Discourse and Policy Analysis in Asylum Seeker Contexts
Summary
The field of discourse and policy analysis in asylum seeker contexts examines how language, narratives and power relations shape public understanding and legislative action towards those seeking refuge. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, narrative policy analysis and securitisation theory, researchers explore the framing strategies employed by political actors, media outlets and civil society to construct asylum seekers as threats, victims or moral subjects. Methodologies range from qualitative textual analysis of parliamentary debates and news reports to computational linguistics applied to social media corpora, as well as experimental designs assessing the persuasive impact of competing narratives. Key themes include the securitisation of migration, moralising narratives of deservingness, the interplay between populist rhetoric and restrictive legislation, and the role of counter-narratives in fostering solidarity. By mapping these discursive dynamics across different regions and platforms, scholars illuminate the mechanisms through which hostile discourse is normalised or challenged, offering insights for evidence-based policy interventions and rights-oriented communication strategies.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent studies have applied computational discourse analysis to large corpora of media and parliamentary texts, demonstrating that securitisation metaphors—such as references to “waves” or “invasions”—remain pervasive in asylum debates and correlate with peaks in restrictive legislative proposals. Cross-national comparisons reveal that shifts towards more punitive policy rhetoric often coincide with electoral cycles, suggesting deliberate temporal framing by policymakers. Experimental research into narrative persuasion has provided evidence that humanising accounts of individual asylum seekers can attenuate public anxiety, increase empathy and bolster support for more inclusive asylum frameworks. These findings highlight the promise of strategic storytelling and data-driven discourse mapping in counteracting fear-based policy narratives.
Discourse and Policy Analysis in Asylum Seeker Contexts publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in discourse and policy analysis in asylum seeker contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Discursive framing: The selective organisation and presentation of language that constructs particular interpretations of events, actors and issues.
Securitisation: The discursive process of depicting a phenomenon as an existential threat, thereby justifying exceptional policy or legal measures.
Narrative policy analysis: An approach that examines how stories, symbols and metaphors influence policy preferences and public attitudes.
Critical discourse analysis: A methodological framework for revealing power relations and ideological underpinnings within texts and spoken language.
Computational linguistics: The use of algorithms and quantitative methods to analyse linguistic patterns in large-scale text datasets.
References
- Islamophobia in Australia: From Far-Right Deplorables to Respectable Liberals. Social Sciences (2018).
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