Land Grabbing : Media discourses on land acquisition in India and by India

Sammanfattning: To this day, land is a source of survival for billions of people around the globe. However, industrialization and the rush for natural resources has immensely commodified land. As colonialization in the past was based on the violent and forceful confiscation of lands, modern day colonialism called as neo-colonialism, operates by the domination of powerful countries over less-developed countries through economic or political influence and control. Hence, land stealing popularly known as land grabbing, in modern times is done most of the times by the native governments themselves for the national and international capitalists by adopting the strategy of neo-liberalism which in simpler terms, supports privatization by allowing freedom of trade, capital and investments. Land grabbing over the last couple of years has come under utmost scrutiny as it has impacted millions of rural people in Asia and Africa. Nonetheless, this study does not aim to examine the phenomenon of land grabbing itself rather focuses on exploring how two countries- India and Ethiopia, affected by land grabbing are presented by the media. A total number of twenty-five news articles are analysed by using discourse analysis as the method, and discourse, ideology and postcolonial theory as the theoretical framework. The results drawn from the articles showed that the media presented the issue in a bold manner by unveiling the darker side of the governments and capitalism. The study served the purpose as well as the aim of comprehending the media´s understanding of the phenomenon and the entities involved in it.