BORDERS AND BURDENS: METAPHOR, MYTH, AND MEANING IN RUSSIAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE ON THE EUROPEAN MIGRATION CRISIS

Abstract

This article investigates the metaphorical framing of the European migration (refugee) crisis in Russian media discourse, focusing primarily on the representation of state and institutional actors. Drawing on a corpus of news articles from two prominent outlets Vesti.ru (state-run) and Komsomolskaya Pravda (pro-government tabloid) published in September 2015, the study employs a discourse-analytical and metaphor-based approach to examine how media discursively construct foreign political actors, such as the EU, individual European states, and the United States. The selected media were chosen for their wide reach and consistent reporting on the migration topic. The analysis reveals a set of recurring images portraying Europe as weak, old, and disoriented, while migrants appear mostly as a backdrop to highlight the perceived vulnerabilities of European states, with the United States often constructed as the external instigator orchestrating the chaos. These metaphorical representations function ideologically to contrast European disorder with Russian order and to legitimize Russia’s stance on migration and geopolitics. The study contributes to understanding how media discursively construct political actors through crisis coverage and adds to broader debates on media, migration, and metaphor.

Keywords: European migration crisis, Russia, media, political discourse, metaphor