This study investigates if and how xenophobia is found in the discourse of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, on the national radio station during 'the migrant crisis' in Europe through Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and the application of van Dijk's (1993) sociocognitive approach.
Due to ‘the migrant crisis’ of 2015 in Europe, the Hungarian government created three national consultations between 2015 and 2017. During the first consultation, the National Consultation on Immigration and Terrorism of 2015, findings indicated that the media portrayal of migrants, specifically referring to the refugees and asylum seekers who had recently arrived in Hungary, as biased, stereotypical (Kiss 2016) and filled with anti-immigration sentiments (Mendelski 2019, Canveren and Durakçay 2017, Kiss 2016). Furthermore, Orbán’s discourse exhibits xenophobic measures (Mendelski 2019) and claim migrants to be threats to Hungarian society, both physically and economically (Timmer et al. 2019). The perpetuation of xenophobia and the narrative of the arrival of migrants as a ‘crisis’ was intense during this first consultation and continued on during the referendum campaign in 2016 and the third national consultation in 2017 (Bocskor 2018). This study investigates the discourse of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, during the second national consultation in 2016 leading up to the referendum in which Hungary would vote in response to the European Union’s (EU) agenda on migration for the resettlement and relocation of migrants (European Commission 2015). This study investigates if and how xenophobia is used in Orbán’s discourse during his nine interviews on the national radio station through the use of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the application of van Dijk’s (2015) sociocognitive approach. Initial findings indicate the use of xenophobia by Orbán through the use of the ideological discourse structures including polarization, pronouns, identification, emphasis of positive self-descriptions and negative other-descriptions, activities, norms and values and interests. The implications of these findings coincide with previous studies on the use of anti-immigrant rhetoric by Orbán used in persuading his constituents to vote “no” in the referendum, further impacting tensions within the EU and proposed solutions to ‘the migrant crisis’.
