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Giacomelli, Elena | Parmiggiani, Paola | Musarò, Pierluigi

The invisible enemy and the usual suspects : how Covid-19 re-framed migration in Italian media representations

2020 - Franco Angeli

119-136 p.

  • The last decade has been characterized by an intense inflow of people into borders of what has been called the "Fortress Europe". Italian governments, from GentiloniMinniti to ConteSalvini, have implemented restrictive border management and migration control measures, fueled also by an over mediatization of the issue in and by public discourses. However, from February 2020 public debates and narratives have been dominated by the Covid19 pandemic, a health emergency often described as a war against an invisible enemy. Through a qualitative analysis of Italian media representations, this paper analyses how Covid19 overshadowed and reframed migration narratives and discourses. Moving within the concept of (in)visibility, this paper explores the two macrodiscourses around migration during the lockdown: on one side, the link between migration and illness (fear of infection) that led to strict border security measures; on the other, the utilitaristic x\regularization of migrants working in informal economy.
  • The conclusion reflects on longterm implications of the pandemic on mobility justice (Sheller 2018) and what Mbembe (2020) has defined the "right to breath". [Publisher's text].

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Sociologia della comunicazione : 60, 2, 2020