The Construction of Borders: Discursive Representations of Asylum Seekers in Australian Press

Sammanfattning: In Australia a succession of politicised and well-publicized incidents has highlighted the ‘dilemma’ of refugees and seekers of asylum. A number of desperate human tragedies and very questionable practices and decisions by the Australian government have caused the upset. However, instead of focusing on the humanitarian aspects of the arrival of asylum seekers by boat, their arrival has been framed as a security issue. This has provided a context where highly restrictive border control measures have been implemented that disregards some of the central tenets of Australian Democracy. This thesis rests on the belief that media play a highly influential role in the constructing of asylum seekers as a security issue and therefore also plays a decisive role in the way border policies are implemented. In order to shed light on this, a discourse analysis of letters to the editor in Australian will be done to examine the exchange of arguments through which such borders policies are justified and challenged.