The Image Of Polish Migration In British Media

The Independent is an important politically neutral newspaper in the UK.This thesis selects 215 reports in it from the year of 2004 to 2017 related to Polish migration,analyzes the images of Polish migrants in the reports,discusses the way how they are constructed and the reasons of their presence from a cross-cultural communication perspective.Research methods of this thesis are framing analysis and content analysis,with assistance of quantitative and qualitative research.This thesis finds out that the numbers of reports are rising on the whole after 2004,with two peaks during the year of 2008-2009 and 2016.The main subjects of the reports are Polish migration in a whole,and the main topic of the reports is crime,with Poles mostly being the victims.There are three representative images of Polish migration in the reports.They are: labor workers with both strengths and weaknesses,symbolized victims of crimes,and vicious criminals.Finally,the thesis studies how the images mentioned above take shape,and reveals the relation between those images and media,cultural convention and social reality.It is concluded that the role of gatekeeper and tabloidization of The Independent leads to its exaggerate and negative style of reports on Polish migration.The cultural convention and historical origin of migration shared by the UK and Poland assist in constructing cultural identity of themselves.Debt crisis and Brexit are the social factors that trigger many negative reports and hate crimes against Polish migration.