“Journey into hell […where] migrants froze to death”; a critical stylistic analysis of European newspapers’ first response to the 2019 Essex Lorry deaths

In the early hours of October 23rd, 2019, 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated lorry in Grays, Essex, UK. This case attracted media interest across the world; in the 48-h period after the story broke, reporting on this discovery extended to newspapers not just in the UK, but also across Europ...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gregoriou, Christiana 1978- (Author) ; Ras, Ilse A. (Author) ; Muždeka, Nina (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Trends in organized crime
Year: 2022, Volume: 25, Issue: 3, Pages: 318-337
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
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Keywords:
Migration and crimmigration
Critical Discourse Analysis
(Critical) stylistics
International media
People smuggling
Human Trafficking
Description
Summary:In the early hours of October 23rd, 2019, 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated lorry in Grays, Essex, UK. This case attracted media interest across the world; in the 48-h period after the story broke, reporting on this discovery extended to newspapers not just in the UK, but also across Europe. This study uses elements of Critical Stylistics (Jeffries 2010) to analyse and compare first response articles published by European dailies in relation to the event at Grays, to address the nature of this reporting. We found that linguistic choices tend to dramatise what happened, criminalise victims, and even presume the driver’s innocence, with the international criminal network he is presupposed to be part of remaining only speculated on. Though there are attempts to distribute some accountability to governments and policies, as well as structural systemic factors such as war and poverty, responsibility for these factors tends to be diffused, and hence unallocated, this helping ultimately justify draconic law enforcement and border security policies. By highlighting linguistic trends and underlying ideologies which we in turn question, we address the need to tend to the structural causes of such transnational people movement-related crime (i.e. trafficking and smuggling) and shift accountability to governments.
ISSN:1936-4830
DOI:10.1007/s12117-021-09418-x