Sub-Saharan Migrants in post-2011 Tunisia: A Cross-Disciplinary Study of the Dynamics of Media Representations and Policy Shifts

The present research is concerned with the representations, counter-representations, and policy-related representations of sub-Saharan migrants in “post-revolution” Tunisia. This encompasses the study of representations in media as vehicles of social, cultural and political expressions. It elaborates on the rhetoric, frames and images built around sub-Saharans migrants in the mainstream and alternative media outlets. The task of scrutinising such representations is crucial to exploring the potential shifts in migratory policies. Such policy shifts enclose laws and regulations pertinent to sub-Saharan migrants’ existence in Tunisia: human trafficking and smuggling as entry mechanisms; discrimination and racism as obstacles to integration and smooth social reception; as well as domestic labour regulations as challenges to full operation and sustainability of the ‘regular’ status. Applying eclectic theoretical resources from Critical Discourse Studies, Theory of Social Representations and Symbolic Interactionism, the dissertation proposes to explore a media corpus collected systematically via a media monitoring software in three languages. Using the Discourse-Historical Approach— as devised by Ruth Wodak (2001)— and delving into the discursive strategies (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009) as well as the quantitative linguistic manifestations of these representations, the analysis draws on the pivotal role of media in reflecting/ deflecting public opinion and social attitudes as well as in shaping the migratory policy, regarding sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia. Hence, the study shows the fluctuations in media’s treatment of sub-Saharans in post-2011 Tunisia— from annihilation and amalgamation to humanization and valuation. Then, it surveys the shifts in migratory policies and confronts them to peaks in media representations and landmarks in media coverage of sub-Saharan migration in Tunisia. This dissertation constitutes an academic track to better understand the dynamics of different intermingling social systems: the media system, social system and political system. More specifically, it contributes to the up-to-date and increasingly heated debate about migration, against a backdrop of rightist and populist approaches to migrant reception and regularisation in both Global North and Global South.