Visual Rhetoric of Otherness in Newspaper Photographs of the European Crisis

Abstract

This chapter discusses newspaper photographs related to the European refugee crisis focusing on the visual strategies that frame refugees as deviant in terms of the visual rhetoric of Otherness. The chapter first gives an overview of research on news photographs depicting refugees during the European refugee crisis (2015–2016) and then defines the concept of Otherness in relation to refugees. The chapter then goes on to introduce the visual rhetorical approach and applies it to analyze news photographs depicting refugees. The chapter concludes with a summary of visual rhetorical strategies used in the photographs to position refugees in the realm of Otherness and discusses their social functions.