Resumen de Refugees in the Spanish media
Antonio Miguel Bañón Hernández (coord.), Eman Mhanna Mhanna (coord.), Bernard McGuirk (coord.)
Displacement caused by the need to flee poverty, catastrophe and conflict is the starkest of realities for its many victims. This volume contributes to our knowledge, interpretation and understanding of one of today’s most extreme forms of suffering, that experienced by refugees.
One of the keynotes in the studies in the book is the determination to identify the nature and causes of the said displacements. It involves case-by-case analyses, in and beyond media representations, of the particularities of the plights of different refugee groups, the treatment undergone in their places of arrival, and the social and political repercussions of their reception. The main focus is on the handling of the refugee crisis in the last decade in Spain, and its coverage in the national press and audiovisual media.
The approach is multidisciplinary, drawing on discourse analysis, media corpus studies and critical theory. Evidence is adduced across a broad range of institutional activities, including those of social networks, political and journalistic organisations, NGOs and civic platforms, and various “welcome movements”. Considerable attention is paid to the representation of refugee children, as well as to frontier identities, television news coverage, and literary and cinematic treatments of refugees.
Refugees in the Spanish Media is a striking contribution to our perception of a major dilemma of our time. By dint of its marked interdisciplinary scope and ambition it reaches well beyond its academic origins to enlighten all committed to deepening their thinking and action concerning those fleeing persecution for their ideas, beliefs or ethnic identities, or escaping wars and conflicts in general.
