Pauline Hanson, Australian Populism and the Refugee Crisis in News Discourse

Populism has been widely defined as an ideology based on the polarization of an in-group and out-group (Mudde 2004), or as a discursive strategy or mode of articulation (Laclau 2005; Mouffe 2018). From the first perspective, populism may be defined as a set of ideas which constructs an ‘in-group’, that is ‘the people’, and sets it up against a corrupt and illegitimate elite. From the second, populism constructs social reality and is constructed in discourse, it is a way of ‘doing politics’ (Mouffe 2019) and a way of ‘constructing the political’ (Laclau 2005). In both cases, its goal is successful legitimization and broad social mobilization with the continual goal of maximizing the number of ‘shared visions’ of the ‘in-group’, hence its essential counterpart is delegitimization: the construction of ‘Others’ (Chilton 2004; Cap 2006, 2008). In right-wing populism, the in-group is constructed against various out-groups or Others, such as migrants, Muslims, which are collectively constructed without any direct relation to a specific subject and operate as a ‘floating discourse’ or ‘empty signifier’, in which covert xenophobic attitudes and racist stereotypes are combined (Delanty et al. 2008, 4). Populism as a discursive strategy or mode of articulation emerges either as governmental political discourse or as non-governmental ‘grass-roots’ discourse. As such, it emerges in different outlets of news discourse, but it is constrained by the material and social conditions in which it is produced (i.e. the production and consumption contexts of social rallies, news media, social media, etc.). According to widely accepted definitions of populist discourse, it has emerged mostly in the popular press. It is widely presumed that quality or broadsheet newspapers mainly focus on domestic and foreign policy news, economy and finance, sport and culture, while tabloids cover local news and gossip (Bell 1991; Bednarek 2006). As for the stylistic and linguistic level, quality newspapers almost never leave the boundaries of Standard British English. They adopt a formal communicative style, which considers any mention of the spoken, colloquial language inappropriate (Bednarek 2006, 15). Conversely, tabloids have tried to establish a privileged, almost personal, relationship with their target audience using an informal register, and vernacular varieties of the English language. Furthermore, tabloids often resort to sensationalism. To make news interesting and to avoid public fatigue, tabloids resort to personalization, dramatization, novelty, with a preference for scandals and crises. Extreme, sensational events are preferred to reforms, planning and statistics. Hence numerous scholars have pointed out that the popular press has constituted an ideal place for the spreading of populist discourse due to its different content and communicative style. Yet, in recent years, populist discourse has arguably undergone a progression according to which it emerges within populist fields of action and genres (speeches, election rallies, tv debates, tv interviews, slogans, press statements, tabloids) and later enters the quality news press. This process according to Mudde (2019) may be part of a larger process of mainstreaming and normalisation of populism. While not always aligned with populist parties, quality news media may contribute to the legitimation and spread of the issues, key-words and communication styles of populist leaders (Mazzoleni 2008, Canovan 1999; Wodak 2015). A substantial body of research on the representation of human mobility in news discourse exists, yet it has not focused on how populist discourse about human mobility is mediated in news discourse (Baker and McEnery 2005; Baker et al. 2008; KhosraviNik, Krzyzanowsky, and Wodak 2012; Reisigl and Wodak 2001; Russo and Wodak 2017; van Dijk 1988, 1991, 1996; 2009; Wodak 2008). In order to fill this gap, the article draws on findings in Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and the Appraisal framework in order to analyse the representation of human mobility in a corpus of Australian online news reports specifically compiled to represent populist discourse and the Australian ‘refugee crisis’ (2004-2017). It aims to investigate whether and how populist discourse about refugees has become mainstream, that is if it is present in governmental populist discourse and quality newspaper reports and how it is evaluated by news reporters. The study of evaluation is crucial to this study because it may be extended to the speaker/writer’s certainty and commitment to a proposition. Hence, the article also presents results and findings regarding the appraisal of Australian populist discourse on refugees, with a focus on ‘epistemic modality’ and ‘evidentiality’, and on how textual voices position themselves in relation to other voices (Bednarek, 2006; Bednarek and Caple, 2012; Bondi and Mauranen 2003; Hunston and Thompson, 2000; Martin and White, 2005).