Actor Analysis

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2. Critical Discourse Analysis

2.1 Actor Analysis

During the process of content analysis this study found that refugee news in Deutsche Welle tended to focus on a certain subject, namely calls for controlling immigration. The subject referred to two major policies the German government scheduled to control the people arriving during that time: 1. to amend the law to deport criminal refugees easier after the Cologne incident, and 2. to reduce the numbers of new arrivals by securing EU’s external border, redistributing the asylum seekers among EU member states, and cooperating with Turkey.

The reports especially focused on the political discourses which German politicians raised the issue to deport foreign offenders. In this section the study proceeds to examine one typical article among the news reports regarding this subject in order to see the more detailed, qualitative properties. The chosen article, published on January 7, 2016, was titled “German justice minister threatens foreign Cologne attackers with deportation.” This article was carried at the beginning of the events. The police were still investigating the incident and identifying the suspects while the authorities began proposing measures to punish the

perpetrators and to prevent the crimes. This article mainly focused on the authority statements, the justice minister, Heiko Maas, and the interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, in particular, announcing the government’s plan to deport criminal foreigners. See appendix 3 for the entire article.

Four major news actors were identified, including the offender, the police, the authority, and the victim. I examined every sentence and counted how often the four news actors occurred in the article. This study also pays attention to the positions the actors are placed in the sentences, namely the active role or the passive role, and the associated predicates because such an analysis may reveal a phenomenon that some actors represent

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certain roles.

Table 4 shows the frequencies of each major actor mentioned in the article. A detailed analysis is given in the next paragraph.

Table 4 Frequencies of each major actor appeared in the news article

Offender Police Authority Victim

8 8 17 5

2.1.1 Offender

The offenders were often placed in the passive roles and associated with negative predicates. That is, they were usually defined as the recipient of warnings regarding

deportations and punishments declared by the authorities. An example of such a sentence is given below:

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere called upon all people living in Germany to recognize the equal rights enjoyed by women and threatened foreign offenders with deportation.

Neutral phrases such as culprit, perpetrator, criminal, and suspect were frequently used to depict the offenders. Sometimes the reporter would emphasize the gender of the attackers or their behaviors by describing them as “the men” or “young, mostly drunk men.”

Additionally some phrases highlighted the racial background of the perpetrators by

identifying them as of “Arab or North African origin” or “foreign” offenders. Though such phrases only occurred twice, one of them was placed in the lead paragraph, showing the intention of the reporter to put more focus on the ethnic background of the offenders. See the lead paragraph below.

Following dozens of alleged sexual assaults in Cologne, the German justice minister has said that deportations are “completely conceivable.” Many victims described their attacker as of “Arab or North African origin.”

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2.1.2 Police and authority

The police and authorities were the major actors in this article with a total of 25 appearances, outnumbering the sum of that of offender and victim. They were mostly placed in the active roles and associated with neutral predicates which referred to speech acts, such as comments and declarations. There was a difference between the police and the authority on their statements. The authorities were mostly commenting on the crimes or warning the offenders with punishments while the police more often described the current situation and the development of investigation. The police, to a lesser extent, were also the recipients of criticism due to their inability to control the situation on the New Year’s Eve.

When being asked whether refugees were involved in the attacks, the justice minister replied with caution, “They do not yet know whether any of the culprits were refugees or asylum seekers.” He also called on the police to respond to the assaults with “the utmost determination, but also prudence.” His statements seemed to appeal to the public not to associate the incident with refugees. However, the appeals contradicted his following rhetoric which he threatened the foreign criminals with deportation and “hinted at changing laws to prevent criminals from getting asylum in Germany.” The last statement shifted the focus from the foreign criminals to asylum seekers and implied the possibility of the refugee attackers.

A similar opinion commented by the Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere was quoted in the sixth and seventh paragraph, “Anyone who commits serious crimes must reckon with getting deported from Germany, regardless of his status.” The last phrase “regardless of his status” seemed to drop a hint that the deporting subject could include the refugees and asylum seekers. Both of the comments of the justice minister and the interior minister appeared to link the incident with the refugee debate.

Rather than being regarded as regional issue regulated by state government, it is interesting to note that the federal officials, including the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the

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justice minister, Heiko Maas, and the interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, soon reacted to the sexual attacks. According to the Article 73 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, matters regarding “immigration, emigration and extradition” are exclusive legislative power of the federal government. The comments that both of the justice minister and the interior minister hinted a possible deportation of criminal foreigners meant that the federal government did not merely view the incident as a local crime under regional governance. Rather, it was upgraded to a national problem in regard to immigration issue.

Furthermore, in the third paragraph the reporter explained the legal conditions the criminal asylum seekers might be faced with. Following the journalistic writing principles, news reporters usually place the important information in the initial paragraphs. Therefore, it is revealed that the statements of the justice minister and the interior minister were the main focus of this article and were given more coverage. In addition, some of the left-wing politicians and refugee activists were against the deportation policy since sending an asylum seeker back to a place that could harm his/her live contradicts the spirit of the Geneva Convention. Many refugees also argued that those offenders did not represent the Muslims.

These counter-arguments were not mentioned in this article. The deployment of certain arguments in certain places shows the reporter’s attitude toward the incident and reveals his/her intention to rephrase the issue to be a refugee debate.

2.1.3 Victim

2. The victims, women in particular, were the least mentioned actors in this article.

They usually appeared only in the authority’s statements or in the background information which described that their rights were harmed. An example was given previously in which the interior minister spoke of protecting the equal rights enjoyed by women. Similarly, women were not given much space to express their opinions in the news. Many female citizens actually regarded the Cologne incident as a long-lasting violent problem against females

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instead of a refugee issue. Their viewpoints were not taken seriously by the authorities, nor did the news media share the same attitude. As this article demonstrated in the last paragraph, a woman commented that women were forgotten after the media hype was over. Readers could hardly understand why women were forgotten in the end of the day since the reporter did not fairly reveal the difficulties women faced or the struggles and opinions toward the incidents aftermath. . Her statements, placed in the last paragraph, shows that the reporters did not find it as the most important information to convey to readers.

2.1.4 Headline

After the analysis of the actors and the predicates, this study then proceeds to review the headline of this article. This article was titled “German justice minister threatens foreign Cologne attackers with deportation.” After the Cologne incident, the German government was considering implementing measures to prevent such crime from happening. These measures included deploying more police and monitors in the public places. However, these preventive measures were never headlined. Instead, many of the news articles focused on the discussion on deporting criminal foreigners which could shift the readers’ attention from intensifying the preventive measures to the discussion on punishment. Furthermore, the

“foreign” background of the attackers was highlighted in the news. This escaped the fact that there were German citizens assaulting women on the New Year’s Eve and diverted public attention from sexism against women on the daily basis to refugee or immigration problem.

In addition, it is interesting to note that the reporter used “threaten” to describe the justice minister’s announcement. In fact, the minister did not use any strong word to “threaten”

the offenders apart from merely mentioning the deportation was “completely conceivable”

and commenting that the perpetrators must be punished. The reporter could use “warn against”

other than “threaten” to depict such authority response. The chosen word reflected the reporter’s strong attitude toward the incident.

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2.1.5 Summary

The qualitative analysis of the report shows that the authorities still remain the main speakers in the issue who control the direction of the debate and define who to blame. For example, in the article the justice minister switched the focus from the foreign criminals to the debate of the refugee policy despite him initially giving a cautious and impartial reply to the reporter.

The examination of the phrases also reveals the reporter’s skeptical attitude about the refugee debate. Though most of the phrases describing the offenders appear to be neutral terms, the certain phrase placed in the lead paragraph reveals the reporter’s emphasis on the ethnic background of the offenders. In this article, it is revealed that racial identification, implications, and the positions of the statements in an article could be used to persuasively define and convey a prevalent argument: the refugees are relevant to the Cologne sexual assaults.