Seventeenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper reports on a discourse analytic study of newsprint stories concerning the vessel known as the Bibby Stockholm, a large three-story barge secured by the UK Government to hold up to five hundred and six asylum seekers who are awaiting the outcome of Home Office decisions on their applications. A search was undertaken using Lexis+ UK of prominent tabloid and broadsheet newspapers with reference to the barge using the terms ‘asylum seeker,’ ‘migrant’, and ‘refugee’. Two hundred and seventy news stories were generated through the search, and these were then grouped into prominent issues reported on by the press. These included issues around the safety of the barge, living conditions, protest at its use, an official report and subsequent Government action, the cost of housing asylum seekers on the barge, the sudden death of an asylum seeker, and asylum seekers on the barge converting to Christianity. The analysis of these news stories focuses upon latent themes and key features of their rhetorical construction including the framing of issues in relation to the political orientation of the newspapers, their favoured rhetorical targets, lexical choices, and direct use of reported comments. The contrasting and contested nature of the ways in which these issues are reported on is discussed in relation to wider debates in the UK about asylum seekers and migration.