A cosy consensus on deviant discourse: how the refugee and asylum seeker meta-narrative has endorsed an interpretive crisis in relation to the transnational politics of world's displaced persons

Immigration is a key feature in late capitalist societies, with some 20,000,000 displaced persons worldwide. This paper reports on coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in English-language newspapers worldwide, drawing on media content between 2003 and 2004. It analyses media discourse on refugees and asylum seekers across the world, with a particular focus on deconstructing negative coverage. Five dominant negative frames in international media discourses are identified. These themes are examined in the context of theories of racism and xenophobia to highlight their negative potential for displaced persons and attitudes towards them in their host countries. Theory is also employed to explore the potential utility of such negative narratives for the media and social elites. The work being presented here is part of a much larger research project being undertaken by the authors at the University of Limerick. (For preliminary findings see Devereux and Breen, 2003 and 2004).