcome of the British EU referendum in 2016. Both events are expected to have caused an increasing interest in migration among the online press and social media users. The study is based on an analysis of 244 online newspaper articles and 22,967 corresponding social media comments. Using Social Identity Theory and Social Representation Theory, this thesis explores the discursive organisation of group-thinking dynamics and shared social identity of three key social groups - migrants, nationals and government of migrants’ destination country - and asks how they are depicted by ingroup and outgroup representations. The key contributions of this thesis are twofold. First, this study is among the first to analyse both press representations and people’s views expressed about irregular migration on a social media platform over a long time span. By employing this approach, this study highlighted that the press and social media discourse on irregular migration was highly volatile, shifting with the changing socio-political events between 2015 and 2018. Second, in-depth analysis of social media comments revealed that strong opposition to irregular migrants was shown to be primarily used as a vehicle for commenters to express their dissatisfaction and lack of trust in the political handling of irregular migration and of the citizens’ concerns. These ingroup and outgroup dynamics highlight a paradox in which British policymakers have created a hostile image of irregular migrants but fail to understand the respective doubts and expectations of the British public. Political elites should reassess the way they represent and address irregular migration in light of these findings.