Continuity and change in italian discourse on migration: A focus on mainstream television documentaries

The goal of this article is to employ the means of critical discourse analysis to verify the contribution made by news documentaries to the discussion on the topic of migration in Italian journalism. My case studies include three documentaries screened on the national broadcaster (RAI): La neve la prima volta (Snow for the First Time) (Cataldi, 2014), Quando Youssef si mise in cammino (When Youssef Started His Walk) (Cataldi, 2015) and La lunga Marcia (The Long Route) (Ricucci, 2015). The documentaries deal with a range of issues regarding migration in the European Union, such as the construction of European external borders; policies of migrant management; human rights; prejudice towards foreigners. The article will take a closer look at lexical terms, metaphors and other rhetorical forms. Linguistic evidence has been jointly analysed with the visual construction on-screen since they both participate in the meaning-making process of the documentary as a whole.