Cologne and the 'Other' : A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of 'Irregular' Migrants in the 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' in Relation to New Year's Eve 2015 in Cologne

Abstract: This thesis addresses representation of ‘irregular’ migrants in the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ (SZ). The study employs the discourse event of New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne as a temporal marker and aims to examine representations of ‘irregular’ migrants prior to and following the event. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of fourteen articles is conducted, and Fairclough’s three-dimensional model is employed to analyse the material. Following a textual analysis, in which the use of modality is examined, the sociocultural dimension of the newspaper discourse is investigated. This section sees the application of Stuart Hall’s Othering to the analysis, as well as an inspection of prevalent themes found in the material. The analysis concludes with the finding of ‘deservingness’ and ‘semantics of crime and threat’ as prevalent themes. Furthermore, the results show that ‘irregular’ migrants are constructed as the ‘Other’ in SZ articles, however, this finding is not generalisable to the entire sample.