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The Discursive Representation of Violence in the Context of the Migration Crisis in Europe: A CDA Case Study on the Discursive Support of Non-violence in the Media Reporting on the Chemnitz Events

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Discourse Processes between Reason and Emotion

Part of the book series: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse ((PSDS))

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Abstract

The present mixed-methods research investigates how a lexical field was created around the theme of violence promoting non-violence. Using a CDA framework, the study explores the narrative recontextualisation of the so-called Chemnitz events in online English-language newspaper articles from four quality press sources (BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Times). Linguistic analysis was carried out on articles reporting on the importance of attending a rock concert after the protests in Chemnitz, Saxony, in 2018. The analysis applied van Leeuwen’s (2008) sociosemiotic inventory of the ways in which social actors and social actions are represented discursively. The findings suggest that the articles heavily apply the conceptual field of violence and disproportionally represent the social actors, which result in the encouragement of the mobilisation of ‘us’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Guardian, 28 August 2018.

  2. 2.

    MDR is the abbreviation of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk.

  3. 3.

    ARD stands for Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

  4. 4.

    During the trials held in 2019, the Syrian defendant, Alaa S., was found guilty of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm. Consequently, he was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. As the defence lawyer has lodged an appeal at the Federal Court of Justice, at the time of publication of this research the verdict is not yet legally binding.

  5. 5.

    The third perpetrator, Farhad Ramazan Ahmad, apparently an Iraqi man (22), whose asylum application was rejected in January 2017 and thus should have been deported from Germany, escaped. Although an international arrest warrant was issued against Farhad R., he had not been found by the time the trials were held in 2019. The allegedly Iraqi man was not unknown to the police, as he had been convicted for several crimes he committed in Germany, such as bodily harm, drug trafficking, theft, trespassing, property damage, insult, threat, resistance to law enforcement officers, and even stabbing (Source Freie Presse, 13 September 2018; Welt, 5 September 2018).

  6. 6.

    The German press guards the anonymity of people involved by revealing the first letter of the family name only. The English-language press, however, published the full name of the victim, Daniel Hillig.

  7. 7.

    Pro Chemnitz became a municipal political party in Saxony in 2019.

  8. 8.

    In the German context, the term “extremist” refers to someone who has a negative attitude to democracy per definitionem (Pickel & Decker, 2016).

  9. 9.

    2016: 18,828; 2017: 19,769; 2018: 18,695; 2019: 16,439.

  10. 10.

    2016: 16; 2017: 31; 2018: 19; 2019: 29.

  11. 11.

    2016: 3,098; 2017: 3,285; 2018: 3,003; 2019: 2,749.

  12. 12.

    2016: 6,561; 2017: 6,112; 2018: 5,669; 2019: 4,486.

  13. 13.

    2016: 282; 2017: 284; 2018: 305; 2019: 347.

  14. 14.

    2016: 232; 2017: 290; 2018: 349; 2019: 280.

  15. 15.

    2016: 1,142; 2017: 1,513; 2018: 1,815; 2019: 1,701.

  16. 16.

    The implication does not have a valid basis. The German-language press reported (27 August) that 15–20 counter-protestors caused bodily harm to four far-right demonstrators.

  17. 17.

    As the police made thorough video recordings of the protests, Michael Kretschmer, Minister President of Saxony, firmly stated that “There was no mobbing, no Pogrom or chasings” of foreigners in Chemnitz. Heinz Eggber, former Interior Minister of Saxony, reinforced the same opinion. Hans-Georg Maaßen, President of the Federal Office for Constitutional Protection [Verfassungsschutzpräsident], Germany’s domestic security agency’s chief, expressed his doubts about the authenticity of the video showing the pursuit, which was published on the Facebook site of AntifaZeckenbiss. Maaßen also added that it was “targeted misinformation with the possible aim of distracting publicity from the murder in Chemnitz” (Source MDR Sachsen). “Publicly contradicting” (BBC, 24 September 2018) to what Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert had previously declared about the chasings of foreigners in Chemnitz led to a political fallout, and in consequence Maaßen was dismissed from the Federal Office for Constitutional Protection in less than two weeks’ time (Source MDR-Sachsen).

  18. 18.

    The slogan “Ausländer raus” is forbidden and punishable in the Free State of Saxony according to §130 StGB (Strafgesetzbuch), the criminal code in Germany (Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Sachsen, 2016).

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  1. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary

    Natalia Borza

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  1. University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Patrizia Anesa

  2. University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Aurora Fragonara

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Borza, N. (2021). The Discursive Representation of Violence in the Context of the Migration Crisis in Europe: A CDA Case Study on the Discursive Support of Non-violence in the Media Reporting on the Chemnitz Events. In: Anesa, P., Fragonara, A. (eds) Discourse Processes between Reason and Emotion. Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70091-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70091-1_5

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