Authors

K Polynczuk-Alenius¹;  ¹ University of Helsinki, Finland

Discussion

This paper investigates how news media act as 'borderscapers' by contributing to the symbolic construction of borders via their representation. In studying how media representations draw and redraw symbolic boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’, it examines journalism as an exercise of power and interrogates its interactions with state power and its politics of belonging. It does so in the context of a two-pronged border emergency in Poland, involving non-European irregularised migrants stranded at the frontier with Belarus and the arrival of millions of war refugees via the Polish-Ukrainian border. A Foucauldian discourse analysis of the April 2022 coverage by the pro-government wPolityce.pl (WP) and the watchdog OKO.press (OKO) uncovers four different borderscapes: (1) the Polish-Belarusian ‘borderscape of invisibility’ (WP) that chimes in with the state politics of belonging by silencing the topic; (2) the Polish-Belarusian ‘borderscape of rejection’ (OKO) that challenges the rejection of asylum seekers and exposes its consequences; (3) the Polish-Ukrainian ‘borderscape without borders’ (WP) praising the help extended to refugees, which amounts to their virtual incorporation into the Polish nation, and echoing the government’s demands for financial compensation from the EU; and (4) the Polish-Ukrainian ‘borderscape of assimilation’ (OKO) exposing the selectiveness and carelessness of the state’s politics of belonging geared towards assimilating ethnic Ukrainians.