Sårbara främlingar och europeiska mödrar. En jämförande analys av nyhetsmediers visuella berättelse om flyktingar från Syrien och Ukraina

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the discursive constructions of women refugees from Syria and Ukraine in journalistic photographs published in three Swedish newspapers with a theoretical framework of representational practice theory, othering, gender and ethnicity. Through multimodal discourse analysis, the two groups’ symbolic positions are uncovered and compared. The analysis shows that both groups are constructed as vulnerable. The findings also indicate that the news media representations of women refugees symbolically annihilate experiences of Syrian refugee women, while simultaneously illegitimizing their position as refugees. The discourse produces subjects that are homogenized and unknown, constructed as vulnerable but foreign others. Additionally, the analysis shows that Ukrainian refugee women are depicted as mothers, and as such worthy of the myth of male protection. However, the agency of the Ukrainian refugee woman is conditioned by her performance as a mother and on the conditions of white femininity, thus placing her too in a subordinate position.