PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Discourses on refugees in media are often marked by two tendencies: homogenization, a portrayal of 'the refugees' as an apparently uniform collective, and silencing, which means that refugees are mostly spoken about by others with little opportunity to speak for themselves. Yet while research with media from countries in the global North has recurrently identified these two tendencies, there is as yet little knowledge about discourses on refugees in media from countries in the global South. Accordingly, it is hardly known whether, in which ways and to which extent homogenization and silencing shape discourses on refugees in media from continents such as Asia and Africa, where we find some of the most important refugee host countries in the world. This dissertation studies discourses on refugees in media from Uganda, the primary refugee host country in Africa. By means of the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse and an analysis of articles on refugees published in major Ugandan newspapers between 2012 and 2017, it sheds light on the hitherto almost entirely unexplored topic of homogenization and silencing in discourses on refugees in Ugandan media.