The presentation presents findings from a comparative analysis of xenophobic and islamophobic discourse in large scale language Twitter and newspaper corpora. The data investigated cover the years 2018 and 2019 (the aftermath of the 2015/16 'refugee and migrant crisis') and represent current language usage and language choice patterns in German publicly accessible media in relation to 'refugees' and 'Muslims'. The study belongs to the larger field of research on the linguistic construction of discriminatory discourse (prejudice, bias, hate) targeting minorities in the German media
The presentation presents findings from a comparative analysis of xenophobic and islamophobic discourse in large scale (1.5 billion word) German-language Twitter and newspaper corpora. The Twitter data were collected in the context of the XPEROHS-project on hate speech in online contexts (Baumgarten et al. 2019); the newspaper data are part of the German Reference Corpus (DeReKo) held at the Institute for the German Language. The corpora are linguistically annotated. They cover the years 2018 and 2019, representing current language usage and language choice patterns in German publicly accessible media in relation to 'refugees' and 'Muslims'. The study belongs to the larger field of research on prejudice and hate speech in the (social) media, in which non-English speaking contexts are under-investigated.
The study adopts as social constructivist, data-driven approach to corpus data, informed by the model of socially-grounded register analysis proposed by Conrad & Biber (2019) and Biber's concept of n-grams ('lexical bundles') as register markers (Biber & Barbieri 2007). The analysis combines quantitative frequency analysis (lexical references to 'Muslims'/'refugees', associated n-grams) and statistical measures (e.g. informativeness, keyness, mutual information) with qualitative linguistic microanalyses of the textual context (framing analysis; Tannen 1993; Entman 1993) to be able to describe how different types of media platforms create and perpetuate specific understandings of socio-ethnic minority groups for their audiences.
The analysis is based on the premises that traditional and social media are embedded in substantially different text production and reception contexts, characterised e.g. by radically different editorial practices, institutional regulatory frameworks, access and consumption patterns as well writer-audience relationships. At the same time, traditional and social media are in an interlinked and competitive relationship regarding their contribution to the shaping of public discourses on various aspects of social reality as they choose to respond to current affairs and events, in which 'foreigners' and 'Muslims' have played a prominent role since the 2015 'refugee crisis'.
