This thesis is about immigration discourses among the political elite in Sweden. The focus of interest has been to establish if the racist and assimilationist discourses of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) has been influential on the political party elite, and more specifically on whom, and how. Parliamentary debates and opinion pieces written by party elites has been the basis of material for the enquiry, covering the time period 2006 – July 2016. As SD had their political breakthrough in 2010, it is assumed that, provided that they have been influential on the immigration discourses of the mainstream political elite, new elements in the elite discourse mirroring the discourses of SD should emerge after 2010. The results show that some of the assimilationist ideas and negative discourses on immigration pre-existed the breakthrough of SD. The elite of the political mainstream articulated a strong resistance towards SD’s discourses during their first election cycle. However, more negative discourses bordering those of SD emerged in tandem to the so called refugee crisis in late 2015. The crisis can thus be understood as a catalyst breaking some of the taboos regarding negative immigration discourses. At the same time, although assimilationist discourses emerged among other elites than SD, they where always presented in much milder forms than SD’s discourses, who remain radically different from the other parties. These assimilationist ideas and discourses where mainly adopted by the right wing parties the Moderates (Moderaterna, M) and the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna, KD), as well as the Liberal party (Liberalerna, L). I conclude that the adjustments in discourse to that of SD is less than expected, perhaphs as a result of the cordon sanitaire.

The work aims to describe field of discourses, where the texts and talks about immigration (more concretely about immigrants in the Czech Republic) are created. The theoretical part describes the notions of nation and identity; it also provides a brief description of the explanatory models of migration and describes the universalism and particularism dichotomy in the immigration policies. Moreover it elaborates a concept of the multiculturalism as a discourse and construction. The concept of discourse is firstly explained in broader theoretical context, with reference to issues of language, power and ideology; secondly in its methodological consequences. Author also gives an account of linguistic tools (modality), and concepts of related sciences (binary opposition, ideological square). The analytical approach is based in the frame of the Critical discourse analysis. An important conclusion is the revelation of the risk as a discourse which legitimates the power and dominancy over immigrants. According different strategies regarding the risks' construction, three main categories in the field of discourse was considered: opportunity, ambivalence and threat. For the further study the author recommends to investigate the field of key actors who has a power to create and shape the discourses in this field.

This thesis compares the visual representation of Syrian refugees during the 2015 refugee crisis and Ukrainian refugees during the Russian invasion 2022 in news outlets Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dabladet and Aftonbladet. The aim of the study is thus to investigate how ethnic groups are framed in a photojournalistic setting. The theoretical concept otherness is used to analyze the selected visual images and the concept of visualities highlight how photographs published in the media communicate political messages and how images reflect immigration discourse. Additionally, photojournalistic regimes of visibility and responsibility are used to illuminate similarities and dissimilarities in the material. In total, 200 images made up the sample for the performed qualitative visual analysis. The findings reveal that empathetic portrayals dominate the Swedish narrative. Syrian refugees were overrepresented in imagery alluding to otherness painting a picture of Syrians as ethnic, cultural and dangerous others. Photography triggering social and political engagement were crucial in the forming of visualities, relating visual images to the political and public arena. The sampled images did reflect immigration discourses of intimidation and humanity.

This study exemplifies, analyses and discusses the conceptual metaphors refugees are water and refugees are animals in British media discourse. In order to do this, examples of linguistic tokens of the metaphors were collected from four of the biggest newspapers in Britain; Daily Mail, The Sun, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. Linguistic tokens of the metaphors were found in all of the newspapers. The tokens of refugees are animals often appeared within quotation marks, whereas the refugees are water tokens appeared mostly unmarked, implying that refugees are water is more conventionalized than refugees are animals. The analysis of the tokens showed how different aspects of refugees are either highlighted or hidden when it is conceptualized in terms of water or animals. In the process of highlighting/hiding certain aspects of refugees, the refugees are dehumanized.

Controversy over immigration and integration intensified in German news media following Chancellor Merkel’s response to the refugee crisis of 2015. Using multidimensional scaling of word associations in reporting across four national news publications in conjunction with key event, moral panic and framing theories, we argue that reporting of events at Cologne station on New Year’s Eve 2015–2016 reframed debate away from terror-related concerns and towards anxieties about the sexual predation of dark-skinned males, thus racializing immigration coverage and resonating with a long history of Orientalist stereotyping. We further identify an increased clustering of ‘race’, gender, religion, crowd-threat and national belonging terms in reporting on sexual harassment incidents following Cologne, suggesting an increased criminalization of immigration discourse. The article provides new empirically based insights into the dynamics of news media reporting on migrants in Germany and contributes to scholarly debates on media framing of migrants, sexuality and crime.